Smart Mouths 71

Collected by Staff of Magellan's Log

A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion, or a political party.
–Henry Wallace, New York Times, 1944. (Read the entire column here: http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/082103F.shtml)

After all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship ... That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
–Hermann Goering.

Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
–Mark Twain.

There are no longer battles, or Auschwitzes. But anyplace can become an Auschwitz. ‘I kill, therefore I am’ is the motto of the new generation of murderers.
–André Glucksmann, on the significance of 9-11.

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilise, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires.
–Edward Said, The Guardian, August 2, 2003.

My, my. Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains.
–Humphrey Bogart, in The Big Sleep.

The irrational hope of youth and the irrational bitterness of age arise from the same misapprehension of the world.
–Douglas Milburn.

Forgiveness is the finding again of a lost possession; hatred, an extended suicide.
–Friedrich Schiller

If they play badly, I feel terrible; if they play well, I feel worse.
–Artur Rubenstein, when asked why he never listened to other pianists.

Attention Deficit Disorder is not just a disease, it's a lifestyle.
–Marty Yudkovitz, president of TiVo.

Feel, feel, I say--feel for all you're worth.
–Henry James.

The desperate truth of Lolita's story is not the rape of a twelve-year-old by a dirty old man, but the confiscation of one individual's life by another.... Nabokov, through his portrayal of Humbert, had exposed all solipsists who take over other people's lives.
–Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran.