Kent State Quotes & Sayings

the Code of Hammurabi of 1750 BC. Crafted to govern the First Babylonian Empire, it codified the supremacy of the rule of law. Its punishments may seem draconian today, but it was still original in putting forth the idea that no one, not even the ruler, was above the law. There was a limit on the power of the state; even on the king himself. — Kent Augustson

When National Guardsmen shot four unarmed students at Kent State, virtually the entire system of higher education shuddered and stopped. — Nancy Gibbs

I realize that was becoming a contradiction in terms, especially after my friend Alison Krauss was shot and killed in Kent State in 1970 on campus by the National Guard. — Surya Das

He was telling war stories. The funny, innocuous ones that made everyone forget that war could leave you without fingers, or legs, or a soul. — Sabrina Fedel

On vague wording of drone strike criteria: Are you going to just drop a hellfire missile on Jane Fonda? Are you going to drop a missile on Kent State? That's gobbledygook. — Rand Paul

I've been playing music all my life, from being a choir soloist at Symphony Hall as a youngster to playing in bands through high school and college at Kent State. Went in the service at 17, out before I was 21. — Arthur Godfrey

They were saying "Make peace, not war," and so, the Commander of the Ohio State National Guard testified in the course of the Kent State trials, he threw a rock at them. — Renata Adler

When the Great Scorer comes to list the main downers of our time, the Nixon Inauguration will have to be ranked Number One. Altamont was a nightmare, Chicago was worse, Kent State so bad that it's still hard to find the right words for it ... but there was at least a brief flash of hope in those scenes, a wild kind of momentary high, before the shroud came down. The — Hunter S. Thompson

When the students were killed at Kent State, the cast voted to do a demonstration from the stage, and I abstained. — Holly Near

I'd have to say that Nixon feels like the public figure who most dominated my life - from the time I went to fourth grade wearing a Nixon-Lodge button in the fall of 1960, through my college years, which overlapped with Kent State, Cambodia, the China trip and all the rest. — Thomas Mallon

When my sixth grade teacher opened the class with subtle praise for the guardsmen shooting four people to death at Kent State, I'd given up arguing with her by that point. But I was very riled up inside and vowed that I would never forget that. — Jello Biafra

I went to Kent State basically to avoid going to Vietnam, I had no idea what I was doing in the world. I was lost, and trying not to get into a fight every day. — Mark Mothersbaugh

Anybody who has stood on the prairie in North Dakota has felt the force of the wind and knows that our state has an inexhaustible supply of wind power. The potential here to create jobs and draw millions of dollars in new investment to North Dakota is enormous. — Kent Conrad

My freshman English professor at Kent State University in 1984 told me I was a good writer, and she loved all the silly pictures I drew in my notebook. She said I should try writing children's books, and so I did. — Dav Pilkey

Voluntary Quicksand
I read the Chronicle this morning
as if I were stepping into voluntary
quicksand
and watched the news go over my shoes
with forty-four more days of spring.
Kent State
America
May 7, 1970 — Richard Brautigan

I didn't react visually. This girl came up and knelt over the body and let out a God-awful scream that made me click the camera. (On photographing Mary Vecchio with slain student Jeffery Miller during the shootings of students at Kent State, April, 1970.) — John Filo

Fishing, Danny boy, is purely a state of mind. Some men, when they are fishing, are after fish. Me, I'm after things you could never set a barbed hook in. — William Kent Krueger

Those few days after Kent State were among the darkest of my presidency. — Richard M. Nixon