Pentagon Quotes - Page 2

• Humankind will not be free until the last Kremlin commissar is strangled with the entrails of the last Pentagon chief of staff.

  Edward Abbey

  Lasts, Staff, Chiefs

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.21, RosettaBooks

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• I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.

  Donald Rumsfeld

  New York, Cutting, Thinking

  "Surprise Trip for Donald Rumsfeld; Interview With Brigadier General James Marks; Christian in Iraq". "News from CNN", www.cnn.com. December 24, 2004.

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• A Pentagon official once said the people who would actually push the button probably have never seen a person die. He said the only hope -and it's a strange thought - is if they put the button to launch the nuclear war behind a man's heart. The President, then, with a rusty knife, would have to cut out the man's heart, kill the man, to get to the button.

  Robin Williams

  War, Heart, Cutting

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• If you want to humble an empire it makes sense to maim its cathedrals. They are symbols of its faith, and when they crumple and burn, it tells us we are not so powerful and we can't be safe. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, planted at the base of Manhattan island with the Statue of Liberty as their sentry, and the Pentagon, a squat, concrete fort on the banks of the Potomac, are the sanctuaries of money and power that our enemies may imagine define us. But that assumes our faith rests on what we can buy and build, and that has never been America's true God.

  Nancy Gibbs

  Powerful, Humble, America

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• Being in the military just lets you know how helpless you are. You could train forever but you're still at the mercy of someone in the Pentagon, or somebody in the rear moving you around like a chess piece.

  Ice T

  Military, Moving, Chess Pieces

  Source: thequietus.com

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• With what moral authority can they speak of human rights - the rulers of a nation in which the millionaire and beggar coexist; the Indian is exterminated; the black man is discriminated against; the woman is prostituted; and the great masses of Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Latin Americans are scorned, exploited, and humiliated? How can they do this - the bosses of an empire where the mafia, gambling, and child prostitution are imposed; where the CIA organizes plans of global subversion and espionage, and the Pentagon creates neutron bombs capable of preserving material assets and wiping out human beings.

  Fidel Castro

  Latin, War, Men

  Fidel Castro's speech on the 25th anniversary of the Moncada Barracks attack, July 26, 1978.

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• I'm not going to ruin my movie because of some stupid ruling that it has to be ninety minutes long. That's just like adding three more plates to the last supper, or an extra wing to the Pentagon.

  Charles Willeford

  Stupid, Wings, Long

  Charles Willeford (2013). “The Woman Chaser”, p.129, The Overlook Press

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• Here at home, when Americans were standing in long lines to give blood after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we squandered an obvious opportunity to make service a noble cause again, and rekindle an American spirit of community.

  Joe Biden

  Home, Opportunity, Blood

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• The aircraft that blew up the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington conveyed several messages to the world, of which one of the least remarked is this: the Muslims of the world are suffering.

  James Buchan

  New York, Suffering, World

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• There is no question in my mind that we live in one of the truly bestial centuries in human history. There are plenty of signposts for the future historian, and what do they say? They say 'Auschwitz' and 'Dresden' and 'Hiroshima' and 'Vietnam' and 'Napalm.' For many years we all woke up to the daily body count on the radio. And if there were a way to kill people with the B Minor Mass, the Pentagon-Madison Avenue axis would have found it.

  Erwin Chargaff

  Death, Science, Axes

  Erwin Chargaff (1977). “Voices in the labyrinth: nature, man, and science”, Harper San Francisco

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• The Pentagon still has not given a name to the Iraqi war. Somehow 'Operation Re-elect Bush' doesn't seem to be popular.

  Jay Leno

  War, Names, Political

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• Hurtling the Pentagon into an unprecedented budgetary meltdown is horrifically irresponsible. Obama doesn't care. This is war - not against the Taliban, but war against the GOP. He has Republicans on the ropes, and that's a victory he savors and desires - unlike Afghanistan, where he seems only to want to turn tail.

  John Podhoretz

  War, Victory, Desire

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• I will never forget the bright September day, standing at my desk in the White House, when my young assistant said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center - and then a second one - and a third, the Pentagon.

  Condoleezza Rice

  White, House, World

  "Condoleezza Rice's Speech To The Republican National Convention". www.realclearpolitics.com. August 29, 2012.

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• I never imagined working with CEOs, congressmen or the military, yet I make regular visits to the Pentagon, stop by the Capitol now and then and sit down with leaders of all kinds of companies.

  Simon Sinek

  Military, Leader, Kind

  "The Why: Simon Sinek". www.askmen.com.

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• The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon shook our nation to the core. Americans were deeply frightened, sad, and angry, and they rallied around a President who, at the time, showed impressive certitude and calm.

  Eliot Spitzer

  President, World, Calm

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• Some typewriters in Whitehall, in the Pentagon, killed more civilians than our little A4 could have ever hoped to.

  Thomas Pynchon

  Typewriters, Littles, Civilians

  Thomas Pynchon (2012). “Gravity's Rainbow”, p.354, Penguin

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• He read reports, examined evidence, and poured more reports up the chain than the Pentagon could read. Nothing short of a human sieve. But in the end he was just one small piece on this game board called war. End of story

  Ted Dekker

  War, Games, Boards

  Ted Dekker (2009). “Bone Man's Daughters”, p.5, Hachette UK

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• For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Christian, Jesus, Blessed

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• The Pentagon as a legitimate target? I actually don't have an opinion on that and it's important I not have an opinion on that as I sit here in my capacity right now.

  David Westin

  Patriotism, Important, Target

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• Can it be that a generation of school children is growing up heedless of the simple truth that the Pentagon's centrla role for many years has been to buy weapons that don't work, against threats that don't exist?

  Alexander Cockburn

  Peace, Children, Growing Up

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• A true libertarian supports free enterprise, opposes big business; supports local self-government, opposes the nation-state; supports the National Rifle Association, opposes the Pentagon.

  Edward Abbey

  Business, Government, Self

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.21, RosettaBooks

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• The government has departments to deal with the special interest groups that make themselves heard and felt. A Department of Agriculture cares for the farmers' needs. There is a Department of Health, Education and Welfare. There is a Department of the Interior - in which the Indians are included. Is the farmer, the doctor, the Indian, the greatest problem in America today? No - it is the black man! There ought to be a Pentagon-sized Washington department dealing with every segment of the black man's problems.

  Malcolm X

  Men, America, Doctors

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• Even talking about change can be threatening to entrenched interests...Careers in the Pentagon, the board room, or the halls of Congress are not advanced by creating the disruptions that go with real change, so there are very few voices willing to speak up for the future and move beyond rhetoric to make serious choices.

  Mac Thornberry

  Military, Real, Moving

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• Pentagon's readiness and modernization problems are not due to budget cuts. The are the result of habitual modes of conduct evolved during the Cold War and a desire by the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (MICC) to protect its comfortable life style in a world that is changing rapidly.

  Franklin C. Spinney

  Military, War, Cutting

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• When life is suddenly more serious more of the time, there is also more need for it to be fun at least some of the time. That's why my family will be at a college football game this weekend. We need it. And deserve it, too. Not like a New York fireman deserves it. Or a medic at the Pentagon. But enough.

  Thomas Boswell

  Sports, Football, New York

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