Category: Thought

“Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.”

“The compact which exists between the North and the South is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.”

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

“Hello? Uh, hello? Hello, Dmitri? Listen, I can’t hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? [pause] Oh, that’s much better. . . . Now then, Dmitri, you know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. [pause] The BOMB, Dmitri! The hydrogen bomb! Well now, what happened is, uh, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of, well, he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little…funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing. Well, I’ll tell you what he did, he ordered his planes…to attack your country. Well, let me finish, Dmitri. Let me finish, Dmitri. Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dmitri? . . . I’m just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened. It’s a friendly call. Of course it’s a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn’t friendly, you probably wouldn’t have even got it. They will not reach their targets for at least another hour. [pause] I’m sorry too, Dmitri. I’m very sorry. All right! You’re sorrier than I am! But I am sorry as well. I am as sorry as you are Dmitri. Don’t say that you are more sorry than I am, because I am capable of being just as sorry as you are. So we’re both sorry, all right? All right.”

“If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread.”

“The draft or draft registration destroys the very values our society is committed to defending.”

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

“A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour!’”

“What is the state of Hancock’s finances?”

“Both now and for always, I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit.”