A Quote by Susan Sontag

The principal instances of mass violence in the world today are those committed by governments within their own legally recognized borders.

Susan Sontag

Quote Topics

Borders Committed Governments Legally Mass Own Principal Recognized Those Today Violence Within World World Today

Quote Author

Susan Sontag
American - Author
January 16, 1933 - December 28, 2004

Those who have experienced a great deal of violence or committed a great deal of violence themselves, those who are existing in their own world of sadness and malevolence, essentially those are the ones that are most prone to possession. You don't just walk down the street and suddenly you get possessed. It creeps up on you.

Rupert Wyatt

We never really see the global situation as a total situation. Today's political leaders are still lacking of the vision. They very often just try to cope with their own election, their own popularity, solving the problem or selling the ideas to meet their own voters. By doing that, it creates a great imbalance in terms of making deals or treaty or all those things. Even today the borders they're seeing the physical borders are very different from the political borders. Because all those powers are so connected, and you cannot even see whose interest in what move.

Ai Weiwei

I have the utmost respect for those who have come to this country legally and have contributed to the great melting pot that is America today. But those who have crossed our borders illegally have broken the law and the law ought to be enforced.

Bob Ney

They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today-my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Many people today agree that we need to reduce violence in our society. If we are truly serious about this, we must deal with the roots of violence, particularly those that exist within each of us. We need to embrace 'inner disarmament,' reducing our own emotions of suspicion, hatred and hostility toward our brothers and sisters

Dalai Lama

Behind every person who’s committed an unimaginable crime is an adult who committed unimaginable violence against them as a child. All of them, as if it was plotted that way. Violence begets violence, and that violence begets even more violence.

Gong Ji-young

By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments... The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments-that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity.

John Hospers

Non-violence is a very powerful weapon. Most people don't understand the power of non-violence and tend to be amazed by the whole idea. Those who have been involved in bringing about change and see the difference between violence and non-violence are firmly committed to a lifetime of non-violence, not because it is easy or because it is cowardly, but because it is an effective and very powerful way.

Cesar Chavez

I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The number of nuclear bombs on the planet today - the sheer quantity of weapons of mass destruction in the possession of people and governments throughout the world - along with the fact that the use of brute force and militarism is an almost knee-jerk way of problem-solving on the planet today, makes the eradication of war the great moral issue of this generation.

Marianne Williamson

There are filmmakers like me in different parts of the world that have a story they want to tell, and it's a story that comes out of a certain historical reality within their own life. Then you get committed all the way and however long it takes, stay very committed.

Haile Gerima

The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction. You combine those things with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization, and you wind up with a style of organization we call bureaucracy.

Alvin Toffler

Violence breeds violence. Acts of violence committed in "justice" or in affirmation of "rights" or in defense of "peace" do not end violence. They prepare and justify its continuation.

Wendell Berry

We have to call mass surveillance mass surveillance. We can't let governments around the world redefine, and sort of weasel their way out of it by saying this is bulk collection.

Edward Snowden

Russia has long recognized the borders of today's Ukraine. By and large, we have completed our talks on the border. Now we have to deal with the demarcation, but this is a technical issue.