Great Quotes II: Source and Context are Key

[Traitorfish]

I was referring to Churchill's involvement in the Black and Tans, which were nothing short of a state-sponsored terrorist organisation.

 

[classical_hero]

"Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women." - Alice Paul

 

[aronnax]

"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide" ~ Three Kingdoms, pg 1 translated by Moss Roberts

 

[Arakhor]

"Fighting for freedom is like fornicating for chastity." Unknown

 

[bhsup]

This is not a legendary quote, nothing that will last through the ages, but it's funny great, so imho fits with thread title requirement of being "great."

"Oh, I’m gonna give it to me so hard." - Jessica Chobot, when asked if she would romance her own character in Mass Effect 3

 

[Traitorfish]

"Fighting for freedom is like fornicating for chastity." Unknown

I thought it was "peace", rather than "freedom"?

 

[Arakhor]

Possibly. The second verb is not normally rendered as "fornicating" either.

 

[Tee Kay]

"The world is nearly all parcelled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonised. To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far."

- Cecil Rhodes.

 

[aronnax]

That's actually a little horrible to read.

 

[Traitorfish]

You expected better from a man who not only founded a white-supremacist state, but named it after himself?

 

[Flying Pig]

Fair for his day - maybe not a likeable man, but a great one nonetheless. Call me old-fashioned but, bearing in mind that he lived in an age where maps had black areas where nobody had actually been before, I think there's something inspiring in those words. And in defence of Rhodesia, South Africa had the same Apartheid policies until Mandela, and it was immesurably better off under white-supremacy rule than under native rule as Mugabe instituted it.

 

[madviking]

A few good ones:

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least."

(go uva!)

Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.

If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way we let them kill as many as possible.

The use of quantity of money as a target has not been a success. I'm not sure that I would as of today push it as hard as I once did.

I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed.

I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes ... to spread a lively terror.

If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable (as Hitler) to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.

[Businessmen] have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public.

He says naïvely, outspokenly and without suggestion of embarrassment "I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God." It is only another way of saying "I, the Lord thy God, am a small God; fretful about small things."

The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.

 

[Arakhor]

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. ~ Albert Einstein

 

[Dachs]

Phil Smith: [receives a text] "Stewart! Stewart - the [Intercourse]er's downstairs."
Stewart Pearson: "No, no, he's not downstairs; if he were, I would've known about it, and if I knew about it, I would have vetoed it -"
Emma Messinger: "He is, and he is complete poison."
Peter Mannion MP: "Aaaaah, the [Intercourse]er! And you thought he was just a myth created to frighten naughty MPs into eating all their truffles and swan!"

---

"I know what people say to you, right? They say, 'We hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.' Everybody hates you.

So [intercourse]ing what? Some people, they just [intercourse]in' love to hate. Some people, they [intercourse]in' walk around the [intercourse]in' Garden of Eden [intercourse]in' moaning about the lack of [intercourse]in' mobile reception.

These are the kind of [intercourse]s that watched Mandela - [intercourse]in' Nelson Mandela - walk to freedom...and said, 'Is Diagnosis: Murder not on the other side?'

So we [intercourse]ing forget about them."
-Malcolm Tucker

Both from The Thick of It Season 3 Episode 8

 

[aronnax]

When asked about the enormous wardrobe Queen Marie of Romania brought to the Paris Peace conference, she replied:

"Perhaps it seems a good many. Still I feel that this is no time to economise. You see, Roumania simply has to have Transylvania. We want so much Bessarabia too. And what if for the lack of a gown, a concession should be lost?"

 

[Glassfan]

The conversations of History;

Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine. -Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal. - Leo Tolstoy

I'm not going to climb into the ring with Tolstoy. -Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway was a jerk. -Harold Robbins

 

[aronnax]

Those are good.

 

[Traitorfish]

“That this social order with its pauperism, famines, prisons, gallows, armies, and wars is necessary to society; that still greater disaster would ensue if this organization were destroyed; all this is said only by those who profit by this organization, while those who suffer from it – and they are ten times as numerous – think and say quite the contrary.” - Leo Tolstoy

 

[Smellincoffee]

"...that a democracy, in effect, is no more than an aristocracy of orators, interrupted sometimes with the temporary monarchy of one orator." - Thomas Hobbes

And that was BEFORE television and political advertisements. One wonders what he'd make of American 'politics' now. We've lost the oratory and have been reduced to an aristocracy of carnie barkers.

 

[Glassfan]

"One wonders what he'd make of American 'politics' now. We've lost the oratory and have been reduced to an aristocracy of carny barkers".
-Smellincoffee, 2012.