Threat Quotes - Page 16

• For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men by force or threat of force could long defy the commands of our court and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors.

  John F. Kennedy

  Country, Powerful, Men

  "Radio and Television Report to the Nation on the Situation at the University of Mississippi". September 30, 1962.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of
  leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.

  Eric Hoffer

  Order, Intellectual, Economy

  Eric Hoffer (1963). “The Ordeal of Change”

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?

  Ronald Reagan

  War, Thinking, Differences

  United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), Ronald Reagan (1982). “Ronald Reagan”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Okay, so what we really have to recognize and own as Americans is that our way of being is itself perhaps the greatest threat to the continuation of civilization.

  Jerry Brown

  Civilization, Way, Okay

  Interview with Paolo Soleri, www.wtp.org. December 8, 1995.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man, at one time, also was a very little man, but he developed one important ability: he learned to see where he was small in his thinking, and actions. Under the pressure of some task which was dear to him he learned better and better to sense the threat that comes from his smallness and pettiness. The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man.

  Wilhelm Reich

  Men, Thinking, Important

  "Listen, Little Man!". Book by Wilhelm Reich, 1948.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Anyone who is a Palestinian citizen, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, should decide together in a very free referendum. There is no need for war. There is no need for threats or an atom bomb either.

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

  Christian, War, Together

  "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: An Interview with Iran's Agitator". Interview with Scott Macleod, content.time.com. December 25, 2006.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• When external and internal forces hostile to the development of socialism try to turn the development of a given socialist country in the direction of the restoration of the capitalist system, when a threat arises to the cause of socialism in that country ... this is no longer merely a problem for that country's people, but a common problem, the concern of all socialist countries.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Country, Socialist Countries, People

  Speech at the 5th Congress of the Polish United Workers Party (12 November 1968), quoted in "The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy" by Matthew J. Ouimet, 2003.

  58 Copy quote

  Show source

• Central bankers always try to avoid their last big mistake. So every time there's the threat of a contraction in the economy, they'll over stimulate the economy, by printing too much money. The result will be a rising roller coaster of inflation, with each high and low being higher than the preceding one.

  Milton Friedman

  Mistake, Trying, Bankers

  6 Copy quote

• Fire hath its force abated by water, not by wind; and anger must be allayed by cold words, and not by blustering threats.

  Anne Bradstreet

  Anger, Fire, Wind

  Anne Bradstreet, Jeannine Hensley (1967). “The works of Anne Bradstreet”, Belknap Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Be prudent, and if you hear, * * * some insult or some threat, * * * have the appearance of not hearing it.

  George Sand

  Hearing, Prudent, Insult

  10 Copy quote

• The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Attitude, Views, Order

  "Freedom from Fear". Book by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Only the force of American arms, or the extremely credible threat of that force, can bring a fresh face to power.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Arms, Faces, Force

  Simon Cottee, Thomas Cushman, Christopher Hitchens (2008). “Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left”, p.5248, NYU Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The U.S. came to understand that Bhutto was not a threat to stability but was instead the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact.

  Benazir Bhutto

  Guarantees, Bhutto, Way

  6 Copy quote

• A person can meet anxiety to the extent that his values are stronger than the threat.

  Rollo May

  Anxiety, Stronger, Persons

  "Psychology and the Human Dilemma". Book by Rollo May, p. 51, 1967.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth . The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov . It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing," and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Thinking, Sticks, Muttering

  15 Copy quote

• The salient mystery of Dark Ages sets the stage for mass amnesia. People living in vigorous cultures typically treasure those cultures and resist any threat to them. How and why can a people so totally discard a formerly vital culture that it becomes vitally lost?

  Jane Jacobs

  Dark, People, Age

  "Dark Age Ahead". Book by Jane Jacobs, Chapter One, The Hazard, p. 4, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Strength, the American way, is not manifested by threats of criminal prosecution or police state methods.
  Leadership is not manifested by coercion, even against the resented. Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any methods.

  Margaret Chase Smith

  Mean, Greatness, Police

  "Declaration of Conscience‎" by Margaret Chase Smith, (p. 293), 1972.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do we know what practices would be effective in resisting aliens? Wouldn't the public have to be convinced, in all countries, that there is such a threat? When have the major nations on this planet shown they can agree on any military course of action? Earthlings are already spending a trillion dollars a year on things military. Where would the money come from? Krugman seems to be suggesting more lies are what is needed. How about everybody cutting their military budgets in half and feeding people instead?

  Stanton T. Friedman

  Country, Military, Lying

  8 Copy quote

• We should never go to war unless we have been attacked or are under direct, immediate threat of attack. Never. And never again.

  Joe Klein

  War, Should, Direct

  "Iraq: Requiem for a Profound Misadventure". content.time.com. August 05, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is the elephant in all our rooms? It is the global triumph of capitalism. Democracy is fiercely disputed. Freedom is under threat even in old-established democracies such as Britain. Western supremacy is on the skids. But everyone does capitalism. Americans and Europeans do it. Indians do it. Russian oligarchs and Saudi princes do it. Even Chinese communists do it... Karl Marx would be turning in his grave. Or perhaps not, since some of his writings eerily foreshadowed our era of globalised capitalism. His prescription failed but his description was prescient.

  Timothy Garton Ash

  Writing, Elephants, Chinese

  "Global capitalism now has no serious rivals. But it could destroy itself" by Timothy Garton Ash, www.theguardian.com. February 21, 2007.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• America has shown we are serious about removing the threat of weapons of mass destruction... We now know that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction.... We know he had the necessary infrastructure because we found the labs and the dual-use facilities that could be used for these chemical and biological agents. We know that he was developing the delivery systems - ballistic missiles - that had been prohibited by the United Nations.

  Dick Cheney

  Mass Destruction, America, Use

  "Vice president urges Congress to make tax cuts permanent". usatoday30.usatoday.com. February 16, 2004.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The threat of mutually assured destruction worked for the United States during the Cold War because it had proved its willingness to drop nuclear bombs on enemy cities at the end of World War II. It might work less well for Israel, because the Israeli Air Force has never deliberately targeted a large civilian population center, and its leaders have said its morality would not permit it do so.

  Alan Dershowitz

  War, Air, Israel

  "Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways". Book by Alan Dershowitz, February 17, 2006.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its Director General. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which ensures that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the Director General has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime.

  Mohamed ElBaradei

  Military, Expression, Wish

  "Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to IAEA and Director General". www.iaea.org. October 07, 2005.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Israel is the number one rogue state threat to Middle Eastern peace with its nuclear arms and acts of outright aggression towards its peaceful neighbours Syria and Lebanon - and genocidal actions against the marginalised Palestinians of the West Bank - and Gaza in particular.

  Mohamed ElBaradei

  Israel, Numbers, Peaceful

  "IAEA Chief: Israel the Real Rogue Nuclear State". glossynews.com. October 08, 2009.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Liberty is only valued when it is threatened, therefore it is the threat that highlights the value. We should be grateful to the Nadir, since they heighten the value of our liberty.

  David Gemmell

  Grateful, Liberty, Nadir

  "Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde". Book by David Gemmell, Ch. 9, May 1, 1988.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source