Current Events Quotes

“It turns out that one can perpetrate all manner of heinous villainy under a cloak of courtesy and good cheer. . .a man will forfeit all sensible self-interest if he finds you affable enough to share your company over a flagon of ale.”
― Christopher Moore, Fool

“The cemeteries are full of indispensable men.”
― Charles de Gaulle

“The news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart. Without borders nations appeared to be becoming somewhat illusory, and people were questioning what role they had to play.”
― Mohsin Hamid, Exit West

“The problem is people weaseling out of the growth. We are addicted to not being inconvenienced by reality. Even in mundane circumstances.”
― Lindy West, The Witches Are Coming

“When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.”
― E.B. White, One Man's Meat

“Also unfortunately, Congress is far too busy asking if baseball players are really as strong as they seem and trying to choke bankers with wads of cash to grant more funds to such trifling matters as the avoidance of space bullets, so they won't give NASA the money”
― Robert Brockway

“To not know is bad. To not want to know is worse.”
― David Rogers Webb, The Great Taking

“it seems to me that one of the truths about history that needs to be made clear to a student or to a reader is that nothing ever had to happen the way it happened. History could have gone off in any number of different directions in any number of different ways at almost any point, just as your own life can. You never know. One thing leads to another. Nothing happens in a vacuum, Actions have consequences....

And just as we don't know how things are going to turn out for us, those who went before us didn't either. It's all too easy to stand on the mountaintop as a historian or biographer and find fault with people for why they did this or didn't do that, because we're not involved in it, we're not there inside it, we're not confronting what we don't know--as those who preceded us were.”
― David McCullough, The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For

“There is no instance, in all history, of the human will and intellect having perfected any great moral reform by methods which it adapted to that end; but the progress of the world, at every step, leaves some evil or wrong on the path behind it, which the wisest of mankind, of their own set purpose, could never have found the way to rectify.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“I've never been good with current events, she told us. I always keep getting bogged down with simple things, like 'why are we here?”
― Brian Andreas, Theories of Everything

“How can you not be involved? These are your times, your world, even if those events are on the other side of it. And as for the narrative--you are a part of that, for better or for worse, whether the grey inexorable economic inevitabilities--recessions and recoveries and having less money or more--or the grand perilous global story.”
― Penelope Lively, Ammonites And Leaping Fish: A Life In Time

“More and more people are saying 'no' to government lies, corporate greed, and a slavish media.

The silenced majority is finding its voice.”
― Amy Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them

“It's about who feels safe in public spaces and who doesn't... which is to say it's about everything.
There's so much talk right now about being on the wrong side or the right side of history.
The truth is, that we have no idea whether the things we do are going to land us on the wrong side or the right side.”
― Lindy West, The Witches Are Coming

“In the anti-Communist atmosphere of the Cold War, U.S. support of right-wing military dictatorships -Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Manuel Odria in Peru, and Marcos Pérez Jiménez in Venezuela - at the expense of outspoken nationalists or left-wing regimes, was rationalized in the name of national security.”
― Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life

“Museums alone cannot ease the tensions that come from the debates surrounding the fluidity of national identity in the twenty-first century. Nor can any cultural institution solve the problems of poverty, racial injustice, and police violence. But museums can contribute to understanding by creating spaces where debates are spirited but reasoned. Where contemporary challenges are addressed through contextualization and education.”
― Lonnie G. Bunch III, A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump

“there were at least three that we know of, public efforts and proposals by Russia to be considered for Nato membership, begin the process. And all of those were turned down. So the prospect moving forward was of Nato being the non-Russia, the security organization aimed at Excluding Russia from European security.... as John Mearsheimer will tell you, it's not about what people claim, it's about what the other side believes that you might do to them.”
― Nicolai N. Petro

“Are you provoking your sister again, Flavia," Father asked, looking up from his journal, but leaving a forefinger on the page to mark his place.
"I was trying to discuss current events," I said. "But she doesn't seem much interested."
"Ah," Father said, and went back to reading about plate flaws in the 1840 tuppenny blue.”
― Alan Bradley, A Red Herring Without Mustard

“To understand what kind of filter our reporter's mind is, we must ask a series of questions about it. This amounts to asking a series of questions about any material dealing with current events. The questions are these:
1. What does the author want to prove?
2. Whom does he want to convince?
3. What special knowledge does he assume?
4. What special language does he use?
5. Does he really know what he is talking about?

[How to Read a Book (1972), P. 244]”
― Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

“So it seems that the only way for terrorists to win is if its victims overreact, dismantle civil liberties and blame whole groups for the actions of a few. Doing so stirs up the very conflicts that the terrorists seek and makes it easier to recruit terrorists and continue the battle (103).”
― Johan Norberg, Progress - Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future

“It is clearly in evidence that the science of creating and transmitting public opinion under the influence of collective emotion is about to become the principle science of civilization to the mastery of which all governments and all powerful interests will in the future address themselves with every resource at their command.”
― Benjamin Kidd

“I had always believed that the [Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture] should be a safe haven that helps Americans wrestle with and better understand the difficult current issues of race, justice, and equality. In essence, the museum is a bully pulpit that provides NMAAHC with the opportunity and responsibility to clarify and contextualize concerns that often divide or perplex the American public.... I think it is important for NMAAHC, for the Smithsonian, to engage in the public square in a manner that brings reason, knowledge, and contextualization to the contemporary challenges faced by America. Actions like this are not without risk to an institution that operates within a federal umbrella. Yet I believe that museums like NMAAHC have an obligation to use their expertise, their platform, to contribute to the greater good of a nation.”
― Lonnie G. Bunch III, A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump

“I hope that the [Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture] never retreats from embracing controversy and, no matter how multifaceted or incendiary the issue, NMAAHC will strive to help the public find contextualization and common ground in a safe and civil environment. I trust that the museum will always be a bully pulpit where boldness and innovation are more than just words. And to use that platform to combat the creeping sense of selective historical amnesia that limits America's ability to understand its past, and itself. I hope that NMAAHC will always celebrate its diverse staff in ways that nurture, protect, and challenge. And it is my hope that the museum will prod and remind other cultural entities, both within and outside of the Smithsonian, that the ultimate goal is to make a people, make a country better.”
― Lonnie G. Bunch III, A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump

“It is the pinnacle of arrogance to assume that whatever it is that “the experts” believe now is in fact the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Scientists have believed and public health officials have promoted many wrong things over the years, for both honorable, and not so honorable reasons. Sometimes the public health message is dead wrong.”
― Heather E. Heying

“Fiecare timp ar trebui judecat dupa faptele care l-au aprins.”
― Doina Ruști, Mâța Vinerii

“I was a lapsing Christian, but in what direction was I lapsing? To nowhere, to nothingness. As absurd as the church was, it was an improvement over my actual life because there was at least a pretense of meaning there. Back in New York, I was just eating and taking up space, a depraved postmodern creature on the job, carrying pebbles up the media anthill.”
― Matt Taibbi, The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire

“... Americans were now supposed to make their own sense of the world. There was no dependable authority left to turn to, no life raft in the increasingly perilous informational sea. This coincided with an age when Americans now needed to understand more of the world than ever before. A factory worker in suburban Ohio now needed to understand the cultures of places like Bangalore and Beijing if he wanted to know why he'd lost his job. Which, incidentally, he probably had. Now broke, or under severe financial pressure, with no community leaders, no community, no news he can trust, Joe American has to turn on the Internet and tell himself a story that makes sense to him.
What story is he going to tell?”
― Matt Taibbi, The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire

“There are signs of hope, even if they are small and inconstant. Illiberal populists, as it turns out, are pretty lousy at governing, especially during a crisis that demands a steady and stoic engagement with science. In the United States, in particular, voters saw a mismanaged pandemic become a politicized catastrophe that eventually inflicted a 9/11-level death toll almost every day, and as of this writing has killed more Americans than combat in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam combined.”
― Tom Nichols, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy

“But if I am certain of anything, it is that it is well within our power as citizens to return to a more civic and more confident democratic life, if we so choose. We do not have to remain slaves to our anger and our fears. We do not have to destroy our own traditions and institutions out of rage and resentment. We do not have to live this way. That is why I wrote this book.”
― Tom Nichols, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy

“The former president buzzes in. “The biggest problem we have is that America just doesn’t win anymore. Whether it’s trade deals or military actions. As your president, I’ll get America winning again. We’ll soon be back and banging beautiful broads like we used to.”

“That’s uglyaphobic, and unfair to attractively challenged Americans. I go back to Thomas Jefferson, ‘All men are created equal,’ and…while you know…you know the deal.”

“Even now, people stop me on the street and say what an awesome peacemaker I am. On day one, the Ukrainian war ends. I’ll get both leaders in a room. There’ll be tough negotiations, but they’ll be fair. There’ll be diplomatic sleepovers in Moscow and Kyiv, where no fighting will be tolerated except a robust pillow fight. Pretty soon I’ll be considered the greatest peacemaker of all time, bigger than Gandhi or the Dalai Lama. Maybe not as great as Christ, but a close second.”
― Gary Floyd, This Side of Reality: How to survive this war and the next 15 to follow

“God is concerned with, and active in, current world events, but these events are not so “set in stone” that there is nothing we as human beings can do to change the future.”
― Curtis Ferrell, Dual Citizenship: Living as a Christian in America