Because we imagine that we are what humanity was divinely destined to become, we assume that our prehistoric ancestors were trying to be us but just lacked the tools and techniques to succeed... We take it for granted that our religions represent humanity's ultimate and highest spiritual developments and expect to find among our ancestors only crude, fumbling harbingers of these religions.  We certainly don't expect to find robust, fully developed religions whose expressions are entirely different from ours.
  - Daniel Quinn's "the story of b"


Giving it up would mean...  It would mean that all along they'd been wrong. It would mean that they'd never known how to rule the world. It would mean... relinquishing their pretensions to godhood.
  - Daniel Quinn's "ishmael"


But my friend
I'd sacrifice all those nights
If i could make
The earth and my
Dreams the same
  - Creed


A little science may take one away from God;
Much science brings one back
  - Roger Bacon


I don't know exactly what democracy is.  But we need more of it.
  - Anonymous Chinese Student,
    during protests in Tianamen Square, Beijing, 1989


Mother, can't you see i've got
To live my life the way i feel is
Right for me
Might not be right for you but it's
Right for me
  - Sarah McLachlan


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 learn that money can't be eaten.
  - Cree Prophecy


If there is a bedrock principle underlying the first amendment,
it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of
an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive
or disagreeable.
  - Supreme Court Justice William Brennan


The road to hell is paved with good intentions
  - unknown


An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary
to tell more than he knows.
  - Dwight D. Eisenhower


Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security,
will not have, nor do they deserve,
either one.
  - Benjamin Franklin


Leadership is the art of getting someone else
to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
  - Dwight D. Eisenhower


Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease.
  - Bill Maher, commedian and commentator, 1995


Now, i say to you today my friends, even
though we face the difficulties of today and
tomorrow, I still have a dream.  It is a dream
deeply rooted in the american dream.  I have
a dream that one day this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning of its creed: -
'we hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal.'
  - Martin Luther King Jr.


It's like the coming of civilisation.
  - Anonymous Moscow resident,
    opening of the first Russian
    McDonalds restaurant, Moscow, 1990


A true friend stabs you in the front
  - oscar wilde


If we teach our children by example,
we only have ourselves to blame for what they become
  - Unknown


For every complex problem
there is a simple solution
and it's wrong.
  - Unknown


Somehow a bunch of sanctimonious wackos
have managed to legalize torture
  - Anonymous airline passenger,
    describing the U.S. ban on smoking
    during airline flights, 1990


Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups
  - Unknown


We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
  - The Constitution of the United States of America


We are all born as
molecules
in the hearts of a billion stars.
Molecules that do not understand politics, policies, or differences.
Over a billion years, we foolish molecules forget who we are and where we came from.
In desperate acts of ego we gives ourselves names,
fight over lines on maps, and pretend that our light is better than everyone else's.
The flame reminds us of the piece of those stars that lives on inside us.
The spark that tells us..."you should know better".
The flame also reminds us that life is precious, as each flame is unique.
When it goes out, it's gone forever
and there will never be another quite like it.
So many candles will go out tonight.
I wonder some days
if we can see anything at all.
  - Delenn, Babylon 5 "All My Dreams Torn Asunder"


So you can make me cum
that doesn't make you Jesus
  - Tori Amos, "Precious Things"


All love is unrequited
  - Susan Ivanavah, Babylon 5 "Rising Star"


He who controls the present controls the past
He who controls the past controls the future
  - George Orwell


To be upset over what you don't have... is to waste what you do have.
  - Ken Keyes Jr.


We know what we are but not what we may be
  - Shakespeare's Hamlet


O brave new world that has such people in't
  - Shakespeare's Tempest


There is but one happiness in this world:
to love and be loved
  - George Sand


Never let sentiment get in the way of your work
  - Garek, Star Trek Deep Space Nine


Tthe needs of the many
outweigh the needs of the few
or the one
  - Spock, Star trek II: The Wrath of Kahn


I yield
I cannot defeat this klingon
I can only kill him
and that no longer serves my purpose
  - Gem H'adar commander, Star Trek Deep Space Nine


You may pronounce us guilty a thousand times over,
but the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear to tatters ...
the sentence of this court.  For she acquits us.
  - Adolf Hitler


Where one burns books, one will, in the end, burn people
  - Heinrich Heine


You cannot write history, you can only live through it
  - G'kar, Babylon 5 "A View from the Gallery"


We are one
  - G'kar, Babylon 5 "Paragon of Animals"


We are linked, Ta'lon, our fate is like an image caught in a mirror.
if we deny the other, we deny ourselves
and we will cease to exist
  - G'kar, Babylon 5 "Point of no Return"


O Great Spirit, who made all races, look kindly upon the
whole human family and take away the arrogance and
hatred which separates us from our brothers.
  - Cherokee Prayer


Hate is too important of an emotion to waste on someone you don't like.
  - Malcolm X


You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism
that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.
  - Malcolm X


We declare our right on this earth to be a human being,
To be respected as a human being, to be given the rights
of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this
day, which we intend to bring into existence by any
means necessary.
  - Malcolm X


We will have to repent in this generation not merely for
the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for
the appalling silence of the good people.
  - Martin Luther King Jr.


Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in
humanity. it eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and
lets us get straight to the business of hate,
debauchery, and self-annihilation.
  - Johnny Hart


Dreams are free.
  - Unknown


Dream big and dare to fail.
  - Norman D. Vaughan


A nation which makes the final sacrifice for life and
freedom does not get beaten.
  - Kemal Ataturk


You can only be free if I am free.
  - Clarence Darrow


Freedom is fragile and must be protected.
to sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
  - Germaine Greer


Freedom is the last, best hope of earth.
  - Abraham Lincoln


It is easy to believe in freedom of speech
for those with whom we agree.
  - Leo McKern


Zathras die, but zathras die for cause.
Maybe stop great war. Maybe zathras great hero.
Maybe build statue to Zathras and others come,
remember Zathras.
  - Zathras, Babylon 5 "War Without End I"


He who in dealing with the empire loves his subjects as one should love one's body is the best person to whom one can commit the empire.
  - Lau Tzu, "Tao Te Ching: Chapter XIII"


He who is Tao purposes to help a ruler of men
will oppose all conquest by force of arms;
for such things are wont to be rebound
where armies are, thorns and brambles grow.
The raising of a great host
is followed by a year of dearth
therefore a good general effects his purpose and then stops;
  he does not take further advantage of his victory.
Fulfills his purpose and does not glory in what he has done;
fulfils his purpose and does not boast of what he has done;
fulfils his purpose but takes no pride in what he has done;
fulfils his purpose but only as a step that could not be avoided.
Fulfils his purpose, but without violence;
for what has a time of vigour also has a time of decay
this is against Tao.
and what is against Tao will soon perish.
  - Lau Tzu
    Tao Te Ching: Chapter XXX


Without law or compulsion, men would dwell in harmony
  - Lau Tzu, "Tao Te Ching: Chapter XXXII"


After "power" was lost, then came human kindness.
After human kindness was lost, then came morality.
After morality was lost, then came ritual.
Now ritual is the mere husk of loyalty and promise-keeping
and is indeed the first step towards brawling
  - Lau Tzu, "Tao Te Ching: Chapter XXXVIII"


Truly 'the humble is the stem upon which the mighty grows,
the low is the foundation upon which the high is laid...
  - Lau Tzu, "Tao Te Ching: Chapter XXXIX"


He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose.  But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished.  He had won the victory over himself.  He loved Big Brother.
  - George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty-four"


We are here to make a better world.  no amount of rationalisation or blaming can pre-empt the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation on this planet.  The lesson of the 60's is that people who cared enough to do right could change history.  We didn't end racism but we ended legal segregation.  We ended the idea that you could send half a million soldiers around the world to fight a war that people didn't support.  We ended the idea that women are second class citizens.  We made the environment an issue that can't be avoided.  The biggest battles we won cannot be reversed.  We were young, self righteous, reckless, hypocritical, brave, silly, headstrong and scared half to death...
And we were right.
  - Abbie Hoffman


Many go fishing all their lives
without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
  - Henry David Thoreau


Things fall apart;
The centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed apon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,
And everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned;
  - W.B. Yeats


"One world, one web, one program" -  Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer" -  Adolf Hitler


We know what combating homelessness looks like.  We attack on two fronts.  On one front, for example, we open shelters for the homeless but (since we don't want them to stay in the shelters) we make them as unwelcoming as possible.  On the other front, we pass anti-camping legislation that criminalizes those who won't stay in the shelters.  This legislation allows (or compels) the police to harass the homeless, who are out of place, who turn up where we don't want them to be.
  - Daniel Quinn's "Beyond Civilization"


There is a time, when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop.  And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.
  - Mario Savio


Fools in a country delay the independence of its people
  - Jomo Kenyatta


Commander, please. on the issue of galactic peace, I am long past innocence and fast approaching apathy.  It's all a game -- a paper fantasy of names and borders.  Only one thing matters, Commander: Blood calls out for blood.
  - Londo Molari, Babylon 5, "Midnight on the Firing Line"


Why does any advanced civilization seek to destroy a less advanced one?  Because the land is strategically valuable, because there are resources that can be cultivated and exploited, but most of all, simply because they can.
  - G'kar, Babylon 5 "And Now For A Word"


No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by the force of arms forever.  There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom.  Against that power governments, and tyrants, and armies can not stand.  The Centauri learned this lesson once.  We will teach it to them again.  Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.
  - G'kar, Babylon 5 "The Long, Twilight Struggle"


With our basic freedom in stake, no response can be too extreme.  There maybe some minor and *temporary* abridgments in the traditionally protected areas, such as speech and association, but only until this crisis is over.
  - Julie Musante, Babylon 5 "Voices of Authority"


There is a greater darkness than the one we fight.  It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way.  The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair.  Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope.  The death of dreams.  Against this peril we can never surrender.  The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation.  No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us.  We know only that it is always paved in pain.
  - The Book of G'Quon, Babylon 5 "Z'ha'dum"


I have seen what power does,
and I have seen what power costs.
the one is never equal to the other.
  - G'kar, Babylon 5 "epiphanies"


Faith sustains us in the hour when reason tells us that we can not continue, that the whole of our whole lives is without meaning.
  - Brother Alwyn Macomber, Babylon 5 "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars"


In the past we had little to do with other races.  Evolution teaches us that we must fight that which is different in order secure land, food, and mates for ourselves, but we must reach a point when the nobility of intellect asserts itself and says: no.  We need not be afraid of those we are different, we can embrace that difference and learn from it.
  - G'kar, Babylon 5 "The Ragged Edge"


Your old road is rapidly aging
please get out of the way if you can't lend a hand
for the times they are a changing
  - Bob Dylan


The growth of technology is produced by those who have the money, and right now it's big business.  So the question is, can we trust them?
  - Soren Warner Paris


We cook your food
We haul your trash
We place your calls
We guard you while you sleep.
Do not fuck with us.
  - Tyler Durden, "Fight Club"


You are not your job.
You are not the contents of your wallet.
You are not the car you drive.
You are not your khakis.
  - Tyler Durden, "Fight Club"


This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.
  - Tyler Durden, "Fight Club"


All romantics are simply addicts
  - Monk, "Down To You"


The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
  - George Bernard Shaw


We do not see things as they are.  We see them as we are
  - Anais Nin


If you are humble
nothing will touch you
neither praise nor disgrace
because you know what you are.
  - Mother Teresa


The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers.
But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.
  - Sarah Ban Breathnach


There are no innocents.  It is all of us together by action and inaction who made the world what it is.
  - Mithras


War does not determine who is right -- only who is left.
  - Bertrand Russell


The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots.
  - Thomas Jefferson


I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
  - Albert Einstein


I pray that my son does not die today.  But if he should die, I pray that he dies well.  But most of all, I pray that if he lives, it will not be dishonour that preserves him.
  - Dornean war-prayer, Michael P. Kube-McDowell's "Shield of Lies"


No man is an island, entire of itself.  Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.  If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were.  Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind.  And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls... it tolls for thee.
  - John Donne


"Mr. Ghandi, what do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea."
  - reporter's conversation with Mahatma Ghandi


The more law and order are made prominent,
the more thieves and robbers there will be.
  - Lao-Tsu


A man who feels the winds of change should build not a windbreak,
but a windmill.
  - Mao Tse Tung


I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
  - Galileo


A moment of joy in a lifetime of suffering...  take it, while you can
  - Londo Molari, Babylon 5


Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds
  - Albert Einstein


Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it.
There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.
The more a man has, the more he wants.
Tnstead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.
  - Ben Franklin


Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, i would still plant my apple tree.
  - Martin Luther (1483-1546)


Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names
  - John F. Kennedy


What publishers are looking for these days isn't radical feminism.  It's a corporate feminism -- a brand of feminism designed to sell books and magazines, three-piece suits, airline tickets, scotch, cigarettes and, most important, corporate america's message, which runs: "Yes women were discriminated against in the past, but that unfortunate mistake has been remedied; now every woman can attain wealth, prestige and power by dint of inidvidual rather than collective effort.
  - Susan Gordon


Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  This world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.  This is not a way of life at all in any true sense.  Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
  - Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953


You can't turn away from death, simply because you're afraid of what might happen without you.  That's not enough.  You're not embracing life, you're fleeing death.  And so you're caught, in between, unable to go forward or backward.  Your friends need what you can be, when you're no longer afraid.  When you know, who you are, and why you are, and what you want.  When you are no longer looking for reasons to live, but can simply... be.
  - Lorien to Sheridan, Babylon 5 "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"


When the missionaries came to africa they had the bible and we had the land.  They said "let us pray."  We closed our eyes.  When we opened them we had the bible and they had the land.
  - Bishop Desmond Tutu


The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.
  - Dante Aleghieri (1265-1321)


You cannot harm one who has dreamed a dream like mine.
  - Ojibwe Prayer


The revolution will not be right back after a message about
a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom,
a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
the revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
  - Gil Scott Heron


Do we have to pick sides in the end?
  - Ali Hossaini, writer
    in reaction to growing racial unrest in the United States since 2001/09/11


Mr. President, I have blood on my hands
  - J. Robert Oppenheimer, the mind behind the atom bomb,
    upon meeting American president Harry S. Truman


Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth
--more than ruin
--more even than death.
Thought is subversive and revolutionary,
destructive and terrible,
thought is merciless to privilege,
established institutions, and comfortable habit.

Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid.
Thought is great and swift and free,
the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
  - Bertrand Russell


Nurture your minds with great thoughts.
to believe in the heroic makes heroes.
  - Benjamin Disraeli


Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking.
There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions.
Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
  - Martin Luther King Jr.


Thinking is easy, acting is difficult,
and to put one's thoughts into action
is the most difficult thing in the world.
  - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe


We understand that you can't transform people who don't have internal drive and desire to create.  But we also know it doesn't work to urge people to think outside the box without giving them the tools to climb out.
  - Laurie Dunnavant


What luck for the rulers that men do not think.
  - Adolph Hitler


The people who say you are not facing reality actually mean that you are not facing their idea of reality.  Reality is above all else a variable.  With a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before.
  - Margaret Halsey


Once the game is over,
the King and the pawn go back into the same box
  - Italian Proverb


Passion. it lies in all of us. sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted... unbidden... it will stir... open its jaws, and howl.  It speaks to us... guides us... passion rules us all. and we obey.  What other choice do we have?  Passion is the source of our finest moments. the joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief.  It hurts sometimes more than we can bear.  If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace.  But we would be hollow, empty rooms... shuttered and dank.  Without passion, we'd be truly dead.
  - Angelus, Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Passion"


Love isn't in the brain children.  It's blood
Blood screaming inside you to work its will
  - Spike, Buffy The Vampire Slayer "Lovers Walk"


Lift up yourselves, men,
take yourselves out of the mire and hitch your hopes to the stars;
Yes, rise as high as the very stars themselves.
Let no man pull you down, let no man destroy your ambition,
because man is your brother;
he is not your lord.
  - Marcus Garvey


Corporation, n.
An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit
without individual responsibility.
  - Ambrose Bierce


The great only appear great because we are on our knees
  - James Connolly


I'd rather die on my feet then live my life on my knees
  - Emiliano Zapata


I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country.  I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.
  - Albert Einstein


Thanks be to God that gave me stubborness when I know I am right.
  - John Adams


I would not be a Capitalist, I would be a man;
you cannot be both at the same time.
  - Eugene Debs


Those who say it cannot be done
should not interrupt the person doing it
  - Unknown


The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure
and the intelligent are full of doubt.
  - Bertrand Russell


There is a race between developers making better idiotproof apps
and the Universe making better idiots.
The Universe is winning.
  - Emmanuel Seyman


When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.
  - Dresden James


Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,
the true place for a just man is also a prison.
  - Henry David Thoreau


Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.
  - Albert Einstein


All that is necessary for the forces of evil to prevail in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.
  - Edmund Burke, British Statesman, 1729-1797.


Laws are like spider webs.  If some poor weak creature comes up against them -- it is caught.  But the bigger one can break through and get away.
  - Solon, Greek Philosopher, c. 630-555 B.C.


Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity
  - Horace Mann, First President, Antioch College.


One dissident anywhere is a threat to tyrants everywhere
  - Ken Larsen


I like your christ, I do not like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your christ.
  - Mahatma Gandhi


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


In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. when his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
  - Mark Twain


Ten thousand times has the labour movement stumbled and bruised itself.  We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians.  But notwithstanding all this and all these, labour is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realisation as is the setting of the sun.
  - Eugene V. Debs (1894)


Tt must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system.  For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely the lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.
  - Machiavelli


A general state education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.
  - John Stuart Mill, 1859


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


Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
  - Mark Twain


Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die
even the undertaker will be sorry.
  - Mark Twain


The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.
  - Douglas Adams


Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of man and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
  - Mark Twain


Don't go around saying the world owes you a living.
the world owes you nothing.
it was here first.
  - Mark Twain


It's hard not to believe tv
It's spent so much time raising us
  - Bart Simpson


Do not wait for leaders;
Do it alone, person to person.
  - Mother Teresa


When the government fears the people, there is liberty.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
  - Thomas Jefferson


Too long have the workers of the world waited for some moses to lead them out of bondage.  I would not lead you out if i could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again.  I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves.
  - Eugene Debs, Founder of the American Railway Union


Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth.  I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
  - Eugene Debs, Founder of the American Railway Union


I told my friends of the cloth that I did not believe christ was meek and lowly but a real living, vital agitator who went into the temple with a lash and a krout and whipped the oppressors of the poor, routed them out of the doors and spilled their blood and got silver on the floor.  He told the robbed and misruled and exploited and driven people to disobey their plunderers, he denounced the profiteers, and it was for this that they nailed his quivering body to the cross and spiked it to the gates of Jerusalem, not because he told them to love one another.  That was harmless doctrine.  But when he touched their profits and denounced them before their people he was marked for crucifixion.
  - Eugene Debs, Founder of the American Railway Union


To turn $100 into $110 is work.
To turn $100 million into $110 million is inevitable
  - edgar bronfman


We live as though the world is as it should be,
to show it what it can be
  - angel, angel "deep down"


Those of us who believe in the right of any human being to belong to whatever church he sees fit, and to worship god in his own way, cannot be accused of prejudice when we do not want to see public education connected with religious control of the schools, which are paid for by taxpayers' money.
  - Eleanor Roosevelt


Every country has the government it deserves.
  - Joseph de Maistre


Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
  - Frank Zappa


Where there is much light there is also much shadow.
  - Goethe


The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time.  The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency.
  - Albert Einstein


The nationalist not only does not dissaprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
  - George Orwell


Of course the people don't want war.  But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.  Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.  That is easy.  All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
  - Herman Goering at the Nuremberg Trials


There is an innocence in admiration;
it is found in those to whom it has not yet occurred
that they, too, might be admired some day.
  - Friedrich Nietzsche


I am in earnest
I will not equivocate
I will not excuse
I will not retreat a single inch
and I will be heard
  - Ailliam Lloyd Garrison


If a fool persists in his folly he shall become wise.
  - William Blake


It is sort of puzzling i think that you can have 100 percent certainty about the weapons of mass destruction's existence, and zero certainty about where they are.
  - Hans Blix, Chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq before the American occupation


I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike.
  - Emile Henry Gauvreay


The philosophers have only interpreted the world;
The thing, however, is to change it.
  - Karl Marx


You must be the change you wish to see in the world
  - Mahatma Ghandi


If you can create sufficient fear in your enemies,
you may not have to fight them.
  - Delenn, Babylon 5 - "The Paragon of Animals"


The medium is the message -- I think that the internet makes you into a libertarian to a certain extent.  Because you can see non-hierarchical, non-centralized systems working, and it becomes hard to credibly claim that we need increased centralization in order to create order or equity or equitableness.
  - Cory Doctorow on the Internet


I wish children were still free to be children, instead of miniature consumers and 10 year old whores.
  - Kittynn - (www.fallintoblue.com)


What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war.  Petrol is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.
  - Simone Weil,  "The Need For Roots" (1949)


All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers.  Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.
  - Francois Fenelon


And here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest.
  - Nanci Griffith


Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It's slow death.
  - Ghost in the Shell


When all government shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as oppressive as the government from which we just separated.
  - Thomas Jefferson


The 20th centruy has been characterised by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.
  - Alex Carey


I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
  - Thomas Jefferson, 1816


Every day you sit behind your desk and you learn a little more how to accept the world the way it is.  Well, here's the rub... heroes don't do that.  Heroes don't accept the world the way it is.  They fight it.
  - Lindsay, Angel, "Underneath"


Real men don't make backups. They upload it via FTP and let the world mirror it.
  - Linus Torvalds


The only people that don't get criticism are those that don't do anything.
  - Shirley Quinn


We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people -- whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth--is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and insecure.
  - Franklin D. Roosevelt


Just because they say they want to look at something doesn't mean they should.
Just because they say they won't, doesn't mean they haven't.
Just because it's easy for them, doesn't mean it's ok.
  - Billy Holmes on goverment & business


Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
  - John Kenneth Galbraith


What will you do if all your problems aren't solved by the time you die?
  - Random Fortune Nugget


Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions.
  - Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson
    the American prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials,
    in his opening statement to the tribunal


What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying.
  - Nikita Khrushchev


Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine.  As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
  - Dwight D. Eisenhower


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


The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.
  - Anna Quindlen


No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
  - Eleanor Roosevelt


The world needs anger.  The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough.
  - Bede Jarrett


In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
  - Martin Luther King Jr.


Adversity introduces a man to himself.
  - Alonzo Mourning


Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.
  - Mark Twain


Love makes you do the wacky
  - Willow, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, "Some Assembly Required"


My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea
  - Tommy Douglas


There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation
  - Pierre Elliot Trudeau


Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef.
  - Tom Robbins


You have to care about the world
because it doesn't care about you
 - Shane Koyczan


Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all.
 - Thomas J. Kopp


Democracy, taken in its narrower, purely political sense, suffers from the fact that those in economic or political power possess the means for molding public opinion to serve their own class interests.
  - Albert Einstein


If a despotic power incurs a debt not for the needs or in the interest of the state, but to strengthen its despotic regime, to repress the population that fights against it, etc., this debt is odious for the population of all the State
  - Alexander Sack, 1927


A rich man came to Jesus one day and asked what he should do to get into heaven.  Jesus did not say he should invest, spend, and let the benefits trickle down; he said sell what you have, give the money to the poor and follow me.
  - Bill McKibben


And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
  - friedrich nietzsche


Maybe it's maturity, or the wisdom that comes with age but...
the witch in Hansel and Grettel, she's very misunderstood.
I mean she builds her dream house...
and these brats come along,
and start eating it.
  - Miranda, Sex & The City


We are now at the stage when the Easter islanders could still have halted the senseless cutting and carving, could have gathered the last trees' seeds to plant out of reach of rats.  We have the tools and the means to share resources, clean up pollution, dispense basic health care and birth control, set economic limits in line with natural ones.  If we don't do these now, while we prosper, we will never be able to do them when times get hard.
  - Ronald Wright, "A Short History of Progress"


We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.
  - Denis Diderot


If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it.
  - Winston Churchill


Dead men have indeed died in vain if live men refuse to look at them.
  - Time Magazine


Everything beautiful about the world is right now
  - Tons of Fun University
    (Shane Koyczan, Mike McGee & C.R. Avery)


The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause,
while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
  - Wilhelm Stekel


"Should" is a futile word. it's about what didn't happen.
  - Margaret Atwood


The burden of proof for establishing u.s. responsibility for anything substantially bad is so amazingly high that if it was applied equally everywhere else, we would indeed live in a world without facts.
  - Dru Oja Jay


Sometimes I think this whole world
Is one big prison yard.
Some of us are prisoners
The rest of us are guards.
  - Bob Dylan, "George Jackson"


Catholic guilt isn't going to screw up the world.  It might save it.  We should feel guilty.  We've been greedy little well-fed primates.
  - Bob Hunter, Founder of Greenpeace


Nature is not a green museum. It's not stagnant. It evolves. Every time we manage, we lose knowledge.
  - Anna Maria Valastro, Peaceful Parks


What a waste of resources to go after kids with markers while companies like Viacom and Pattison Outdoor Advertising are erecting massive illegal billboards and murals all across Toronto.
  - Dave Meslin, Toronto Public Space Committee


The American war fighters operate on the basis of overwhelming force and making deals with local warlords. These forces are not helping to build peace.
  - Peggy Mason, Canada's former ambassador for disarmament at the UN


Putting a pop machine in a recreation centre is like putting a cigarette machine in a hospital.
  - Joe Mihevc


Why do we always tear everything down? Why don't we build around things?
  - Debbie Field, Foodshare


Whenever you find yourself in the majority, it's time to pause and reflect
  - Mark Twain


The world needs more Canada
  - Bono