Norman M Thomas Quotes & Sayings

The very existence of armaments and great armies psychologically accustoms us to accept the philosophy of militarism. They inevitably increase fear and hate in the world. — Norman Thomas

The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. — Norman Thomas

The Socialist Party will no longer be running a candidate for president. The Democratic Party is leading this country to Socialism much faster than we could ever hope to. — Norman Thomas

I am not the champion of lost causes, but the champion of causes not yet won. — Norman Thomas

Both parties have moved to the right during the neoliberal period of the past generation. Mainstream Democrats are now pretty much what used to be called "moderate Republicans." Meanwhile, the Republican Party has largely drifted off the spectrum, becoming what respected conservative political analyst Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein call a "radical insurgency" that has virtually abandoned normal parliamentary politics. With — Noam Chomsky

I now see Norman Thomas as indeed a liberal, but as a real, old-fashioned, unreconstructed liberal who believes in freedom and justice for everybody. — Norman Thomas

Dissent ... is a right essential to any concept of the dignity and freedom of the individual; it is essential to the search for truth in a world wherein no authority is infallible. — Norman Thomas

We all inherit damage from the past. We spread it like a virus and don't generally think about it. — Thomas Norman DeWolf

Stephen Morillo, one of the leading military historians of Anglo-Norman England, rejected the "great man" approach in his introduction to a series of extracts and articles on the Battle of Hastings. Noting that William had benefited from a contrary wind that delayed his attack until Harold Godwineson had been drawn north by a threat from a third claimant, Harald Hardrada of Norway, Morillo invoked the idea of chaos theory, which describes how small, even random, factors can sometimes have a huge effect on larger systems. Drawing on the quip of another scholar, John Gillingham, he wondered if William, who was sometimes called William the Bastard, due to his illegitimate birth, ought really to be known as William the Lucky Bastard.2 — Hugh M. Thomas

Peace will never be entirely secure until men everywhere have learned to conquer poverty without sacrificing liberty or security. — Norman Thomas

In April 1962, McGeorge Bundy - the former Harvard dean and now national security adviser to President Kennedy - had Oppenheimer invited to a White House dinner honoring forty-nine Nobel laureates. At this gala affair, Oppie rubbed elbows with such other luminaries as the poet Robert Frost, the astronaut John Glenn and the writer Norman Cousins. Everyone laughed when Kennedy quipped, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Afterwards, — Kai Bird

He who would save liberty must put his trust in democracy. — Norman Thomas

There are some plain common-sense considerations applicable to all these attempts at world planning. They can be briefly stated: 1. To talk of blueprints for the future or building a world order is, if properly understood, suggestive, but it is also dangerous. Societies grow far more truly than they are built. A constitution for a new world order is never like a blueprint for a skyscraper. — Norman Thomas

While I knew him, he made me see--Poe did; made me understand that, unlike a bodily organ, the soul desires, even wills, its own continuance.It can be said to be the seat of will and desire and, even in its necrotic state, the root of evil. ... A Sunday school lesson or one of Cotton Mather's gaudy rants that helped to kindle the Salem bonfires is nearer to the truth of it than a fable by Poe, Hawthorne, or Melville. Evil's a malignancy beyond the skill and scalpel of {doctors} to heal or extirpate. — Norman Lock

The central law of all wholesome life is reciprocity, mutuality ... But the group is valuable only as it permits personalities, not automatons, to emerge. — Norman Thomas

American socialism had lost momentum even before the war. (Socialist leader Norman Thomas received 885,000 votes in his 1932 run for the presidency, but only 187,500 in 1936.) — Benjamin Balint

Today's youth cannot escape the shadow of racism that has been passed down organically from parents and others who cling to a distorted image of American history, one informed by, and articulated from, a worldview permeated by white privilege. [sic], these biases are so hardwired that most of us have no idea how quickly and automatically they kick in and how enduring they can be. — Thomas Norman DeWolf

I walk where I choose to walk. — Norman Thomas

I always get more applause than votes. — Norman Thomas

Rebellion per se is not a virtue. If it were, we would have some heroes on very low levels. — Norman Thomas

Kennedy said that if we had nuclear war we'd kill 300 million people in the first hour. McNamara, who is a good businessman and likes to save, says it would be only 200 million. — Norman Thomas

The doctrine of thrift for the poor is dumb and cruel, like advising them to try and lift themselves by their bootstraps. — Norman Thomas

Ravished is a nice word found in sentimental novel. Between us, Moran, the word that stuck in my mind like shit to the bottom of a shoe was fucked. — Norman Lock

If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag; wash it. — Norman Thomas

The lessons are in the quest. The answers are found in the journey. These are ripples on a pond. They spread outward. And on we walk ... — Thomas Norman DeWolf

All our rulers have said that war is unthinkable, and then we think about it almost all the time. We've got to make it unthinkable. — Norman Thomas

I think too much is known about me already. I think biographical information can get in the way of the reading experience. The interchange between the reader and the work. For example, I know far too much about Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut. Because I know as much as I do about their personal lives, I can't read their work without this interjecting itself. So if I had it to do over, I'd probably go the way of J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon. And just stay out of it altogether and let all the focus be on the work itself and not on me. — Tom Robbins

America's most dangerous internal threat, he felt, came not from communist subversives but from those who used the fear of communists to trample civil liberties. "America is incomparably less endangered by its own Communists than by the hysterical hunt for the few Communists that are here," he told the socialist leader Norman Thomas. — Walter Isaacson

The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values. — Norman Thomas

Talking of appearances, I would like my future readers to know that the picture of Jim and me that Thomas Hart Benton painted on the wall of the Missouri state capitol bears not the slightest resemblance to either one of us. ... I've never been satisfied with any representation of myself and have seen only one picture of Jim that did him justice. I don't know why this should be, unless it is evidence of a nearly universal prejudice against us, instigated by Sunday school superintendents, Republicans, and bigots. — Norman Lock

To us Americans much has been given; of us much is required. With all our faults and mistakes, it is our strength in support of the freedom our forefathers loved which has saved mankind from subjection to totalitarian power. — Norman Thomas

I share something in common with Norman Rockwell and, for that matter, with Walt Disney. In that I really like to make people happy. — Thomas Kinkade