A.J. > A.J.'s Quotes

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#1

“Where is your sense of patriotism?"

I keep it hid away safe, along with my sense of trust, Mr. Clent. I don't use 'em much in case they get scratched.”
― Frances Hardinge, Fly by Night

53 likes

#2

“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

tags: decisions, gandalf, steadfastness, truths

609 likes

#3

“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.”
― Eugene Victor Debs

tags: authoritarianism, deception, exploitation, fundamentalism, nationalism, oppression, patriotism, religion, totalitarianism, tyranny

505 likes

#4

“Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.”
― Bruce Coville

tags: censorship, control, dictatorship, information, tyranny

329 likes

#5

“Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it.”
― Lysander Spooner

tags: lying, media, propaganda, tyranny

213 likes

#6

“The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. it is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils : An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State

tags: tyranny

133 likes

#7

“A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.”
― Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means

tags: democracy, power, society, tyranny, war

99 likes

#8

“The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.”
― Edward Abbey

tags: government, oppression, subversion, totalitarianism, tyranny, wit

53 likes

#9

“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
― Noam Chomsky

tags: alternate-views, free-speech, freedom-of-speech

182 likes

#10

“Pick a leader who will keep jobs in your country by offering companies incentives to hire only within their borders, not one who allows corporations to outsource jobs for cheaper labor when there is a national employment crisis. Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance. Stability, not fear and terror. Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate. Convergence, not segregation. Tolerance, not discrimination. Fairness, not hypocrisy. Substance, not superficiality. Character, not immaturity. Transparency, not secrecy. Justice, not lawlessness. Environmental improvement and preservation, not destruction. Truth, not lies.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

tags: administration, airlines, bail, bail-out, banker, bankers, banking, banking-system, banks, best-leader, big-business, big-pharma, bipartisan, capitalism, censor, common-man, companies, confident, conservation, corporations, corrupt, corruption, country, democrat, diplomacy, diplomatic, diversity, divide, divides, division, doctor, doctors, education, educators, election, elections, employment, environment, environmental, environmentalism, environmentalist, equality, families, farmer, for-the-people, foreign-relations, freedom, freedom-of-speech, funding, good-leader, government, government-corruption, guide, health-care, heart-driven, homes, honest, honest-broker, human-condition, humble, identify, incentives, indentifies, integrity, intelligent, job, jobs, justice, lead, leader, leaders, leadership, leadership-characteristics, leadership-traits, libraries, library, lie, lies, lobbyist, losing, make-america-great-again, man-on-the-street, money, money-driven, mortage, mortages, nation, oil, oil-tycoon, peace, peacekeeper, peacemaker, people, pharma, pharmaceutical, pick-a-leader, picking-sides, political-science, politics, president, presidential, protection, race, racism, republican, school, schools, selecting, serves-the-people, sly, speech, spending, street, street-level, strong, teacher, teachers, truth, understand, understanding, unites, vote, voter, voting, war, we-the-people, wisdom, word

57 likes

#11

“But it doesn't take a thousand men to open a door, my lord."

"It might to keep it open.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

78 likes

#12

“Diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power.”
― Robin Hobb

104 likes

#13

“To ask why we need libraries at all, when there is so much information available elsewhere, is about as sensible as asking if roadmaps are necessary now that there are so very many roads."

[American Libraries Magazine, May 28, 2009]”
― Jon Bing

tags: information, libraries, necessity

59 likes

#14

“When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

tags: action, information, sleep

377 likes

#15

“People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think. Don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome.”
― River Tam - Serenity

tags: river-tam, serenity

5 likes

#16

“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

tags: accomplishment, belief, rewriting-history, sherlock-holmes

868 likes

#17

“You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.”
― Marian Wright Edelman

tags: activist, change, injustice, transform

58 likes

#18

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

tags: attributed-no-source, be-yourself, gilbert-perreira, honesty, inspirational, misattributed-oscar-wilde, quote-investigator

177270 likes

#19

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
― Nelson Mandela

206 likes

#20

“A writer sets out to write science fiction but isn’t familiar with the genre, hasn’t read what’s been written. This is a fairly common situation, because science fiction is known to sell well but, as a subliterary genre, is not supposed to be worth study—what’s to learn? It doesn’t occur to the novice that a genre is a genre because it has a field and focus of its own; its appropriate and particular tools, rules, and techniques for handling the material; its traditions; and its experienced, appreciative readers—that it is, in fact, a literature. Ignoring all this, our novice is just about to reinvent the wheel, the space ship, the space alien, and the mad scientist, with cries of innocent wonder. The cries will not be echoed by the readers. Readers familiar with that genre have met the space ship, the alien, and the mad scientist before. They know more about them than the writer does.

In the same way, critics who set out to talk about a fantasy novel without having read any fantasy since they were eight, and in ignorance of the history and extensive theory of fantasy literature, will make fools of themselves because they don’t know how to read the book. They have no contextual information to tell them what its tradition is, where it’s coming from, what it’s trying to do, what it does. This was liberally proved when the first Harry Potter book came out and a lot of literary reviewers ran around shrieking about the incredible originality of the book. This originality was an artifact of the reviewers’ blank ignorance of its genres (children’s fantasy and the British boarding-school story), plus the fact that they hadn’t read a fantasy since they were eight. It was pitiful. It was like watching some TV gourmet chef eat a piece of buttered toast and squeal, “But this is delicious! Unheard of! Where has it been all my life?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

tags: critics, fantasy, genre, genre-fiction, reading, science-fiction, writing

19 likes

#21

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
― George Orwell, 1984

928 likes

#22

“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone. The Christians in Holland are also living in fear because their sons are being sent to Germany. Everyone is scared. Every night hundreds of planes pass over Holland on their way to German cities, to sow their bombs on German soil. Every hour hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of people are being killed in Russia and Africa. No one can keep out of the conflict, the entire world is at war, and even though the Allies are doing better, the end is nowhere in sight.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

112 likes

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