I think General Eisenhower was exactly right, I think we should be con — Wesley Clark

"I think were at a time in American history thats probably analogous to, maybe, Rome before the first emperors, when the Republic started to fall... I think if you look at the pattern of events, if you look at the disputed election of 2000, can you imagine? In America, people are trying to recount ballots and a partisan mob is pounding on the glass and threatening the counters? Can you imagine that? Can you imagine a political party which does its best to keep any representatives from another party — whove even been affiliated with another party — from getting a business job in the nations capital? Can you imagine a political party that wants to redistrict so that its opponents can be driven out entirely?...its a different time in America and the Republic is — this election is about a lot more than jobs. Im not sure everybody in America sees it right now. But I see it, I feel it."

"I am saying what I believe. And Im being drawn into the political process because of what I believe and what Ive said about it. So its precisely the opposite of a man like Tom DeLay, who is only motivated by politics and says whatever he needs to say to get the political purpose. And so, you know, it couldnt be more diametrically opposed, and I couldnt be more opposed than I am to Tom DeLay. You know, Wolf, when our airmen were flying over Kosovo, Tom DeLay led the House Republicans to vote not to support their activities, when American troops were in combat. To me, thats a real indicator of a man who is motivated not by patriotism or support for the troops, but for partisan political purposes."

"Im not running to bash George Bush. A lot of Americans really love him. They love what he represents, a man whos overcome adversity in his life from alcoholism and pulled his marriage back together and — and moved forward. But Im running because I think this country must have better leadership in moving forward."

"I dont have labels. I believe in human beings, I believe in a strong national security, I believe in maximizing freedom... I can give you a whole list of things im for, but I believe in solving problems. I guess, more than anything else, Im a pragmatist with strong beliefs in people."

"I believe in open, honest government, where we hold our leaders accountable. I believe in putting the national interests over the special interests. I believe in putting principle above politics. The bottom line: I believe we can do better. I believe we must do better. And if the systems broke — fix it."

"But you dont have a chance if you cant find a job. I dont think it penetrates the minds of this Administration what it must be like for a factory worker to arrive home to his family with the news that hes been laid off. What it must be like not to know what the future holds for your children, because you dont know what the future holds for you. What it must be like to see the government take hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used to fund job training, unemployment benefits, or jobs programs — and instead to send that money off to people who have such staggering wealth that the new money wont make the tiniest improvement in their lifestyle. What it must be like to be told that tax cuts for the rich are necessary to create jobs for working people, and then to see jobs fall month after month for more than 30 months. If that doesnt break your heart, you dont have a heart."

"As long as you keep getting born, it’s okay to die sometimes."

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that theres free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

"History is a strange experience. The world is quite small now; but history is large and deep. Sometimes you can go much farther by sitting in your own home and reading a book of history, than by getting onto a ship or an airplane and traveling a thousand miles. When you go to Mexico City through space, you find it a sort of cross between modern Madrid and modern Chicago, with additions of its own; but if you go to Mexico City through history, back only 500 years, you will find it as distant as though it were on another planet: inhabited by cultivated barbarians, sensitive and cruel, highly organized and still in the Copper Age, a collection of startling, of unbelievable contrasts."

"As soon as a thought or word becomes a tool, one can dispense with actually ‘thinking’ it, that is, with going through the logical acts involved in verbal formulation of it. As has been pointed out, often and correctly, the advantage of mathematics—the model of all neo-positivistic thinking—lies in just this ‘intellectual economy.’ Complicated logical operations are carried out without actual performance of the intellectual acts upon which the mathematical and logical symbols are based. … Reason … becomes a fetish, a magic entity that is accepted rather than intellectually experienced."

"Our feminist culture at the present moment is completely dependent on capitalism. My grandmother was still scrubbing clothes on the back porch on a washboard!"

"A word of the faith that never balks, Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely. It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all, That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all. (23)"