Quotes to Change the World

"The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy." - Woodrow Wilson

"All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"You can recognize a pioneer by the arrows in his back." - Beverly Rubik

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him." - Leo Tolstoy

“Only the educated are free.” - Epictetus

“Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?” - Camille Paglia

“It means that, in fact, it's - whether fascist is the right word I don't know - more of a plutocracy than anything resembling a democracy; it has become a nation controlled by a very small, very wealthy elite.” - Peter Singer

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson

“a “pragmatic” point of view, political philosophy is a monster, and whenever it has been taken seriously, the consequence, almost invariably, has been revolution, war, and eventually, the police state." - Henry David Aiken

"Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered." - Marcus Tullius Cicero

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." - Pancho Villa

“Whoever controls the Media, controls the mind.” - Jim Morrison

“We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder "censorship", we call it "concern for commercial viability" - David Mamet

"The CIA is an organization with a known criminal record. Can we get them for racketeering?" - Larry Taylor

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

“The recovery of freedom is so splendid a thing that we must not shun even death when seeking to recover it.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero

"He who gains the most advantage from a crime is the one most likely to have committed it." - Seneca

"Wherever money is insufficient to bury the truth, ignorance, propaganda, and short memories finish the job." - Paul Craig Roberts

"Politics is more dangerous than war, for in war you are only killed once." - Winston Churchill

"A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours." - William Ralph Inge

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke

“I believe in God, and I certainly believe in the Devil. There's certainly a devil, and he knows my name.” - Daniel Johnston

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." - Herbert Spence

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." - Archbishop Dom Helder Camara

"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought." - Graham Greene

“We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.” - Sydney Schanberg

“As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know, we don't know.” - Donald Rumsfeld

"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectful, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind." - George Orwell

"The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same." - Stendhal

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

"The best propaganda omits rather than invents" - Mason Cooley

"This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long - We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order." - David Rockefeller

"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. When you stare at the abyss, the abyss stares back at you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” - Albert Camus

"Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel." - Alexander Pope

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." - Benjamin Franklin *

"A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century." - Baron de Montesquieu

"You have freedom when you're easy in your harness." - Robert Frost

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.” - John Adams

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people" - John Adams

“Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.” - Oscar Ameringer *

"Deception by an omission of the truth is as bad as a lie." - Jennifer Chiaverini *

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." - Thomas Jefferson

"We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it." - William Faulkner

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity.” - Martin Luther King Jr. *

"Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media." - Noam Chomsky

"I've learned in my years as a journalist that when a politician says 'That's ridiculous' you're probably on the right track." - Amy Goodman *

"Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army." - Edward Everett *

"Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong." - Richard Armour *

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." - William Shakespeare *

"If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking." - Gen. George Patton *

"Even peace may be purchased at too high a price." - Benjamin Franklin *

"The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice." - Mark Twain *

“The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.” - Woodrow Wilson *

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!" - Pericles *

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history." - Georg Wilhelm Hegel *

"As you make your bed, so you must lie in it." - Daniel J. Boorstin *

"Frustration begins when one relies on himself without GOD." - Archangel Michael

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.” - Albert Einstein *

"There is no god higher than truth." - Mahatma Gandhi

 "I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag." — Molly Ivins *

"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 Russel

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." - Mother Teresa *

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” - Plato *

“Only the insecure strive for security.” - William Dyer *

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path, and leave a trail.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson *

“The richness of life lies in the memories we have forgotten.” - Cesare Pavese

“True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.” - Albert Einstein

“At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.” - Aldous Huxley

“An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?" - Annie Dillard *

“In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” - Mark Twain *

“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi

“Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; Unbelief, in denying them.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.” - Thomas Paine

“Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.” - Henry Steele Commager

“What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.” - Molly Ivins *

“A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt to be dangerous.” - Alfred Adler

“Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.” - Andre Gide *

“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” - Benjamin Disraeli

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” - Galileo Galilei

“Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.” - Henri-Frederic Amiel *

“It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth.” - John Locke

“Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain't so.” - Mark Twain

"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out." - Thomas Babington Macaulay

“I’m tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact.” - Phill Plait

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison

"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome." - Samuel Johnson

"Knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior." - Martha Nussbaum

 "To say "I accept" in an age like our own is to say that you accept concentration-camps, rubber truncheons, Hitler, Stalin, bombs, aeroplanes, tinned food, machine guns, putsches, purges, slogans, Bedaux belts, gas-masks, submarines, spies, provocateurs, press-censorship, secret prisons, aspirins, Hollywood films and political murder." - George Orwell

“Thank goodness we don’t get all the government we pay for.” – Will Rogers

"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom." - Alexis de Tocqueville

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Louis D. Brandeis

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” - Elie Wiesel

“It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it” - George Carlin

“In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty.” - Phil Ochs

"Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves - and be free." - Cesar Chavez *

“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” - Mark Twain

“Better to starve free than be a fat slave.” - Aesop

“Not yet, o freedom! close thy lids in slumber, for thine enemy never sleeps.” - William Cullen Bryant

"Man is the only kind of varmint that sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it." - John Steinbeck

"O poor mortals, how ye make this earth bitter for each other." - Thomas Carlyle

"Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten." - Cree prophecy.

 "When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative." -Martin Luther King Jr. *

“Ocean:  A body of water occupying two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.”  - Ambrose Bierce *

"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'" - Theodore Roosevelt

"We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift." - Seneca

“The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self." - Whitney Young

"Free people, remember this maxim: We may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost." - Rousseau

"A large section of the intelligentsia seems wholly devoid of intelligence." - G.K. Chesterton

"Never let your persistence and passion turn into stubbornness and ignorance." - Anthony J. D'Angelo

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it—always." - Mahatma Gandhi

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." - Mahatma Gandhi"You must be the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

“Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” - Abraham Lincoln *

“It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.” - Carl T. Rowan *

“Silence never won rights.  They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below.” - Roger Baldwin *

“Every society honors its live conformists, and its dead troublemakers.” - Mignon McLaughlin *

“Stubborness does have its helpful features.  You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow.” - Glen Beaman

“The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain.” - Colin Wilson *

“Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.”  - Voltaire *

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.” - J.K. Galbraith *

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.  If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened.  But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” - Friedrich Nietzsche *

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.”  - John Locke

“Only dead fish swim with the stream.” - Malcolm Muggeridge *

“And what is a good citizen?  Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual.  Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point.  A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.” - H.L. Mencken

“Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.” - Alexander Hamilton *

“You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs.  But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.” - Max Beerbohm *

“Habit rules the unreflecting herd.” - William Wordsworth

“The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb.  This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.” - Albert Einstein *

“One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.” - Walter Bagehot

“I'm not sure I want popular opinion on my side - I've noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts.” - Bethania McKenstry *

“Man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body.  He may like to go alone for a walk, but he hates to stand alone in his opinions.” - George Santayana

“Men will sooner surrender their rights than their customs.” - Moritz Guedemann *

“Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life.  The only completely consistent people are the dead.”- Aldous Huxley

“Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.” - Bernard Berenson

“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be” - Thomas Jefferson *

"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery..." - Zappa *

“Far better it is to dare mighty things. Than to take rank with those poor, timid spirits who know neither victory nor defeat.” - Thomas Jefferson *

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” - Mark Twain *

“They'll never rest until they have spoiled the earth.” Richard Adams, Watership Down *

"Let all students make up their minds in this day of emergency and of rapid unfolding opportunity to sacrifice all they have to the helping of humanity. Now is the need and the demand." - Djwhal Khul *

“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.” - Kahlil Gibran

“It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.” - Andrew Jackson

“The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.” - Bruce Lee

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.” - Marianne Williamson

“All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” - Victor Hugo

“Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think.” - Jean-Paul Sartre

“Great nations are simply the operating fronts of behind-the-scenes, vastly ambitious individuals who had become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery.” - R. Buckminster Fuller

“There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often nothing so strange.” - Daniel Webster

“Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.” -Marshall McLuhan

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” - Malcom X *

“The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.” - Ambrose Bierce *

“It is a process of diverting one's scattered forces into one powerful channel.” - James Allen

“If you could only love enough, you could be the most powerful person in the world.” - Emmet Fox

“When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” - Audre Lorde

“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.” - John C. Calhoun *

“I like any reaction I can get with my music. Just anything to get people to think. I mean if you can get a whole room full of drunk, stoned people to actually wake up and think, you're doing something.” - Jim Morrison

“I see myself as an intelligent, sensitive human, with the soul of a clown which forces me to blow it at the most important moments.” - Jim Morrison

“Love cannot save you from your own fate.” - Jim Morrison

“Official truths are often powerful illusions.” - John Pilger

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” - Thomas Jefferson

“Learning is finding out what you already know; doing is demonstrating that you know it; teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, teachers.” - Richard Bach *

“The back porch is more secure, but the fun is in jumping the fences.” - Marjorie Holmes *

“Loneliness is the poverty of the self; solitude is the richness of self.” - May Sarton

“Let us learn form this: Wisdom is wisdom, the source cannot matter.” - Paula Underwood

“We are what we imagine.” - Scott Momaday

"Real generosity toward the future consists in giving all to what is present." - Albert Camus

"Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks." - Doug Larson *

"They make a wasteland and call it peace." - Tacitus *

"Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need." - Kahlil Gibran

“It should be understood that the children of Iraq, of China, and of Africa, children everywhere in the world, have the same right to life as American children.” - Howard Zinn *

"Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade...” - Shelly Lynn Johnston

I WILL LOVE.

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” - Kurt Vonnegut

"If America ever passes out as a great nation, we ought to put on our tombstone: America died from a delusion she had Moral Leadership." - Will Rogers

"Being human is not an excuse for making mistakes because being human is not a weakness but one of the most glorious creations of God." - Archangel Michael

“Where you live should not determine whether you live, or whether you die.” - Bono

"The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all." - John F. Kennedy

"Think for yourself, question authority." - Tim Leary

“We are all clowns, more or less; we all wear spangel costume.” Goerges Rouault

“I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast...would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it." - Thomas Jefferson

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” - Benjamin Franklin

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” - Thomas Paine *

"People can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." - Hermann Goering *

"The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over it's government." - Franklin Roosevelt

"Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you" - Abraham Lincoln *

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." - Martin Luther King

“Conquer the devils with a little thing called love!” - Bob Marley *

“How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?” - Bob Marley

"Mankind differs from the animals only by a little and most people throw that away." - Confucius

"When you see a worthy person, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy person, then examine your inner self." - Confucius *

"Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary." -Che *

“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” - Plato *

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." - Howard Zinn

"War is just to those to whom war is necessary." - Titus Livius

"What you don't know can kill you or someone else's child" – Bill Moyers