Daniel Ellsberg Quotes

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• I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Decision, Citizens, Answers

  53 Copy quote

• For an American to be patriotic is to be loyal to the principles of our Constitution, and the First Amendment. The truth is that the policies of the government is sometimes in conflict with that. In our country, patriotism should not be defined as obedience to an authority.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Country, Patriotic, Government

  "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers". PBS Live Chat, www.pbs.org. October 5, 2010.

  58 Copy quote

• The courage we need is not the fortitude to be obedient in the service of an unjust war, to help conceal lies, to do our job for a boss who has usurped power and is acting as an outlaw government. It is the courage at last to face honestly the truth and reality of what we are doing in the world and act responsibly to change it.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Jobs, War, Lying

  47 Copy quote

• Look, all administrations, all governments lie, all officials lie and nothing they say is to be believed. That's a pretty good rule.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Lying, Hero, Government Lies

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• We need the courage to face the truth about what we are doing in the world and act responsibly to change it.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Needs, World, Faces

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• In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Years, Nsa, Important

  "Edward Snowden: saving us from the United Stasi of America" by Daniel Ellsberg, www.theguardian.com. June 10, 2013.

  56 Copy quote

• It's true that most people find it far more comfortable to trust an authority than to have their faith questioned.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  People, Authority, Comfortable

  Live Chat with Ellsberg and Filmmakers, www.pbs.org. October 5, 2010.

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• You needn't think there is nothing you can do-you can tell the truth.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Truth, Thinking, Telling The Truth

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• There should be at least one leak like the Pentagon Papers every year.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Hero, Years, Paper

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• It is a tribute to the American people that our leaders perceived that they had to lie to us, it is not a tribute to us that we were so easily misled.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Lying, People, Leader

  "Blowback Strikes US" by Larry Mosqueda, www.counterpunch.org. September 18, 2001.

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• It's naive and even irresponsible for a grownup today to get her or his information about foreign policy and war and peace exclusively from the administration in power. It's essential to have other sources of information, to check those against one's own common sense, and to form your own judgment as to whether we ought to go to or persist in war.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  War, Common Sense, Information

  21 Copy quote

• EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Wikileaks, Paper, Assange

  News release, www.ellsberg.net. December 8, 2010.

  12 Copy quote

• But it is important always to keep in mind that the danger of harming humans is not connected only or even mainly with telling secrets, there can be great danger in keeping secrets.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Keeping Secrets, Mind, Important

  Live Chat with Ellsberg and Filmmakers, www.pbs.org. October 5, 2010.

  28 Copy quote

• The fact is that when it comes to judgment as to what should be secret and what should not be secret, Julian Assange's judgment has been pretty good so far.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Beauty, Hero, Secret

  CNN Larry King Live, transcripts.cnn.com. July 26, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• I see Edward Snowden as someone who has chosen, at best, exile from the country he loves-with a serious risk of his assassination by agents of his government or life in prison (in solitary confinement)-to awaken us to the danger of our loss of democracy to a total-surveilla nce state

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Country, Loss, Government

  26 Copy quote

• This wholesale invasion of Americans’ and foreign citizens’ privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we’re trying to protect.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Trying, Liberty, Doe

  "Edward Snowden: Saving Us From the United Stasi of America". www.theguardian.com. June 10, 2013.

  16 Copy quote

• We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Stupid, Arrogant, Foolish

  "'The Sixties: The Years That Shaped a Generation'". The Washington Post Live Q&As, www.washingtonpost.com. September 29, 2005.

  19 Copy quote

• If monarchy is corrupting - and it is - wait till you see what overt empire does to us.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Hero, Waiting, Doe

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• If there's another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Country, War, Hero

  29 Copy quote

• The effect of that is to poison the flow of information to the President himself and to create a situation where a President can be almost, to use a metaphor, psychotically divorced from the realities in which he is acting.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Reality, Church, President

  Daniel Ellsberg (1972). “Papers on the war”, Pocket

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• It is time for the rest of the world to join ... in demanding that ALL the nuclear weapons states -including Israel, India and Pakistan, but above all the US and Russia - negotiate concrete steps on a definite time-table toward the global, inspected abolition of nuclear weapons.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Russia, Israel, India And Pakistan

  54 Copy quote

• There are two types of courage involved with what I did. When it comes to picking up a rifle, millions of people are capable of doing that, as we see in Iraq or Vietnam. But when it comes to risking their careers, or risking being invited to lunch by the establishment, it turns out that's remarkably rare.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Hero, Careers, Two

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• Truth-telling to Congress and the public is not disloyal in America: it is an expression of the higher loyalty officials owe to the Constitution, the rule of law, and the sovereign public. It is a courageous, patriotic, and effective way to serve our country. The time to speak out is now.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Loyalty, Country, Time

  8 Copy quote

• President Johnson put destroyers in harm's way in the Tonkin Gulf not only once, but several times, with the, with a lot of his people hoping that it would lead to a confrontation and claiming that it had. And could have resulted in the lost of many lives in the course of it.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  People, President, Way

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• Nixon did have a secret plan, and I knew that it involved making threats of nuclear war to North Vietnam.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  War, Ghouls, Secret

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