What is your favorite political quote?

[Hugo]

"When the President does it that means that it is not illegal." -- Richard M. Nixon

"It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon a supposition that he may abuse it." -- Oliver Cromwell

[daniel]

"If the rightwing had their way, there'd be nobody working."

John Kenneth Galbraith

Paraphrasing from what I heard on the radio:

Those who support tax cuts seem to believe that the rich don't have enough money and the poor have too much.

John Kenneth Galbraith

[Big Blue Machine]

Very radical left winger quotes, are they Daniel.

Tax cuts aren't just for the rich. Well maybe in Bush's land on fantasy. Tax cuts should be carried out when needed to be, to help the economy. Not big ones either.

[theloniusfleabag]

"A government is good when those near are happy, and those far off are attracted" Confucius, Analects, nos. 44 and 99

[theloniusfleabag]

"The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies". Lester B. Pearson, Director of the United Nations Security Council, accepting the Nobel Prize For Peace, Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 1957

[daniel]

Very radical left winger quotes, are they Daniel.

JK Galbraith a radical left winger? Just how young are you BBM?

[RB]

Two cheers for Democracy:

One cheers because it admits variety and two cheers because it permits criticism. Two cheers is “quite enough: there is no occasion to give three.” The third Forster reserved for the Republic of Love.

What is conservatism?

Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? Lincoln

What is Liberalism?

I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means—except by getting off his back. Tolstory

What is the United Nations

The United Nations cannot do anything, and never could; it is not an animate entity or agent. It is a place, a stage, a forum and a shrine . . . a place to which powerful people can repair when they are fearful about the course on which their own rhetoric seems to be propelling them. O’Brian

[Pateris]

The quotes of Josef Stalin...

On death:

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.

On education:

Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.

On war and peace:

If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a "peace conference," you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and airplanes.

On ideas:

Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?

And to the Politburo about the future in 1951:

Once I am gone, the capitalists will drown you like blind kittens.

Clearly, he saw the writing on the wall...

[caesar]

Daniel; liked this one of yours very much:

Those who support tax cuts seem to believe that the rich don't have enough money and the poor have too much.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Sad but true; as much as we would all like to pay less taxes; that is how it works.

[B. Max]

This memorable quotation is from Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813). Scottish jurist and historian, he was widely known in his time and was professor of Universal History at Edinburgh University in the late 18th century.

The quotation is from the 1801 collection of his lectures:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:

from bondage to spiritual faith;

from spiritual faith to great courage;

from courage to liberty;

from liberty to abundance;

from abundance to selfishness;

from selfishness to complacency;

from complacency to apathy;

from apathy to dependency;

from dependency back again to bondage."

[Black Dog]

As today is Inaguration day, I thought it'd be interesting to look at some quotes from presidents past.

"Let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions."

-Thomas Jefferson

"As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of person and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending."

-Andrew Jackson

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. "

-Franklin Roosevelt

"Toga! Toga!"

-George W. Bush

[RB]

One can never have enough of the vibrant speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. I saw a 30 min. B&W documentary last night is still reverberating in my head "I have a dream".

We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. Martin Luther King Jr

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Martin Luther King Jr

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it. Mikhail Bakunin