Quotable Quotes...

In researching quotes for an article I stumbled on the following by George Orwell: 

"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act."

So beautifully simple in the ease with which it conveyed the idea it leapt off the page at me. It was listed on a page of many other well crafted offerings, and as some were more memorable than others I decided to compile a few and share them.

These are some of those that I found:

Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.- Robert Byrne - So many examples come to mind.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander. - Napoleon Bonaparte - Prudent knowledge, this.

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. - Will Rogers - I would hope the media adopts this policy at some point.

I think it's a terrible shame that politics has become show business. - Sydney Pollack - Could not have said it better Sydney, all odor, no substance.

If a politician murders his mother, the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not that it was a terrible thing to do, but rather that in a statement made six years before he had gone on record as being opposed to matricide. - Meg Greenfield - In other words, lie, lie, lie.

If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis – So very well said.

In politics nothing is contemptible. - Benjamin Disraeli - Panjack, Ramjack, Gypsyjack, and now Kamjack. Hey, whatever works for you when ethics is not a consideration.

Politics have no relation to morals. - Niccolo Machiavelli - Patrick Mervyn Eustace Dhanraj Leeking Sabga Manning.

Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. - John Kenneth Galbraith - Manning vs Warner

So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy.  - Roger Nash Baldwin – Our creed

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. - Dante Alighieri - for the mocking pretenders, the centrist deserters, those who resist the call to put Country First.

The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal, that you can gather votes like box tops is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process. - Adlai E. Stevenson - And will eventually undo us all

The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. - John Stuart Mill – Absolutely agree.

The secret of getting things done is to act! - Dante Alighieri

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. - Alexander Hamilton - you see them every election in their orgasmic frenzy, parroting their leaders' drivel.

'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. - Thomas Paine - Put that on my tombstone, chisel it deep so it will last a long, long time.

We have, I fear, confused power with greatness. - Stewart Udall - Only the public's response will change this.

You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. - Daniel Hannan - Hmmm

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. - John Morley - Truth lives beyond

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.  - Walter Lippmann - Wow!

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? -  Saint Augustine – The repeated raiding of our Treasury is proof of this.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed. - Benjamin Franklin - Agreed

Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper. - Larry Flynt - Lol

The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return. - Gore Vidal - Vexing

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. - Mohandas Gandhi - ENT?

So, standing on the shoulders of giants, I left this for last:

"Until we know what we want and demand it, others will decide what we get, and we'll have to settle for it" - Phillip Edward Alexander