POLITICS & HISTORY

I think we ought to make “America the Beautiful” the national anthem. It’s not about war, there’s no bombs bursting in air, no rocket’s red glare. It’s about the land, amber waves of grain. That sounds good to me. Plus, it’s a hell of a lot easier to sing. (Willie Nelson)

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time. (James Thurber)

More than any other time in history, mankind faces the crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. I pray we have the wisdom to choose wisely. (Woody Allen)

We have to face that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together, and if we are to live together we have to talk. (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Democracy is the worst form of government…except for all the others. (Winston Churchill)

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half. (Gore Vidal)

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. (Leo Tolstoy)

One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our Founding Fathers used in the struggle for independence. (Charles Austin Beard)

This country’s got the best politicians money can buy. (Will Rogers)

Justice ought to be fair. (George W. Bush)

In war, Truth is the first casualty. (Aeschylus)

I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds. One of the tricks I learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved---such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time. (Barack Obama)

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. (Winston Churchill)

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. (Mark Twain)

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. (Voltaire)

In the United States, anybody can be president. That’s the problem. (George Carlin)

When we’re talking about war, we’re really talking about peace. (George W. Bush)

Common sense is not so common. (Voltaire)

The earth has enough for every man’s need, but not for every man’s greed. (Mahatma Gandhi)

There is inherited wealth in this country and also inherited poverty. (John F. Kennedy)

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. (Will Rogers)

Politics is show business for ugly people. (Paul Begala)

A problem well stated is a problem half solved. (Charles F. Kettering-Inventor)

The reason there are two senators from each state is so one can be the designated driver. (Jay Leno)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you. (Pericles-430 B.C.)

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. (R. Buckminster Fuller)

There never was a good war or a bad peace. (Benjamin Franklin)

If hypocrisy was gold, the Capitol would be Fort Knox. (Senator John McCain)

Maybe if we did a better job of listening, history wouldn’t have to repeat itself.

There are no warlike peoples; just warlike leaders. (Ralph Bunche)

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat. (Will Rogers)

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that deep down inside, we all believe that we are above average drivers. (Dave Barry)

Sometimes I think war is God’s way of teaching us geography. (Paul Rodriguez)

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves. (Plato)

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book. (Ronald Reagan)

Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed. (Irene Peter)

There is no underestimating the intelligence of the American people. (H.L.Mencken)

You can’t ride two horses with one butt.

Man plans. God laughs. (Yiddish proverb)

George Washington’s brother, Lawrence, was the Uncle of Our Country. (George Carlin)

Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists. (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

I’d kill for the Nobel Peace Prize. (Steven Wright)

The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border. (Pablo Casals)

Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come. (Carl Sandburg)

If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. (Bishop Desmond Tutu)

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it’s their fault. (Henry Kissinger)

I just don’t know why they’re shooting at us. All we want to do is bring them democracy and white bread. Transplant the American Dream. Freedom. Achievement. Hyperacidity. Affluence. Flatulence. Technology. Tension. The

inalienable right to an early coronary sitting at your desk while plotting to stab your boss in the back. (Alan Alda as Hawkeye in M*A*S*H)

History is written by the winners. (George Orwell)

I have a scheme for stopping war. It’s this…no nation is allowed to enter a war until they have paid for the last one. (Will Rogers)

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other. (Will Rogers)

If you believe everything you read, better not read. (Japanese proverb)

Another plan I have is World Peace through Formal Introductions. The idea is that everyone in the world would be required to meet everyone else in the world, formally, at least once. You’d have to look the person in the eye, shake hands, repeat their name, and try to remember one outstanding physical characteristic. My theory is, if you knew everyone in the world personally, you’d be less inclined to fight them in a war: “Who? The Malaysians? Are you kidding? I know those people!” (George Carlin)

A psychology professor and a history professor are sitting on the porch of a nudist colony watching the sunset. The historian says to the psychologist, “Have you read Marx?”

The psychology professor replies, “Yes. I think it’s the wicker chairs.”

Ohio claims they are due a president as they have’nt had one since Taft. Look at the United States. They have not had one since Lincoln. (Will Rogers)

This problem with illegal immigration is nothing new. In fact, the Indians had a special name for it. They called it “white people.” (Jay Leno)

God is love, but get it in writing. (Gypsy Rose Lee)

You’ve got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body’s sermon on how to behave. (Billie Holiday)

Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together. (Eugene Ionesco)

The world is divided into haves and have-nots: those who have a sense of humor and those who do not. (Jason Love)

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. (John F. Kennedy)

Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies. (Robert F. Kennedy)

A kindergarten teacher was showing her class an encyclopedia page picturing several national flags. She pointed to the American flag and asked, “What flag is this?”

A little girl called out, “That’s the flag of our country.”

“Very good,” the teacher said. “And what is the name of our country?”

“’Tis of thee, “ the girl said confidently.

Benjamin Franklin gave guitar lessons.

Only law can give us freedom. (Goethe)

Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful. (Paulo Freire)

When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting. (St. Jerome)

You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough. (Joseph E. Levine)

George Washington’s feet were a size 13.

You know you can never find out what’s happening from the company bulletin or the adult press. You know that. The king’s messengers are always telling you what they want you to know, for their own benefit. The evolutionary message, what’s really happening, has always come from outcasts. (Timothy Leary)

I think it would be a good idea. (Mahatma Ghandi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization)

We learn from history that we do not learn from history. (Hegel)

Under Republicans, man exploits man. Under Democrats, it’s just the opposite.

History teaches us the mistakes we are going to make. (Laurence J. Peter)

God offers to every mind its choices between truth and repose. Take whichever you please; you can never have both. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it. (Joseph Conrad)

In this country “America” means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate. (Toni Morrison)

Sometimes I feel discriminated against, but it does not make my angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? (Zora Neal Hurston)

The best politics is right action. (Mahatma Gandhi)

History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awaken. (James Joyce)

Washington is a city of southern efficiency and northern charm. (John F. Kennedy)

Too bad 90% of the politicians give the other 10% a bad reputation. (Henry Kissinger)

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience. (George Washington)

Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable. (African Proverb)

When fire and water are at war, it is the fire that loses. (Spanish proverb)

What are the seven deadly sins of Christianity? Gluttony, avarice, sloth, lust…They are urges every man feels at least once a day. How could you set yourself up as the most powerful institution on earth? You first find out what every man feels at least once a day, establish that as a sin, and set yourself up as the only institution capable of pardoning that sin. (Anton LaVey)

The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out. (Chinese proverb)

Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it. (Harry Truman)

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. (Anatole France)

The human race has improved everything, but the human race. (Adlai Stevenson)

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

The only real struggle in the history of the world is between the vested interest and social justice. (Arnold Toynbee)

The Bible is an oral history. It was passed down, word of mouth, father to son, from Adam to Seth, from Seth to Enos, from Enos to Cainan, for forty generations, a growing, changing story…until Moses finally gets it down on lambskin. But lambskins wear out, and need to be recopied. Copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of an oral history passed down through forty generations. From Hebrew it’s translated into Arabic, from Arabic to Latin, from latin to Greek, from Greek to Russian, from Russian to German, from German to an old form of English that you could not read…You can’t put a grocery list through that many translations, copies, and retellings, and not expect to have some big changes in the dinner menu when the kids make it back from Kroger. And yet people are killing each other over this written word. Here’s a tip: if you’re killing someone in the name of God, you are missing the message. (Nick Annis)

Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose. (George Will)

Man becomes great exactly in the degree to which he works for the welfare of his fellow men. (Mahatma Gandhi)

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. (Oscar Wilde)

There’s a stereotype that black people are lazy. I don’t know if that’s true, but I know white people went all the way to Africa to get out of doing work. (Lance Crouther)

I destroy my enemy by making him my friend. (Abraham Lincoln)

Politics is the shadow cast over society by big business. (John Dewey)

One of the things Jesus did was to step aside from the organized religion of his time because it had become corrupt and bogged down with rules. Rules became more important than feeding the hungry. (Corita Kent)

We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we had ever invented—human liberty. (Mark Twain)

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. (John F. Kennedy)

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. (Alan Kay-computer scientist)