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There are two types of courage involved with what I did. When it comes to picking up a rifle, millions of people are capable of doing that, as we see in Iraq or Vietnam. But when it comes to risking their careers, or risking being invited to lunch by the establishment, it turns out that's remarkably rare.

Daniel Ellsberg

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Daniel Ellsberg
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: April 7
Economist
Military Officer
Peace Activist
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More quotes by Daniel Ellsberg

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It is a tribute to the American people that our leaders perceived that they had to lie to us, it is not a tribute to us that we were so easily misled.
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In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago.
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We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right.
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We need the courage to face the truth about what we are doing in the world and act responsibly to change it.
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Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress.
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Look, all administrations, all governments lie, all officials lie and nothing they say is to be believed. That's a pretty good rule.
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The effect of that is to poison the flow of information to the President himself and to create a situation where a President can be almost, to use a metaphor, psychotically divorced from the realities in which he is acting.
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It is urgent to prevent new U.S. aggression. The time is now for the world to say 'no' to U.S. threats of air attack against Iran, and to the very notion of a nuclear first-use 'option' by America or any other nation.
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There should be at least one leak like the Pentagon Papers every year.
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It's true that most people find it far more comfortable to trust an authority than to have their faith questioned.
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I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.
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You needn't think there is nothing you can do-you can tell the truth.
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For an American to be patriotic is to be loyal to the principles of our Constitution, and the First Amendment. The truth is that the policies of the government is sometimes in conflict with that. In our country, patriotism should not be defined as obedience to an authority.
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Nixon did have a secret plan, and I knew that it involved making threats of nuclear war to North Vietnam.
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It is time for the rest of the world to join ... in demanding that ALL the nuclear weapons states -including Israel, India and Pakistan, but above all the US and Russia - negotiate concrete steps on a definite time-table toward the global, inspected abolition of nuclear weapons.
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But it is important always to keep in mind that the danger of harming humans is not connected only or even mainly with telling secrets, there can be great danger in keeping secrets.
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There are some things that should not be leaked without authorization.
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EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.
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Those of us who finally saw through the Vietnam war saw through this war, and all the actions that were necessary to end the Vietnam war will be necessary here. I think the American people will get us out of this war.
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I found draft resistors very conscientious, reasonable, and not fanatics.
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