Giovanni Visconti Quotes

Zionism was originally a rebellion against religious Judaism and the PLO Charter was essentially secularist. But because the conflict was allowed to fester without a resolution, religion got sucked into the escalating cycle of violence and became part of the problem.

Questioning the ancestral gods [heroes] of any nation has never been an enterprise rewarded by anything save calumny.

It is no longer possible to satirize this state of affairs. Every satire risks becoming a bible for yet another national liberation front. Every satirist risks becoming the founder of a new religion, a Buddha, Zarathustra, Jesus, Muhammad or Marx. Every exposure of the ravages of the dominant system, every critique of the system's functioning, becomes fodder for the horses of liberators, welding materials for builders of armies

My countrymen, the currents of destiny flow through the hearts of the people. Who will check them ? Who will divert them? Who will stop them?

Hitler is a very great man, like an inspired religious leader—and as such rather fanatical—but not scheming, not selfish, not greedy for power, but a mystic, a visionary who really wants the best for his country …

Fascism is a religion; the twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism.

No one can create a movement. No one can create a Gandhi.

I think that the religious and the military right wings are just two sides of the same coin if somebody uses God and religion and somebody uses country and security.

The question whether nationalism, patriotism, the love of the homeland, is beneficial either to the individual or to the human race as a whole is open to discussion. It might be a much better world if this instinct were eradicated. On the other hand, it might be worse. The fact is that the instinct exists, and that, far from losing its grip on us, on all of us, it is becoming constantly more intense, more exacting, more all-embracing…. Nationalism as we know it may pass, but for the moment it is more powerful than any other idea or even than any religion.

In all the great wars of England, the war of the American Revolution, the war against the French Revolution, the Crimean War,, there were men who stood out against those ventures, and against a nation lashed to madness by the appeals and lies of its leaders. They were but a miserable minority, but history has triumphantly vindicated them.

Religious doctrine and rhetoric … contributed in a fundamental way to the coming of the American Revolution and its final success …. Where political theory advised caution, religious doctrine demanded action. By turning Colonial resistance into a righteous cause, and by carrying the message to all ranks and in all parts of the colonies, ministers did the work of secular radicalism and did it better.

There seemed to be no willingness to fight on the part of the dissident forces [anti Communists in Indonesia] … The dissident leaders have been unable to provide their soldiers with any idea of why they were fighting.

Fascism is essentially a typically Italian movement. Such it remains whether we consider it as a political party or as a phase of our national revolution--and even more so in the latter case; for Fascism, though in the guise of a political party, is a capital factor in the formation of the modern Italian state.

The nationalist right and the nebulously but fervently revolutionary left found each other once more in Fascism with its double face of conservatism and subversion.

I’ll take my short revolver And my bandolier of lead, And live or die I can but try To avenge my country’s dead …. I’ve always hated slavery Since the day that I was born So I’m of to join the IRA And I’m off tomorrow morn

If you turn your people into bourgeois, you also turn them into pacifists.

Fascism believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it

We follow ideas and not men, and rebel against this habit of embodying a principle in a man

Of course the people don't want war... It is the leaders...who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along...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 in any country.

Liberty’s in every blow! Let us do or die!

Are they happy with our God? Are they happy with our prophet? Are they happy with our leader? Never. I don't care about rest of the world. I care about my country.

Nationalism has nothing to do with democratic values: Authoritarians can be nationalists; indeed, most are.

To apply Kim Jong Il's patriotism means to thoroughly materialize the General's intentions and desires for the prosperity of the country and the happiness of all generations to come and to carry on all work for achieving the prosperity of the country in the way he did.

Barack Obama doesn't think this country should be number one. If it were number 35 it'd be fine with him.