Dissension Quotes

• Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension. Dissent (which come from the Latin, dis and sentire) means originally to feel apart from others. People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. People may disagree and both may count themselves in the majority. But a person who dissents is by definition in a minority. A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension. Disagreement is the life blood of democracy, dissension is its cancer.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Cancer, Latin, Mean

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• A small state increases by concord; the greatest falls gradually to ruin by dissension.

  Sallust

  Fall, Ruins, Increase

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• Friends now fast sworn,
  Whose double bosoms seems to wear one heart,
  Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise
  Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love,
  Unseparable, shall within this hour,
  On a dissension of a doit, break out
  To bitterest enmity; so fellest foes,
  Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep
  To take the one the other, by some chance,
  Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends
  And interjoin their issues.

  William Shakespeare

  Passion, Heart, Sleep

  William Shakespeare, Lee Bliss (2000). “Coriolanus”, p.221, Cambridge University Press

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• But Satan, the god of all dissension, stirreth up daily new sects, and last of all (which of all other I should never have foreseen or once suspected) he hath raised up a sect of such as teach that the Ten Commandments ought to be taken out of the church, and that men should not be terrified with the law, but gently exerted by the preaching of the grace of Christ.

  Martin Luther

  Men, Law, Grace

  "A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians".

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• In case of dissension, never dare to judge till you've heard the other side.

  Euripides

  Judging, Sides, Cases

  "Heracleidae". Play by Euripides, 430 BCE.

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• All who surrender will be spared; whoever does not surrender but opposes with struggle and dissension, shall be annihilated.

  Genghis Khan

  Struggle, Doe, Surrender

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• A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.

  H. G. Wells

  Time, Peace, War

  H. G. Wells (2012). “The Salvaging of Civilization: The Probable Future of Mankind”, p.32, The Floating Press

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• Dissensions, like small streams, are first begun, Scarce seen they rise, but gather as they run: So lines that from their parallel decline, More they proceed the more they still disjoin.

  Samuel Garth

  Running, Lines, Firsts

  Sir Samuel Garth, Thomas Tickell (1822). “The Poems of Garth, and Tickell”, p.48

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• In Thailand's history there have been dissensions from time to time, but in general, unity has prevailed.

  Bhumibol Adulyadej

  Unity, Thailand, Has Beens

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• ...Americans...automatically equate dissension with disloyalty. They view any criticism of our existing social, economic, and political forms, as sedition and subversion. ...(" The growing reluctance of Americans to criticize, and their increasing tendency to condemn those who, in ever dwindling numbers, will still voice dissent") is disturbing, deplorable, and truly dangerous.

  J. Paul Getty

  Dark, Numbers, Views

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• Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.

  Thorstein Veblen

  Patriotism, Politics, Spirit

  Thorstein Veblen (1994). “Absentee Ownership: Business Enterprise in Recent Times : the Case of America”, p.38, Transaction Publishers

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• It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.

  H. G. Wells

  Peace, War, Men

  "The Salvaging of Civilization".

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• Civil dissension is a viperous worm That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.

  William Shakespeare

  Bowels, Worms, Discord

  William Shakespeare, Michael Taylor (2004). “Henry VI, Part One”, p.167, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

  Howard Zinn

  Patriotism, Mob Rule, Form

  "Dissent In Pursuit Of Equality, Life, Liberty And Happiness: An Interview With Historian Howard Zinn". Interview with Sharon Basco, July 3, 2002.

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• The tyrant, who in order to hold his power, suppresses every superiority, does away with good men, forbids education and light, controls every movement of the citizens and, keeping them under a perpetual servitude, wants them to grow accustomed to baseness and cowardice, has his spies everywhere to listen to what is said in the meetings, and spreads dissension and calumny among the citizens and impoverishes them, is obliged to make war in order to keep his subjects occupied and impose on them permanent need of a chief.

  Aristotle

  War, Men, Light

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• Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Debate, Produce, Dissent

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• Being desirous of allaying the dissensions of party strife now existing within our realm, I do hereby dissolve and abolish the Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby decree the disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than 10, nor less than five, years, to all persons leading to any violation of this our imperial decree.

  Emperor Norton

  Party, Years, Republican

  "Imperial Decree" dated 12th Day of August 1869, published in The San Francisco Herald, August 13, 1869.

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• This pride of race is a quality which the German, fundamentally, does not possess. The reason for this is that for these last three centuries the country has been torn by internal dissension and religious wars and has been subjected to a variety of foreign influences, to the influence, for example, of Christianity-for Christianity is not a natural religion for the Germans, but a religion that has been imported and which strikes no responsive chord in their hearts and is foreign to the inherent genius of the race. (13th February 1945)

  Adolf Hitler

  Country, Religious, War

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• The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Religious, Errors, Atheism

  "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays". Book by Thomas Babington Macaulay Baron Macaulay, p. 60, 1843.

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• I am weary of your quarrels, Weary of your wars and bloodshed, Weary of your prayers for vengeance, Of your wranglings and dissensions

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Prayer, War, Vengeance

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1871). “The poetical works of Henry W. Longfellow, ed. with a critical memoir by W.M. Rossetti, illustr. by W. Lawson. Illustr. by E. Edwards”, p.173

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• Help and not fight. Assimilation and not destruction. Harmony and Peace and not dissension.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Fighting, Helping, Harmony

  Swami Vivekananda (2016). “Vivekananda Reader”, p.150, Advaita Ashrama (A publication branch of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math)

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• Defeat Them in Detail: The Divide and Conquer Strategy. Look at the parts and determine how to control the individual parts, create dissension and leverage it.

  Robert Greene

  Details, Looks, Defeat

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• From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Liberty, Arise

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• The more you lose, the more positive you have to become. When you're winning, you can ride players harder because their self-esteem is high. If you are losing and you try to be tough, you're asking for dissension.

  Rick Pitino

  Basketball, Self Esteem, Winning

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• In comedy, reconcilement with life comes at the point when to the tragic sense only an inalienable difference or dissension with life appears.

  Constance Rourke

  Differences, Comedy, Tragic

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