Hisham Melhem Quotes

No free country has ever been without Parties, which are a natural offspring of freedom.

The social model of the Bolsheviks failed, as will any model that denies individual rights, intellectual freedom, and freedom of competing political parties. Without these freedoms and rights, there is no motivation for people to work. Such a system cannot be sustained, especially in light of the technological revolution of the information era.

In academic life, false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with. In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual's responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician's responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm. Michael Ignatieff, a former professor at Harvard and contributing writer for the magazine, is a member of Canada's Parliament and deputy leader of the Liberal Party.

Parties on the back of Parties, at war with the world and with each other.

Freedom for supporters of the government only, for members of one party only no matter how big its membership may be is no freedom at all. Freedom is always freedom for the man who thinks differently.

Propriety and single interest divides the people of a land and the whole world into parties and is the cause of all wars and bloodshed and contention everywhere

This is very dangerous for us, as a society, and I think people deserve a politics of integrity that is not bought and paid for by big banks, fossil fuel giants, war profiteers, insurance companies, the things that those two corporate parties both represent and which pull the strings inside the party.

The [China] government has improved in the last years. Of course, the structure is still the same; there's still a one-party system and strong censorship.

What we have done over the last 40 or 50 years is systematically attacked and weakened the parties, the political machines, the professionals, and insiders, and hacks, and all the tools that they use to get politicians to play well together. And with those gone, you get chaos.

I put so much pop culture in my movies because we speak about pop culture all the time. But, for some reason, movies exist in a world where there's no pop culture.

War is not to be waged in the name of God.

In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!

Without armed struggle neither the proletariat, nor the people, nor the Communist Party would have any standing at all in China and it would be impossible for the revolution to triumph. In these years [the eighteen years since the founding of the Party] the development, consolidation and bolshevization of our Party have proceeded in the midst of revolutionary wars; without armed struggle the Communist Party would assuredly not be what it is today. Comrades throughout the Party must never forget this experience for which we have paid in blood.

The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.

Film doesn't have to worry. Movies are awesome. There's no war going on, theaters aren't going to lose.

I had longed to be a butterfly, and I was one at last. I attended private parties in sumptuous evening dress, simpered and aired my graces like a born beau, and polkaed and schoisched with a step peculiar to myself - and the kangaroo.

I've been fascinated by dreams my whole life, since I was a kid, and I think the relationship between movies and dreams is something that's always interested me.

I've been in politics all my life. In 1945, I committed my first act of civil disobedience during the election campaign for the first post-World War II general election, when the Labour Party, to everyone's amazement, ousted the Conservatives. I refused to obey the instructions of a policeman, and as a result, almost got a belt around the ear, because those were the days when policemen could hit children and nobody cared, they thought it was probably good for them.

As one conservative intellectual said to me - he said if the choice is between [Joseph] Stalin and [Adolf] Hitler, I'd pick Stalin, meaning Ted Cruz because he's more predictable. So there's real civil war inside the Republican Party.

Despotism has so often been established in the name of liberty that experience should warn us to judge parties by their practices rather than their preachings.

California ... is the place that sets the trends and establishes the values for the rest of the country; like a slow ooze, California culture spreads eastward across the land.

After the war people said, 'If you can plan for war, why can't you plan for peace?' When I was 17, I had a letter from the government saying, 'Dear Mr. Benn, will you turn up when you're 17 1/2? We'll give you free food, free clothes, free training, free accommodation, and two shillings, ten pence a day to just kill Germans.' People said, well, if you can have full employment to kill people, why in God's name couldn't you have full employment and good schools, good hospitals, good houses?

I've been there for so many crossroads in American history. My whole political life spans the birth of the environmental movement, the women's movement, the civil rights movement, putting an end to unjust wars, and so and so.

Since I started making films, I've been a nut for dialogue. When I first saw Star Wars when I was 12 years old, I came home and recited all of the lines from it. Before I talked about Death Stars exploding and Tie Fighters I was talking about how funny Princess Leia was and how sarcastic Han Solo was. So to me that's always the most important thing, and I love hearing great actors say great lines.

Without democracy freedom is a chimera