Reply #35: Those quotes are chilling. I'm familiar with the first two but the third [View All]

[Nothing Without Hope]

is new to me and is definitely going into my collection.

Here are some more from my collection that feel relevant here. Especially look at Abraham Lincoln's. Very prescient:

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

"What luck for rulers, that men do not think. " Adolf Hitler

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good. -Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. -James Madison, fourth US president (1751-1836)

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
-- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Welsh philosopher and reformer

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

America's corporate and political elites now form a regime of their own and they're privatizing democracy. All the benefits - the tax cuts, policies and rewards flow in one direction: up. -- Bill Moyers

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. --Edward R. Murrow

"We are naturally divided into two parties: Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes (and) Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe ...." -Thomas Jefferson

"Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." -- George Washington

It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism, which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice. --George Orwell, 1984

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. –Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

"Democracy is an attempt to organize the freedom of the mind against the tyranny of force, money, and superstition." -- Lewis Lapham, a past editor of Harper's magazine

In view of the primitive simplicity of their minds they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. Such a falsehood will never enter their heads and they will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation in others; yes, even when enlightened on the subject, they will long doubt and waver, and continue to accept at least one of these causes as true. --Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, part I chapter X

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching. It unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. The money powers prays upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed." --Abraham Lincoln (1864)

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." --Edward Abbey