Notable Quotes 1999
Notable Quotes 2000
Notable Quotes 2001
Notable Quotes 2002
Notable Quotes 2003
Notable Quotes 2004
Notable Quotes 2005
Notable Quotes 2006
Notable Quotes 2007



	"Success is never so interesting as struggle--not even to the
	successful, not even to the most mercernary forms of ambition."
Willa Cather
about her novel The Song of the Lark depicting a young artist who succeeds



	"This administration has many things on its mind besides the
	welfare of overstretched, ill-equipped G.I.'s dodging bombers
	and snipers in Iraq. In addition to the inauguration, which
	will cost tens of millions of dollars, Mr. Bush is busy with
	his obsessive campaign against 'junk and frivolous lawsuits,'
	his effort to further lighten the tax load on the nation's
	wealthiest individuals and corporations, and his campaign to
	cut the legs from under the proudest achievement of the New
	Deal, Social Security.

"So much for America's wartime priorities."

Bob Herbert
in a New York Times op-ed commentary (17 December 2004) on George W. Bush charging $250,000 a plate for lunch with him



	"...He's located one of the paradoxes of the age. Highly educated
	young people are tutored, taught and monitored in all aspects of
	their lives, except the most important, which is character building.
	When it comes to this, most universities leave them alone."
David Brooks
in the New York Times writing about Thomas Wolfe's new book I Am Charlotte Simmons about modern college life



	"The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral
	and spiritual sources of American politics.  They will not recover
	as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those
	moral and spiritual yearnings--but turn them to progressive purposes
	in domestic policy and foreign affairs."
Michael J. Sandel
Harvard University political theorist, commenting on Kerry's loss to Bush



	"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia
	nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany.
	That is understood.  But, after all, it is the leaders of the
	country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter
	to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a
	parliament or a communist dictatorship.  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
	danger. It works the same way in any country."
Herman Goering
Hitler's lieutenant



	"The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer (like the cover of an old book,
	its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding), lies
	here, food for worms; but the work shall not be lost, for it will (as
	he believed) appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised
	and corrected by the Author."
Benjamin Franklin
Epitaph on his tombstone



	"Wars are often the cause of further wars because they fuel
	deep hatreds, create situations of injustice and trample
	upon people's dignity and rights.  Wars generally do not
	resolve the problems for which they are fought, and, therefore,
	in addition to causing horrendous damage, they prove ultimately
	futile.  War is a defeat for humanity."
Rev. John Burke
Pastor, Christ the King Parish in Louisville, Kentucky in a Letter to the Editor



	"Today the weapons of mass destruction are poverty and corruption."
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez
Archbishop of Honduras



	"How can it be that even today there are still people dying
	of hunger?  Condemned to illiteracy?  Lacking the most basic
	medical care?  Without a roof over their heads?  Christians
	must learn to make their act of faith in Christ by discerning
	His voice in the cry for help that rises from this world of
	poverty."
Pope John Paul II
writing in Novo Millennio Ineunto #50



	"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we.
	They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country
	and our people, and neither do we."
President Bush
speaking to military officials while signing a $417 billion defense bill



	"There's a terrible sense of dread filtering across America at the moment
	and it's not simply because of the continuing fear of terrorism and the
	fact that the nation is at war. It's more frightening than that. It grows
	out of the suspicion that we all may be passengers in a vehicle that has
	made a radically wrong turn and is barreling along a dark road, with its
	headlights off and with someone behind the wheel who may not know how
	to drive."  
Bob Herbert
New York Times Op-Ed page writer



	Reed: "If you were shown a video of a United States marine or an American
	citizen in the control of a foreign power, in a cellblock, naked,
	with a bag over their head, squatting with their arms uplifted for
	45 minutes, would you describe that as a good interrogation technique
	or a violation of the Geneva Convention?"

Pace: "I would describe it as a violation, sir."

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island
questioning Marine General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Source: The New York Times



	"Every moment and every event of every person's life on earth plants
	something in the soul.  For just as the wind carries thousands of
	winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality
	that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of people.
	Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because we are not
	prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up
	anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love."  
Thomas Merton
Trappist monk and prolific spiritual writer



 	"It is essential to conduct war with constant regard
	to the peace you desire." 
Sir Basil Liddell Hart
the great British military expert who urged the approach the U.S. later adopted in its island-hopping advance on Japan in World War II. Washington adopted a similar strategy to move on Baghdad.



	"We are in danger of losing something much more important than just
	the war in Iraq. We are in danger of losing America as an instrument
	of moral authority and inspiration in the world. I have never known
	a time in my life when America and its president were more hated
	around the world than today. I was just in Japan, and even young
	Japanese dislike us. It's no wonder that so many Americans are
	obsessed with the finale of the sitcom "Friends" right now. They're
	the only friends we have, and even they're leaving."
Thomas Friedman
New York Times Op-Ed columnist (6 May 2004)



	"Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing."
Dr. Wernher von Braun
Eminent scientist of the space program



	"What we need desperately is a clear mission, a believable strategy for
	success, a morally viable exit plan and international involvement.
	Instead, the administration's current strategy seems to be simply
	urging perseverance. Staying the course is noble when the cause is
	right. But perseverance for the sake of perseverance is foolhardy."
New York Times editorial
on United States involvement in the war in Iraq (11 April 2004)



	"There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as
	if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were
	something weak and helpless.   These people walk by a widow deformed
	by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags
	living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.'  But if
	they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story.   Their
	faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words.  The
	degree of their indignation is astonishing.  Their resolve is
	frightening.   These people fail to realize that it is on the inside
	that God must be defended, not on the outside.  They should direct
	their anger at themselves."
Yann Martel
author, in Life of Pi


 

 

	
	"Writing about the Holocaust and modernity...,
	Bauman made a humane but devastating statement.
	'The most frightening news brought about by the
	Holocaust and what we learned of its perpetrators
	was not the likelihood that "this" could be done
	to us, but the idea that we could do it.'  If the
	significance of S-21...could be reduced to a
	sentence, Bauman's is the one I would choose." 
 

 

David Chandler, historian
writing about the Khmer Rouge's S-21, the Tuol Sleng torture center connected with the Killing Fields in Cambodia



	"It is better to arrest ten people by mistake than to let
	one guilty person go free."
A principle
of the extremely paranoid Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime who killed probably 20% of their own nation in four years of terror.



	"In a time of crisis, uncertainty, and policy debate, one would
	think that Christians in the United States would agree: When in
	doubt, we should support our leader and remain loyal to our
	nation. Our leader, of course, is Jesus Christ. Our nation, of
	course, is the people called church, spread around the globe." 
Gerald Schlabach
Sojourners magazine


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