Famous Quotations

One of Peter’s idiosyncrasies is his interest in quotations. As Martin says, “Peter always knows the source.” What follows is the list of quotations Peter (and others) use in The Spirit of Resistance:

All that is required for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing
– attributed to Edmund Burke

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well-informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
– Thomas Jefferson, in his letter to William Smith

The Rock of Ages has been blasted for us.
– Malcolm Muggeridge

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
– George Santayana

Some men are born great. Some achieve greatness. And some have greatness thrust upon them.
– William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
– Margaret Mead

Some people just need killing.
– Solid Snake/Metal Gear (online games)

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are children in the days of your youth. Blessed is he whose quiver is full of them.
– King Solomon, Psalm 127:4-5

The good war hallows any cause.
– Nietzsche

In war, truth is the first casualty.
– Aeschylus, Greek Dramatist, 500 B.C.

We must all hang together, gentlemen. . . else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.
– Ben Franklin

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in peoples’ minds.
– Samuel Adams

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
– William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.
– Matt Damon as Mike McDermott in Rounders

… miles to go before we sleep.
– Robert Frost, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
– Saint Paul, Romans 12:20

We can build safer weapons. We can make safer guns and safer bullets.
– Dr. Jocelyn Elders, Former Surgeon General of the United States

Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands. . . With the deaths of my enemies, I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl.
– Che Guevara, Motorcycle Diaries

Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.
– John Maynard Keynes, American Economist

Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds
– Bhagavad Gita, quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first test of the atom bomb, 1945

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.
– Joseph Heller, Catch-22

I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.
– Nathan Hale

If you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you.
– Nietzsche

‘We have invented happiness’ say the last men, and they blink.
– Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
– Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me; give me liberty, or give me death!
– Patrick Henry

Day after day, day after day, we stuck, nor breath nor motion; as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.
– Coleridge, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

The god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving.
– Saint Paul. 2 Corinthians 4:4

‘Tis a far better thing I do than I have ever done. ‘Tis a far better place I go than I’ve ever been.
– Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities