Political Action Quotes & Sayings

People are angry that things as common sense as securing the border and eliminating sanctuary cities are being framed as extreme views. They are tired of empty rhetoric without action, and they are hungry for a leader from outside the professional political class. — Carly Fiorina

If Occupy Wall Street can see their way to more collaboration with the union movement, then there will be a great deal of political action possible. — David Harvey

Boycott is a widely understood form of social, economic, and political action. — Steve Crawshaw

Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority. — Stanley Milgram

At times I think the truest image of God today is a black inner-city grandmother in the United States or a mother of the disappeared in Argentina or the women who wake up early to make tortillas in refugee camps. They all weep for their children, and in their compassionate tears arises the political action that changes the world. The mothers show us that it is the experience of touching the pain of others that is the key to change. — Jim Wallis

I'll tell you what I really think about politicians. The other night I watched some politicians on television talking about Vietnam. I wanted very much to burst through the screen with a flame thrower and burn their eyes out and their balls off and then inquire from them how they would assess the action from a political point of view. — Harold Pinter

The first and most important thing is to remain free, free in each line you undertake, in your ideas and in your political action, in your moral conduct. The artist especially must remain free from all outer restraints. — Hans Hartung

The first rule of good theatre is 'Show, don't tell.' It applies to good political action as well. — Carne Ross

I don't care what Einstein said about God not playing dice; If he exists, he's addicted to craps. — Henry Mosquera

One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding. — Paulo Freire

Internet trolling wasn't just a symptom, it was a canary. Trolls tested the boundaries of how far society would allow racism, misogyny, and transphobia to be normalized. Would anyone do anything? Would anyone take action? Would anyone powerful take this seriously? The answer turned out to be no. Those of us on the receiving end begged for help, and were told to grow a thicker skin, because the Internet "isn't real life." Until, surprise, the Internet became president, and we as a society were so inured to hate speech - our boundaries had been so thoroughly obliterated and "political correctness" so stigmatized - that we had no defense. There — Lindy West

Meanwhile, the annual U.N. climate summit, which remains the best hope for a political breakthrough on climate action, has started to seem less like a forum for serious negotiation than a very costly and high-carbon group therapy session, a place for the representatives of the most vulnerable countries in the world to vent their grief and rage while low-level representatives of the nations largely responsible for their tragedies stare at their shoes. — Anonymous

Where intellectuals have played a role in history, it has not been so much by whispering words of advice into the ears of political overlords as by contributing to the vast and powerful currents of conceptions and misconceptions that sweep human action along. — Thomas Sowell

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. — Gore Vidal

As politicians weigh courses of action against their political agendas the death toll weighs heavy on the conscience of the world. The once vibrant Syrian streets are now haunted by the souls of the innocent and the historic monuments that told of an unrivalled Arab civilisation no longer stand tall. — Aysha Taryam

I have experienced the intensity of patriotism as a submarine officer, the ambitions of a competitive businessman, and the intensity of political debate. I have been sorely tempted to launch a military attack on foreigners, and have felt the frustration of having to negotiate with allies or even former enemies to reach a consensus instead of taking more decisive unilateral action. — Jimmy Carter

The pursuit of truth, as a form of political action, is inherently disruptive, anti-authoritarian, and dangerous to those content with the way things are. — Nancy Snow

The great political tragedy of our time is that conservative leaders in America have chosen to use their superior messaging and political skills to thwart serious action on global warming. — Joseph J. Romm

A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history. On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness and rooted in divine truth, wisdom, and compassion will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions. When, however, the deepest and most grounded spiritual vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic and social institutions, a holy force - the power of wisdom and love in action - is born. This force I define as Sacred Activism. — Andrew Harvey

I conclude by applying to political economy what Chateaubriand says of history: "There are," he says, two consequences in history; an immediate one, which is instantly recognized, and one in the distance, which is not at first perceived. These consequences often contradict each other; the former are the results of our own limited wisdom, the latter, those of that wisdom which endures. The providential event appears after the human event. God rises up behind men. Deny, if you will, the supreme counsel; disown its action; dispute about words; designate, by the term, force of circumstances, or reason, what the vulgar call Providence; but look to the end of an accomplished fact, and you will see that it has always produced the contrary of what was expected from it, if it was not established at first upon morality and justice.3 — Frederic Bastiat

The force of what was called Panther rhetoric or word mongering resided not in elegant discourse but in strength of affirmation (or denial), in anger of tone and timbre. When the anger led to action there was no turgidity or over-emphasis. Anyone who has witnessed political rows among the Whites will have to admit that the Whites aren't overburdened with poetic imagination. — Jean Genet

It is true that some secluded intellectuals in their esoteric circles talk differently. They proclaim the priority of what they call eternal absolute values and feign in their declamations - not in their personal conduct - a disdain of things secular and transitory. But the public ignores such utterances. The main goal of present-day political action is to secure for the respective pressure group memberships the highest material well-being. The only way for a leader to succeed is to instill in people the conviction that his program best serves the attainment of this goal. — Ludwig Von Mises

In insisting that personal habit and political action be one and the same, absolutist moralizing limits the possibilities of both. — Heather Paxson

My films can be considered political action against the tyranny of good taste. — John Waters

I'm loving doing Outlander. We've got a great cast and we're up in the Scottish Highlands. [ ... ] It's big budget, they're spending a lot of money on it. They're going for a very gritty and realistic portrayal of the Highlands and I play Dougal MacKenzie, the War Chieftain of Clan MacKenzie. As that implies, he's quite the serious character. There's lots of political intrigue, there's romance, there's adventure and action and there's time-travel. — Graham McTavish

An error in the doctrine of God will have inevitable consequences in the sphere of action, of moral behaviour, of the polity of the Church, and of basic culture and social organization. A change in the doctrine of the Trinity in either of these directions cannot help but have political consequences.

Farrell, commenting on Nazianzen's connection between Trinity and Holy Monarchy — Joseph P. Farrell

I believe that what separates us all from one another is simply society itself, or, if you like, politics. This is what raises barriers between men, this is what creates misunderstanding.
If I may be allowed to express myself paradoxically, I should say that the truest society, the authentic human community, is extra-social - a wider, deeper society, that which is revealed by our common anxieties, our desires, our secret nostalgias. The whole history of the world has been governed by nostalgias and anxieties, which political action does no more than reflect and interpret, very imperfectly. No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa. — Eugene Ionesco

Even the most left-wing politicians worship wealth creation - as the political-action-committee collection plate is passed. — P. J. O'Rourke

Venezuelans have a long history. So we are able to listen to each other, to talk to each other. From here were born the liberators of the region, and they said before and after that process we have a culture of political action. We are not in despair. That's the image broadcast to abroad. — Nicolas Maduro

A plan without action isn't a plan, it's a speech. — T. Boone Pickens

Stirner's political praxis is quixotic. It accepts the established hierarchies of constraint as given ... Not liable to any radical change, they constitute part of the theatre housing the individual's action ... The egoist uses the elements of the social structure as props in his self-expressive act. — John Carroll

The unthinking glorification of digital activism makes its practitioners confuse priorities with capabilities. Getting people onto the streets, which may indeed become easier with modern communication tools, is usually the last stage of a protest movement, in both democracies and autocracies. One cannot start with protests and think of political demands and further steps later on. There are real dangers to substituting startegic and long-term action with spontaneous street marches. — Evgeny Morozov

A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end that is aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character. — Aristotle.

My mind was by no means easy about the need to carry out a clandestine action in the sovereign territory of a friendly country, and the question of whether it was permissible to do so - from both the ethical and political points of view - had to be faced in all its gravity. — Isser Harel

The only reason the president insists on raising [tax] rates is because he knows it will destroy Republican unity, it will cause a complete fracture of the Republican majority in the house, it will hand him a Congress that he can then manipulate for the next two years at least because the Republicans will be neutered ... This is entirely a political action, a way to get a surrender from the Republicans. — Charles Krauthammer

Affirmative action works but we're going to need to muster all our political resources if we are to keep it in place. — Harold Washington

in modern philosophy, the first glimpse of the true view of the conception of 'might is right' as applying to government is to be found in the political writings of Spinoza. Briefly it is this. Government, as such, has a limited sphere of activity. This limitation is self-limitation; and the proper province of government comprehends all that it is able to accomplish. Government may not attempt that which it is unable to achieve; that which it is able to achieve is its true and proper sphere of action. Ask and answer the question, What can government do? and we have solved the problem of what it ought to do, that is, we have defined its limits and discovered its particular nature. Its might is its right. — Michael Oakeshott

Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. As it distinguishes between truth and opinion, so it distinguishes between truth and idolatry. All nations are tempted - and few have been able to resist the power for long - to clothe their own aspirations and action in the moral purposes of the universe. To know that nations are subject to the moral law is one thing, while to pretend to know with certainty what is good and evil in the relations among nations is quite another. There is a world of difference between the belief that all nations stand under the judgment of God, inscrutable to the human mind, and the blasphemous conviction that God is always on one's side and that what one wills oneself cannot fail to be willed by God also. — Hans J. Morgenthau

Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power. Their first rule is "don't rock the boat." If someone makes trouble and you can get him, do it. If you can't get him, bring him in. Give him some of the action, let him have a taste of power. Power is all anyone wants, and if he has a promise of it as a reward for being good, he'll be good. Anyone who does not play by those rules is incomprehensible to most politicians. — Shirley Chisholm

When people align around shared political, social, economic or environmental values, and take collective action, thinking and behavior that compromises the lives of millions of people around the world can truly change. — Simon Mainwaring

For a patrimonial state to be stable over time, it is best ruled with consent, at least with consent from the largest minority, if not from the majority. Instinctive obedience must be the norm, otherwise too much effort needs to be put into suppressing disaffection for the regime's wider aims to be achievable. Consent is, however, not always easy to obtain. The collective view of most societies is rather conservative: in the main people prefer to see the social arrangements of their youth perpetuated into their old age; they prefer that things be done in the time-honoured way; they are suspicious of novelty and resistant to change. Thus when radical action must be taken, for whatever reason, a great burden falls on the ruler, the father-figure, who has to overcome this social inertia and persuade his subjects to follow his lead. In order that his will shall prevail, he needs to generate huge respect, preferably adulation, and if at all possible sheer awe among his people. — Paul Kriwaczek

The starship thing is really political action and reaction, the natural outgrowth of Volunteers. — Paul Kantner

He, too, was in the grip of rage and rhetoric. I saw that, attractive though his side of the political spectrum was. A cancerous violence had eaten into every political idea, had taken over the ideas themselves, and for so many, all that mattered was the willingness to do something. Action led to action, free of any moorings, and the way to be someone, the way to catch the attention of the young and recruit them to one's cause, was to be enraged. It seemed as if the only way this lure of violence could be avoided was by having no causes, by being magnificiently isolated from loyalties. But was that not an ethical lapse graver than rage itself? — Teju Cole

If the church preaches faith in anything other than the resurrection - if it gives so much as the impression that anything else, be it political action, moral achievement, or spiritual proficiency, can save the world - it becomes just one more false, parochial prophet leading the world away from the catholic parousia of Christ in the universal death of history. — Robert Farrar Capon

No real social change has ever been
brought about without a revolution -
Revolution is but thought carried into action.
Every effort for progress, for enlightenment,
for science, for religious, political, and
economic liberty, emanates from the minority,
and not from the mass. — Emma Goldman

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests. — George Washington

... Weber insists that one should not give up or lose faith in the face of this struggle. Indeed, he calls for us to engage in, rather than withdraw from, the problems of this world. He reminds us, for example, that while 'successful political action is always the "art of the possible" ... the possible is often reached only by striving to attain the impossible that lies beyond it'. — Nicholas Gane

It is because the fight against the harshest aspects of unrestricted capitalism is therefore a political problem and not an intellectual one that community action remains so essential. — Barney Frank

Increasingly in recent times we have come first to identify the remedy that is most agreeable, most convenient, most in accord with major pecuniary or political interest, the one that reflects our available faculty for action; then we move from the remedy so available or desired back to a cause to which that remedy is relevant. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Mindfulness of self: personal moderation to escape mass consumerism Mindfulness of work: the balancing of work and leisure Mindfulness of knowledge: the cultivation of education Mindfulness of others: the exercise of compassion and cooperation Mindfulness of nature: the conservation of the world's ecosystems Mindfulness of the future: the responsibility to save for the future Mindfulness of politics: the cultivation of public deliberation and shared values for collective action through political institutions Mindfulness of the world: the acceptance of diversity as a path to peace This — Jon Kabat-Zinn

It is a political thriller. It's very action packed and it's very exciting, but at the same time it's a very big soulful love story about longing and loss. They're not separate, they're completely dependent on one another. — Rachel Weisz

A political action committee trying to raise money for a 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign is selling "Ready for Hillary" champagne glasses and Christmas ornaments. Because if one thing improves the holidays, it's drinking mixed with politics. — Jimmy Fallon

The urge to distribute wealth equally, and still more the belief that it can be brought about by political action, is the most dangerous of all popular emotions. It is the legitimation of envy, of all the deadly sins the one which a stable society based on consensus should fear the most. The monster state is a source of many evils; but it is, above all, an engine of envy. — Paul Johnson

Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit. — Aristotle.

That's really a part of my nature , it goes along with autonomy and independence of action - it's just that I don't identify with the local group, no matter what it is, whether it's the human species or the American democracy, the nation, the country, religions, political parties, nothing. None of these have my allegiance because I'm not really concerned with what they do. I don't feel a part of any of this. — George Carlin

When the goal of political action is no longer the defense of liberty, no word other than demagoguery can describe the despicable nature of politics. — Ron Paul

As it enters the twenty-first century, the United States is not fundamentally a weak economy, or a decadent society. But it has developed a highly dysfunctional politics. An antiquated and overly rigid political system to begin with - about 225 years old - has been captured by money, special interests, a sensationalist media, and ideological attack groups. The result is ceaseless, virulent debate about trivia - politics as theater - and very little substance, compromise, and action. A "can-do" country is now saddled with a "do-nothing" political process, designed for partisan battle rather than problem solving. By every measure - the growth of special interests, lobbies, pork-barrel spending - the political process has become far more partisan and ineffective over the last three decades. — Fareed Zakaria

Doesn't it seem more reasonable to take action to heal the social pathology that generates crime than to use gun control to blow another political toe off American liberalism during each election cycle? — Joe Bageant

Logic, sometimes has very little to do with political action. — Alexander Mackenzie

Like art, political action gives shape and expression to the things we fear as well as to those we desire. It is a creative process, drawing on the power to imagine as well as to act. — Madeleine M. Kunin

This weekend the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, featured several speakers including Sarah Palin and Phil Robertson from 'Duck Dynasty.' It was a good weekend for conservatives - and a great weekend for wild animals. — Jimmy Fallon

THE ABULON DANCE is an intricate and fast-paced novel of political intrigue and clashing alien cultures. The characterizations are rich, detailed, and subtle, the action engrossing. I finished it in a single sitting. — Robin Wayne Bailey

I'm talking about equalizing the pressure between outer actions and events which are shattering and devastating to us and then the place where we recompose and reconstruct ourselves, where we finally achieve what Jung called the second birth. The second birth is the one that you can make, and the discovery of that to me was always a great relief. As long as we expect the changes to come only from the outside or from action outside or from political systems, then we are bound to feel helpless, to feel sometimes that reality is bigger and stronger than we are. But if suddenly we begin to feel that there is one person we can change, simultaneously we change many people around us. And as a writer I suddenly discovered the enormous radius of influence that one person can have. — Anais Nin

When we black people commit ourselves to living simply as a political action, as a way of breaking the stress caused by unrelenting hedonistic desire for material objects that are not needed for survival, or essential to well-being, we will not be talking about ebonics. We will be out in the streets demanding that the public schools have enough teachers so that all kids, cross color, can read and write in standard English and in Spanish too. — Bell Hooks

Appetite is essentially insatiable, and where it operates as a criterion of both action and enjoyment (that is, everywhere in the Western world since the sixteenth century) it will infallibly discover congenial agencies (mechanical and political) of expression. — Marshall McLuhan

What's now urgently needed [to stop environmental disaster] is the international political commitment to take action to avoid dangerous climate change. — David Miliband

There are some militarists who say: 'We are not interested in politics but only in the profession of arms.' It is vital that these simple-minded militarists be made to realize the relationship that exists between politics and military affairs. Military action is a method used to attain a political goal. While military affairs and political affairs are not identical, it is impossible to isolate one from the other." - Mao Zedong, Yu Chi Chan — Mao Zedong

Wars and conflicts begin in the mind, then they are expressed in words and then executed through physical action, so personal transformation is intricately connected with the social and political transformation. — Satish Kumar

There are many causes why a people politically ignorant cannot be roused to action. Perfect political ignorance must be accompanied by indifference to the general interests of society, and thus one of the most powerful motives which can act on the human mind is totally destroyed. — Benjamin Robbins Curtis

No movement finding itself in this stage of struggle can operate by getting authority from the leading body of the political organs for even minor action that is taken and we don't even know in the case of the actions which have publicize whether they are in fact our people. — Joe Slovo

The aim of all struggles for liberty is to keep in bounds the armed defenders of peace, the governors and their constables. The political concept of the individual's freedom means: freedom from arbitrary action on the part of the police power. — Ludwig Von Mises

If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence. If one sets hundreds of cars on fire, that is political action. — Ulrike Meinhof

If you throw one stone, it's a punishable offence. If 1,000 stones are thrown, it's political action. If you set a car on fire, it's a punishable offence. If hundreds of cars are set on fire, it's political action. Protest is when I say I don't agree with something. Resistance is when I ensure that things with which I disagree no longer take place. — Ulrike Meinhof

The task of the political philosopher can only be to influence public opinion, not to organize people for action. He will do so effectively only if he is not concerned with what is now politically possible but consistently defends the "general principles which are always the same." In this sense I doubt whether there can be such a thing as a conservative political philosophy. Conservatism may often be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

The Founding Fathers were neither passive, death-worshipin g mystics nor mindless, power-seeking looters; as a political group they were a phenomenon unprecedented in history: they were thinkers who were also men of action. — Ayn Rand

The God of Imagination lived in fairytales. And the best fairytales made you fall in love. It was while flicking through "Sleeping Beauty" that I met my first love, Ivar. He was a six-year-old bello ragazzo with blond hair and eyebrows. He had bomb-blue eyes and his two front teeth were missing.
The road to Happily Ever After, however, was paved with political barbed wire. Three things stood in my way.
1. The object of my affection didn't know he was the object of my affection.
2. The object of my affection preferred Action Man to Princess Aurora.
3. The object of my affection was a boy and I wasn't allowed to love a boy. — Diriye Osman

All nations that are civilized and do not accept this kind of action as representing any sort of legitimate political cause are coming together to fight these terrorists. — Colin Powell

You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe. — Edmund Burke

We like to think we're superior to the people who, centuries ago, burned 'witches' for no better reason than a neighbor's belief that his crop failure or impotence was caused by that woman's action. But reporters are still prone to the same mental errors that caused these killings: seeing patterns where there are none, finding causes where there is only coincidence, ignoring our sources' political agendas and turning scanty evidence into panic. — John Stossel

The final result of political action often, no regularly, stands in completely inadequate and often even paradoxical relation to its original meaning. — Max Weber

Three important characteristics of propaganda are that ( l ) it is intentional and purposeful, designed to incite a particular reaction or action in the target audience; (2) it is advantageous to the propagandist or sender which is why advertising, public relations, and political campaigns are considered forms of propaganda; and (3) it is usually one-way and informational (as in a mass media campaign), as opposed to two-way and interactive communication. — Nancy Snow

There ought not be two histories, one of political and moral action and one of political and moral theorizing, because there were not two pasts, one populated only by actions, the other only by theories. Every action is the bearer and expression of more or less theory-laden beliefs and concepts; every piece of theorizing and every expression of belief is a politcal and moral action. — Alasdair McIntyre

Life is a sewer and we are all but swimmers within it. Smart people do the backstroke. (In other words you gotta have a giggle.) — Stephen B. Pearl

However much the theory of political realism may have been misunderstood and misinterpreted, there is no gainsaying its distinctive intellectual and moral attitude to matters political.
Intellectually, the political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere, as the economist, the lawyer, the moralist maintain theirs. He thinks in terms of interest defined as power, as the economist thinks in terms of interest defined as wealth; the lawyer, of the conformity of action with legal rules; the moralist, of the conformity of action with moral principles. The economist asks: "How does this policy affect the wealth of society, or a segment of it?" The lawyer asks: "Is this policy in accord with the rules of law?" The moralist asks: "Is this policy in accord with moral principles?" And the political realist asks: "How does this policy affect the power of the nation? — Hans J. Morgenthau

Our society assigns us a tiny number of roles: We're producers of one thing at work, consumers of a great many things all the rest of the time, and then, once a year or so, we take on the temporary role of citizen and cast a vote. Virtually all our needs and desires we delegate to specialists of one kind or another - our meals to the food industry, our health to the medical profession, entertainment to Hollywood and the media, mental health to the therapist or the drug company, caring for nature to the environmentalist, political action to the politician, and on and on it goes. Before long it becomes hard to imagine doing much of anything for ourselves - anything, that is, except the work we do "to make a living." For everything else, we feel like we've lost the skills, or that there's someone who can do it better ... it seems as though we can no longer imagine anyone but a professional or an institution or a product supplying our daily needs or solving our problems. — Michael Pollan

Middle-class societies don't emerge automatically as an economy matures, they have to be CREATED through political action. — Paul Krugman

Each of us should choose which course of action we must take; education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes, but let it not be said that we did nothing. — Ron Paul

We are so considerate of the minute constitutional rights and even of the political feelings and influence of people whom we have every reason to anticipate with preventive action! ... The Japanese in California should be under armed guard to the last man and woman and to hell with habeas corpus until the danger is over ... — Westbrook Pegler

At this most crucial time in the course of evolution we are all faced with the appalling fact that we may, at any moment, destroy our precious material lives and our wonderful little earth through advanced technological means. With the advance of civilization has developed the ghastly power to destroy all of humanity at the push of a button. We are now on the verge of destroying ourselves utterly from the face of the earth! We have become mere slaves to subhuman types of destructive thinking and action! We are out of control in every direction! More than any other time on earth we are all faced with the potential dangers of political anarchy and ruin, and we are all exposed to the terrific possibility of a Third World War, more hideous than any other war in the history of our planet. What we do at this most crucial time will determine the destinies of humanity for many generations, even centuries, to come. — David Cherubim

All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action. — Jim Butcher

Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner. — James F. Cooper

The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action. — Ron Paul

Without this original, pre-political, and pre-social community, no common project could ever come to exist. For, no project of this kind can be formed independently from its rootedness in the organic structure of desire and action. — Michel Henry

Before Katrina, it was a longstanding tradition in our country for political officials to wait until the last minute to warn, to take action, to evacuate. No more. With Irene, you had mass evacuations - mandatory ones - issued days ahead of time. That was the right thing to do. — Russel Honore

The measure of the wealth of a nation is indicated by the measure of its protection of its industry; the measure of the poverty of a nation is marked by the degree in which it neglects and abandons the care of its own industry, leaving it exposed to the action of foreign powers. — Henry Clay

Bond is the longest-running franchise ever and there's a reason for that: they are action movies but they are also touched by current events without being political or too serious. — Javier Bardem

Power can be thought of as the never-ending, self-feeding motor of all political action that corresponds to the legendary unending accumulation of money that begets money. — Hannah Arendt

It's said the religious right wants to force its faith on the public. But whose faith are we talking about? ... Everyone who operates in the political arena wants to see their morals reflected in our laws and governmental institutions - including the National Organization of Women, the National Abortion Rights Action League, and the American Civil Liberties Union, whether or not they are willing to admit it. — Don Feder

This, then, is the legacy of January 1973. The "me generation" found its voice, religion became a political force, poverty and civil rights became someone else's problem, and the national will for concerted action for the common good of all its citizens was scattered into "a thousand points of light."

At some point, perhaps those scattered lights will re-form and reunite to give birth to a rededicated nation, one that includes a place for everyone, opportunity for all, and help for those who need it. After all, it only takes a moment in time and some simultaneity. As Lyndon Johnson so aptly observed in his greatest speech - the "We Shall Overcome" speech - there are times in America when "history and fate meet at a single time in a single space to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom."

Let us hop such a time is nearing. — James Robenalt