Henry David Thoreau

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, an they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.

Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling ones pulse and taking ones temperature. I see that a speaker at the week-end said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture.

World War II was fought for the abolition of racial exclusiveness, equality of nations and the integrity of their territories, liberation of enslaved nations and restoration of their sovereign rights, the right of every nation to arrange its affairs as it wishes, economic aid to nations that have suffered and assistance to them in attaining their material welfare, restoration of democratic liberties, and destruction of the Hitlerite regime.

When we went into World War II, I was a tractor driver then. I drove tractors on the plantation. So when they start calling people my age, 18, up, I was one they called.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.

On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days, on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.

A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

The enemy is in front of us, the enemy is behind us, the enemy is to the right and to the left of us. They can’t get away this time!

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.