I have had a series of quotes on my homepage, and rather than delete the old ones completely, I have collected them here together with the date I first used them. Although I try to only use accurate quotes, there's always the chance that I have made a mistake, and I would welcome any corrections. A useful website on Questionable Quotes debunks some quotes as urban legends.
— John Sullivan
Sep 2001
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." —Benjamin Franklin, reply of the Pennsylvania assembly to the Governor, Nov 11, 1755 (This became the motto of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1759.)

Nov 2001
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." —Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, 1918, in his essay "Lincoln and Free Speech". (The whole essay is available in his collected works, published in 1926 by Scribner.)

Sep 2002
Goering: "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in American, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship."
Gilbert: "There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
Goering: "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. 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."
—Nazi leader Hermann Goering, iterviewed by Gustave Gilbert during the Easter recess of the Nuremberg trials, 1946 April 18, quoted in Gilbert's book Nuremberg Diary

Nov 2002
Q: "If you were young again, would you start writing TeX again or would you use Microsoft Word, or another word processor?"
A: "I hope to die before I have to use Microsoft Word." —Harald Koenig asking Donald Knuth, Tübingen, 2001 Oct 2.

Dec 2002
"Democracy thrives on courage; fascism feeds on fear."
—the Loka Institute, 2002 Dec 21, Loka Alert 9:6

Feb 2003
"Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art in literature—subtract the work of the men above forty, and while we should miss great treasurers, even priceless treasures, we would practically be where we are today. ... The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty." — Sir William Osler, "The Fixed Period", farewell address at Johns Hopkins Medical School, 1905 Feb 22. (Quoted in honor of my fortieth birthday!)

Mar 2003
"Accurs'd be he that first invented war!
They knew not, ah, they knew not simple men,
How those were hit by pelting cannon-shot,
Stand staggering like a quivering aspen leafe,
Fearing the force of Boreas' boistrous blasts.
In what a lamentable case were I,
If Nature had not given me wisedomes lore?
For Kings are clouts that every man shoots at,
Our Crowne the pin that thousands seeke to cleave.
Therefore in pollicie I thinke it good
To hide it close: a goodly Stratagem,
And far from any man that is a foole.
So shall not I be knower, or if I bee,
They cannot take away my crowne from me.
Here will I hide it in this simple hole."
— Mycetes in Christopher Marlowe's play "Tamburlaine the Great, Part I", Act 2, Scene 4, 1590.

Apr 2003
"Quand les riches font la guerre, ce sont les pauvres qui meurent." [When the rich make war, it is the poor who die.] — Jean-Paul Sartre, in "Le Diable et le Bon Dieu"

Apr 2003
"The cry has been that war is declared, and all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny. At the very time when they have armies at command, when their patronage is most extended, and their power most formidable, not a word of warning, of censure, of alarm must be heard. The press, which is to expose inferior abuses, must not utter one rebuke, one indignant complaint, although our best interests and most valuable rights are put to hazard by an unnecessary war! Admit this doctrine, let rulers once knot that, by placing the courtry in a state of war, they place themselves beyond the only power they dread—the power of free discussion—and we may expect war without end. ... In war, then as in peace, assert the freedom of speech and of the press. Cling to this as the bulwark of all our rights and priveleges." — William Ellery Channing (during the War of 1812), reprinted (p.682) in "The Works of William E. Channing, D.D.", Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1903; in the section "Duties of the Citizen in Times of Trial or Danger" (Extracts from Sermons preached on Days of Humiliation and Prayer, appointed in consequence of the Declaration of War against Great Britain), pp 679-688. (War was declared 1812 June 18.)

May 2003
"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . . It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." — Pres. Abraham Lincoln (letter to Elkins, 1864 Nov 21).

June 2003
"By contrast, fans of intelligent design seem to assume that what is mysterious today will always be so, and that we are better off invoking a supernatural explanation. This is defeatist, and no better for religion than for science. Basing a spiritual faith on the inadequacies of present-day science leaves believers with nothing more than a God of the Gaps, and even if those gaps are never eradicated, science will continue to close old ones and open new ones. Follow this path and you have a nomadic designer armed with suspiciously shifting powers of influence." — The New Scientist, editorial, 2002 Sep 18.

September 2003
With astonishing speed, the United States and Britain are making their nightmares come true. Iraq is fast becoming the land that they warned about: a throbbing hub of terror. Islamists bent on murder, all but non-existent in Saddam's Iraq, are now flocking to the country, from Syria, Iran and across the Arab world. In the way that hippies used to head for San Francisco, jihadists are surging towards Baghdad. For those eager to strike at the US infidel, Iraq is the place to be: a shooting gallery, with Americans in easy firing range. Afghanistan is perilous terrain, but Iraq is open country. For the Islamist hungry for action, there are rich pickings.

Bush insisted that Saddam's Iraq was packed with these people, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. Proof was always thin, thinner even than the evidence of weapons of mass destruction - which is why Blair, to his credit, never mentioned it. But never mind; events have taken care of that little lacuna in the US argument. Iraq may not have been a terrorists' paradise at the start of the year - a retirement home for a few has-beens, perhaps - but it is now. Operation Iraqi Freedom blew off the gates, and Islam's holy warriors have rushed in. Like the blind protagonist of a Greek drama, Bush, in seeking to avert a prophecy, has ended up fulfilling it. — Jonathan Friedland, writing in The Guardian, 2003 Sep 3.

November 2003
A Prayer for Understanding
Oh, great Father, never let me judge another man until I have walked in his moccasins for two weeks.
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be kept by understanding. — Albert Einstein, Notes on pacifism
There are many alternate version of this quote floating around, including "Peace cannot be achieved through violence; it can only be attained through understanding." I'm not sure which are exactly authentic.

November 2004
I'm writing this on tenterhooks on Tuesday, without knowing the election results. But whether John Kerry's supporters are now celebrating or seeking asylum abroad, they should be feeling wretched about the millions of farmers, factory workers and waitresses who ended up voting — utterly against their own interests — for Republican candidates. — Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times, 2004 Nov 3.

August 2005
At a time when the most extremist ideas are gaining ground, and when growing numbers of reporters are being killed or taken hostage, arresting a journalist in a democratic country is more than a crime: it's a miscarriage of justice. — from a petition for Judy Miller from Reporters without Borders, signed by Pedro Almodóvar, Günter Grass, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Wim Wenders and many others, 2005 Aug 24.

October 2005
If the reporting is accurate, the information the government seeks to suppress has already been revealed, and the gag order serves no interest but that of silencing a citizen. ... The speculation highlights the absurdity of the permanent gag order, and puts an ALA member in an untenable bind. With this report in the public domain, the gag order both serves an even less important interest and causes even greater First Amendment harm that this Court must remedy. — American Library Association, court brief on behalf of Library Connection (Windsor CT), 2005 Oct 4
(The identity of the plaintiff was reported in the NY Times as follows: Though the plaintiffs' organization has not been named in the various proceedings, a close reading of the court record suggests that it is Library Connection in Windsor, Conn. A search of a court-operated Web site offered a pointer to the plaintiffs' identity. There, a case numbered 3:2005cv01256 is listed under the caption, "Library Connection Inc. v. Attorney General.")

November 2005
Democracy abhors undue secrecy. ... [A]n unlimited government warrant to conceal, effectively a form of secrecy per se, has no place in our open society. ... Under the mantle of secrecy, the self-preservation that ordinarily impels our government to censorship and secrecy may potentially be turned on ourselves as a weapon of self-destruction. ... At that point, secrecy's protective shield may serve not as much to secure a safe country as simply to save face. — Judge Victor Marrero, ruling for the ACLU against the Patriot Act, 2004 Sep 29

January 2006
Evolution by natural selection is perhaps the only one true law unique to biological systems, as opposed to nonliving physical systems, and in recent decades it has taken on the solidity of a mathematical theorem. — E.O. Wilson, in the introduction to a new edition of Charles Darwin, also printed in Harvard Magazine, 2005 Nov/Dec.