Quotes From Infamous People

brought to you by:  Dave Williams
This page: www.bacomatic.org/~dw/infamous.htm
Main page: http://www.bacomatic.org/~dw/index.htm
Last Updated: 16 Jul 2003

Author: Dave Williams; dlwilliams=aristotle=net


One of my defining traits is that I read. I've averaged about a book a day for the last thirty years. In the last few years I've been reading quite a bit of history. This has led me to find some interesting thoughts from people you ordinarily wouldn't listen to. I've been going, "hm, that's interesting" when I came across them, but now I'll be adding them to this page as I encounter them. - dw


"Marx visualized that the abolition of classes would lead to the gradual reduction of the state apparatus. However, this is not the case and is better observed than contemplated. The state, rather, becomes more extensive in that while the powers of the central ministries are delegated, they are not reduced in the dividing organ of state power into smaller units at lower levels so although some ministers have actually disappeared in Moscow they have become more entrenched than ever at lower levels. Thus in dividing power you multiply units and in everyday life you become more and more dependent on these organs of state power. Wherever you turn you meet them and they touch the lives of the people more and more."

- Lee Harvey Oswald, from his journal, "Historic Diary", circa 1962, while living in the Soviet Union. From: "Portrait of the Assassin", copr. 1965, by Rep. Gerald R. Ford and John R. Stiles, from documents presented to the Warren Commission on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy



"Then the other mystery is this other man - Ruby - who had no moral conditions, qualifications, no political ideals, no political passions, becomes so enraged by Kenney's assassination that he kills the assassin right in front of the police. It was incredible, inconceivable. That does not happen even in the most mediocre movies."

- Fidel Castro, from "With Fidel", by Frank Mankiewicz and Percy Jones, 1975, p.167.



"When I am asked, as I often am, what advice to give a young person just starting out in life, I always say: learn to study. At a time of universal literacy, furthermore, when we are inundated with information, we must be able to select what is right for ourselves, if we are to try to make a life that is of service to the community."

- Andrei Gromyko, "Memoirs", copr. 1989. Gromyko served in the Soviet diplomatic corps from the beginning of WWII until 1985, when he became Chairman of the Presidium (President of the USSR). Comrade Gromyko, acting as the visible face of the Soviet Union, bore personal responsibility for much of what we remember as the Cold War. In his memoir, he claimed he was personally responsible for sabotaging the formation of the United Nations by using his position in the Soviet delegation to block the creation of any effective UN military force.



"In preparing for battle I have found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

- Nikita Khruschev, as told to Vice President Richard Nixon during his visit to Moscow in 1959. From "Six Crises," copr. 1962, Richard M. Nixon.



"Whoever possesses the house you dwell in, the vehicle you ride or the income you live on, takes hold of your freedom, or part of your freedom, and freedom is indivisible. For man to be happy, he must be free, and to be free, man must possess his own needs.

Whoever possesses your needs controls or exploits you. He may enslave you despite any legislation outlawing that.

The material needs of man that are basic, necessary and personal, start with food, housing, clothing and transport... These must be within his private and sacred ownership. They are not to be hired from any quarter. To obtain them through rent or hire allows the real owners, even society in general, to interfere in his private life, to have control over his basic needs, and then to dominate his freedom and to deprive him of his happiness."

- Mu'ammar Qaddafi, from his 'Green Book' outlining his thoughts on the ideals of society. Most of it comes out looking like a fairly straight crib from the early works of V.I. Lenin with a dash of Josef Goebbels.



"Complacency is the enemy of study. We cannot really learn anything until we rid ourselves of complacency. Our attitude towards ourselves should be "to be insatiable in learning" and towards others "to be tireless in teaching."

- Mao Tse-Tung, "The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War" (October 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 210, verbatim from the second edition of "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung", printed in Peking in 1967.



"Better an end to terror than terror without end."

- Adolf Hitler, from the transcripts of his meeting with Prime Minister Chamberlain at Godesberg, September 23, 1939, in reference to his planned use of the Heer to "liberate" ethnic Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia.



"The most universal measure ever taken for the limitation of armaments was the Red Cross agreement when the Powers decided they would not revert to actions which used to be, at one time, general, such as the killing of prisoners &c. It was only possible because the whole world agreed to it."

- Adolf Hitler, from the transcripts of his meetings with Prime Minister Chamberlain at Munich, September 30, 1939. This was the infamous "Munich Conference" where Germany, England, France, and Italy divided up Czechoslovakia and informed the Czechs of their decision afterward.



"I know people who read interminably, book after book, from page to page, and yet I would not call them 'well-read people'. Of course they 'know' an immense amount; but their brain seems incapable of assorting and classifying the material they have gathered from books. They have not the faculty of distinguishing between what is useful and useless in a book; so that they may retain the former in their minds and if possible skip over the latter while reading it, if that be not possible, then - when once read - throw it overboard as useless ballast. Reading is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its chief purpose is to help towards filling in the framework which is made up of the talents and capabilities that each individual possesses. Thus each one procures for himself the implements and materials necessary for the fulfillment of his calling in life, no matter whether this might be the elementary task of earning one's daily bread or a calling that responds to higher human aspirations. Such is the first purpose of reading. And the second purpose is to give a general knowledge of the world in which we live. In both cases, however, the material which one has acquired through reading must not be stored in the memory on a plan that corresponds to the successive chapters of the book; but each little piece of knowledge thus gained must be treated as if it were a little stone to be inserted into a mosaic, so that it finds its proper place among all the other pieces and particles that help to form a general world-picture in the brain of the reader. Otherwise only a confused jumble of chaotic notions will result from all this reading. That jumble is not merely useless, but it also tends to make the unfortunate possessor of it conceited. For he seriously considers himself a well-educated person and thinks that he understands the meaning of life. He believes that he has acquired knowledge, whereas that every increase in such 'knowledge' draws him more and more away from real life, until he finally ends up in some sanitarium or takes to politics and becomes a parliamentary deputy."

- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", British (James Murphy) translation of 1939.



"You all know what a volt is and an ampere, don't you? Right. But do you know what a goebbels, a goering are? A goebbels is the amount of nonsense a man can speak in an hour and a goering is the amount of metal that can be pinned on a man's breast."

- Adolf Hitler, at a party thrown by Frau Freidline Wagner, from "The Mind of Adolf Hitler", by Walter S. Langer, 1972; the book is a reprint of the psychological analysis of Hitler that Langer did for the OSS in 1943.



"A man who possesses the art of correct reading will, in studying any book, magazine, or pamphlet, instinctively and immediately perceive everything which in his opinion is worth permanently remembering, either because it is suited to his purpose or generally worth knowing ... Then, if life suddenly sets some question before us for examination or answer, the memory, if this method of reading is observed ... will derive all the individual items regarding these questions, assembled in the course of decades, [and] submit them to the mind for examination and reconsideration, until the question is clarified or answered."

- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf."



"He who does not carry demonic seeds within him will never give birth to a new world."

- Ernst Schertel, "Magic: History, Theory and Practice," 1923 edition. Schertel was Germany's equivalent of Aliester Crowley.
The above passage was heavily underscored in Adolf Hitler's copy of the book, from the collection of ex-Hitler volumes at Brown University, as reported by Timothy W. Reiback of the Atlantic Monthly, May 2003.



Return to Dave's page