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)
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress. (Frederick Douglas)
"In political speculations 'the tyranny of the majority' is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard. Society practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them." (John Stuart Mill)
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!" (Barry Goldwater)
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State." (Dr. Joseph Goebbels)
"Ideas are more dangerous than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?" (Josef Stalin)
If you will not fight for your rights when you can easily win without bloodshed -- if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly -- then you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival.There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. -(Winston Churchill)
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! (Benjamin Franklin)
Morg
