Political Quotations – Set 5

This is Set 5 of a series of political quotations.

1. All generalizations are dangerous, even this one. – attributed to Alexandre Dumas, French author (1824-1895)
2. Heresy is another word for freedom of thought. – Graham Greene, English writer (1904-1991)
3. Nothing makes people so worthy of compliments as occasionally receiving them. One is more delightful for being told one is delightful – just as one is more angry for being told one is angry. – Katharine Fullerton Gerould, American writer (1879-1944)
4. In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us. – Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese monk, activist and writer
5. There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all. – Dame Rebecca West, Irish-born novelist (1892-1983)
6. I venture to suggest that patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. – Adlai E. Stevenson, American statesman (1900-1965)
7. Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American feminist (1815-1902)
8. All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. – John Arbuthnot, writer and physician (1667-1735)
9. New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. – John Locke, English philosopher (1632-1704)
10. You should avoid making yourself too clear even in your explanations. – Baltasar Gracian, Spanish philosopher (1601-1658)
11. People say law but they mean wealth. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882)
12. The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little. – Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (1920- )
13. We tell our thoughts, like our children, to put on their hats and coats before they go out. – Henry Watson Fowler, English lexicographer-author (1858-1933)
14. As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. – William O. Douglas, judge (1898-1980)
15. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. – Upton Sinclair, novelist and reformer (1878-1968)
16. History is a romance that is believed; romance, a history that is not believed. – Horace Walpole, English author (1717-1797)
17. What makes us discontented with our condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of the happiness of others. – Anonymous
18. We can put television in its proper light by supposing that Gutenberg’s great invention had been directed at printing only comic books. – Robert M. Hutchins, educator (1899-1977)
19. Words are a commodity in which there is never any slump. – Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)
20. A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its neighbours. – William Ralph Inge, English religious leader and author (1860-1954)