Thoughts to think about

If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we 
may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
George Washington

To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To 
be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to 
die.
Oscar Wilde

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always 
come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is 
the history of resistance.
Woodrow Wilson

If the bible is universally diffused in Hindustan, what must 
be the astonishment of the natives to find that we are forbidden 
to rob, murder and steal; we who in fifty years, have extended 
our empire...over the whole peninsula ... and exemplified in our 
public conduct every crime of which human nature is capable. What 
matchless impudence to follow up such practice with such 
precepts! If we have common prudence, let us keep the gospel at 
home, and tell them that Machiavelli is our prophet, and the god 
of the Manicheans our god.
The Reverend Sydney Smith (1771 — 1845)

War paralyses your courage and deadens the spirit of true 
manhood. It degrades and stupefies with the sense that you are 
not responsible. War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, 
brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible 
murder.
Alexander Berkman