Genocide Quotes - Page 13

• I was a supporter of the desire, in my section of Nigeria, to leave the federation because it was treated very badly with something that was called genocide in those days.

  Chinua Achebe

  Desire, Treated, Federation

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• When it comes to explaining human thought and behavior, the possibility that heredity plays any role at all still has the power to shock. To acknowledge human nature, many think, is to endorse racism, sexism, war, greed, genocide, nihilism, reactionary politics, and neglect of children and the disadvantaged. Any claim that the mind has an innate organization strikes people not as a hypothesis that might be incorrect but as a thought it is immoral to think.

  Steven Pinker

  Children, War, Thinking

  Steven Pinker (2003). “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, p.14, Penguin

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• The modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top

  Sarah Vowell

  Aztec, Cacao, Cafes

  Sarah Vowell (2003). “The Partly Cloudy Patriot”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

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• More girls were killed in the last 50 years, precisely because they were girls, than men killed in all the wars in the 20th century. More girls are killed in this routine gendercide in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century. The equivalent of 5 jumbo jets worth of women die in labor each day... life time risk of maternal death is 1,000x higher in a poor country than in the west. That should be an international scandal.

  Nicholas D. Kristof

  Girl, Country, War

  "Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide". Book by Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 8, 2008.

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• Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building.

  Philip Gourevitch

  Exercise, Community, Building

  Philip Gourevitch (2015). “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Picador Classic”, p.72, Pan Macmillan

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• No one who has studied Western history can cling to the belief that the Nazis invented genocide.

  Wallace Stegner

  Belief, Nazi, Western

  Wallace Stegner (2000). “Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier”, p.78, Penguin

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• Everybody has a job to do. There are people in Iraq on both sides of this war who do what they do for religious reasons, and they feel with God on their side. Some people are good at annihilating people. Maybe that's their gift.

  Denzel Washington

  Religious, Jobs, War

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• The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as the generation gap.

  Spiro T. Agnew

  Past, Gaps, Generations

  Spiro T. Agnew (1970). “Frankly speaking: a collection of extraordinary speeches”

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• The whole Indian thing, I always say it's really the American holocaust. It's something we need to look at.

  Skeet Ulrich

  Holocaust, Needs, Looks

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• The Holocaust committed by the Nazis turned this country, where most of the European Jews used to live and where their culture used to flourish, into a massive grave. This is why initiatives to revive Jewish culture in Poland is so important.

  Marek Belka

  Country, Holocaust, Important

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• The world has never been as divided as it is now, what with religious wars, genocides, a lack of respect for the planet, economic crisis, depression, poverty, with everyone wanting instant solutions to at least some of the world's problems or their own. And things only look bleaker as we head into future.

  Paulo Coelho

  Religious, War, Looks

  Paulo Coelho (2011). “Aleph”, p.1, HarperCollins UK

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• And in "Elbow Room" the cast sings the glories of westward expansion in the United States, which involved the murder of native peoples and the violent conquest of half of Mexico. Among the lines in the song is one that intones, "There were plenty of fights / To win land right / But the West was meant to be / It was our Manifest Destiny?" Let it suffice to say that happily belting out a tune in which one merrily praises genocide is always easier for those whose ancestors weren't on the receiving end of the deal.

  Tim Wise

  Song, Fighting, Winning

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• In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because you had systematic murder, like the Holocaust.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  War, Passion, Holocaust

  "An Interview with Ryszard Kapuscinski: Writing about Suffering". Interview With Thomas Wolfe, quod.lib.umich.edu. 1998.

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• For nearly a century, the moral relativism of science has given faith-based religion--that great engine of ignorance and bigotry--a nearly uncontested claim to being the only universal framework for moral wisdom. As a result, the most powerful societies on early spend their time debating issues like gay marriage when they should be focused on problems like nuclear proliferation, genocide, energy security, climate change, poverty, and failing schools.

  Sam Harris

  Powerful, School, Ignorance

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• When there were financial difficulties they still managed to provide us with music and art lessons.

  Jerome Isaac Friedman

  Art, Lessons, Financial

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• I'd like to teach Iraq about Democracy because we're so experienced with it. First they should know that after 100 years they should free their slaves. Then after 150 years they should give their women the right to vote. Oh, and of course when they start it all they should begin with some genocide and ethnic cleansing.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Life, Years, Iraq

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• Except for the scale of the operation, there was nothing unusual about Hitler's massacre of the Jews. Genocide's an old tradition, as human as mother love or cherry pie.

  Edward Abbey

  Mother, Pie, Tradition

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.22, RosettaBooks

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• Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral - that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings. This explains why Christians like yourself expend more "moral" energy opposing abortion than fighting genocide. It explains why you are more concerned about human embryos than about the lifesaving promise of stem-cell research. And it explains why you can preach against condom use in sub-Saharan Africa while millions die from AIDS there each year. (25)

  Sam Harris

  Christian, Fighting, Condom Use

  Sam Harris (2006). “Letter to a Christian Nation”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

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• The history of the genocide perpetrated during the Second World War does not belong to the past only. It is a ‘living history’ that concerns us all, regardless of our background, culture, or religion. Other genocides have occurred after the Holocaust, on several continents. How can we draw better lessons from the past?

  Irina Bokova

  War, Past, Holocaust

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• Only you can prevent the genocide of the imagination.

  Rob Brezsny

  Creativity, Imagination

  Rob Brezsny (2005). “Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings”, p.10, Frog Books

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• Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top.

  Sarah Vowell

  Aztec, Office, Waiting

  "The Partly Cloudy Patriot". Book by Sarah Vowell, 2001.

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• To think that the new economy is over is like somebody in London in 1830 saying the entire industrial revolution is over because some textile manufacturers in Manchester went broke.

  Alvin Toffler

  Business, Thinking, Textiles

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• The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Real, Knowledge, Principles

  "Treasury of Wisdom, Wit and Humor, Odd Comparisons and Proverbs". Book by Adam Woolever, 1891.

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• There was a genocide unfolding against Bosnian Muslims and we, in the United Kingdom, were incredibly angered - a teenager at the time, 15 years old, so my young teenage mind processed that in a way typical to the very passionate and angry and black-and-white way that teenagers often can do.

  Maajid Nawaz

  Teenage, Black And White, Years

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• When ISIS last year called for the destruction of the Yazidi people, President Obama said that would constitute genocide and he ordered U.S. forces to keep it from happening. Human rights advocates say Christians now face a similar threat Nina Shea directs the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute.

  Tom Gjelten

  Christian, Religious, Rights

  "As Christians Flee, Governments Pressured To Declare ISIS Guilty Of Genocide". "Morning Edition" with David Greene, www.npr.org. December 24, 2015.

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