Quote

One simply cannot engage in barbarous action without becoming a barbarian, because one cannot defend human values by calculated and unprovoked violence without doing mortal damage to the values one is trying to defend.

J. William Fulbright

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

J. William Fulbright
Age: 89 †
Born: 1905
Born: April 9
Died: 1995
Died: February 9
Banker
Farmer
Former United States Senator
Instructor
Lawyer
Lecturer
Politician
President
Sumner
Missouri
James William Fulbright
William Fulbright
Action
Engage
Cannot
Defend
Human
Mortals
Unprovoked
Humans
Damage
Barbarian
Without
Becoming
Barbarous
Trying
Violence
Calculated
Simply
Barbarians
Values
Mortal

More quotes by J. William Fulbright

Image
The Soviet Union has indeed been our greatest menace - not so much because of what it has done, but because of the excuses it has provided us for our own failures.
J. William Fulbright
Image
There is an inevitable divergence between the world as it is and the world as men perceive it.
J. William Fulbright
Image
Education is a slow-moving but powerful force. It may not be fast enough or strong enough to save us from catastrophe, but it is the strongest force available for that purpose and in its proper place, therefore, is not at the periphery, but at the center of international relations.
J. William Fulbright
Image
I think we Americans tend to put too high a price on unanimity, as if there were something dangerous and illegitimate about honest differences of opinion honestly expressed by honest men.
J. William Fulbright
Image
The exchange program is the thing that reconciles me to all the difficulties of political life. It's the only activity that gives me some hope that the human race won't commit suicide, though I still wouldn't count on it.
J. William Fulbright
Image
We are trying to remake Vietnamese society, a task which certainly cannot be accomplished by force and which probably cannot be accomplished by any means available to outsiders.
J. William Fulbright
Image
The price of empire is America's soul, and that price is too high.
J. William Fulbright
Image
It is a curiosity of human nature that lack of self-assurance seems to breed an exaggerated sense of power and mission.
J. William Fulbright
Image
I'm sure that President Johnson would never have pursued the war in Vietnam if he'd ever had a Fulbright to Japan, or say Bangkok, or had any feeling for what these people are like and why they acted the way they did. He was completely ignorant.
J. William Fulbright
Image
Israel controls the United States Senate.
J. William Fulbright
Image
The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements.
J. William Fulbright
Image
Israel's shooting down of a civilian airplane and then the killing of 107 innocent peopel aboard, and their raid into neutral Lebanon are very dangerous developments. There's only one way I can see to stop it...is for the United States to take a very strong stand that this has to be settled...politically settled.
J. William Fulbright
Image
Naturepitiless in a pitiless universeis certainly not concerned with the survival of Americans or, for that matter, of any of the two billion people now inhabiting this earth. Hence, our destiny, with the aid of God, remains in our own hands.
J. William Fulbright
Image
We must care to think about the unthinkable things, because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.
J. William Fulbright
Image
When we violate the law ourselves, whatever short-term advantage may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate the law we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests.
J. William Fulbright
Image
The American public has become so conditioned by crises, by warnings, by words, that there are few, other than the young, who protest against what is happening.
J. William Fulbright
Image
Education is the best means-probably the only means-by which nations can cultivate a degree of objectivity about each other's behavior and intentions. It is the means by which Russians and Americans can come to understand each others' aspirations for peace and how the satisfactions of everyday life may be achieved.
J. William Fulbright
Image
The Program further aims to make the benefits of American culture and technology available to the world and to enrich American life by exposing it to the science and art of many societies.
J. William Fulbright
Image
The cause of our difficulties in southeast Asia is not a deficiency of power but an excess of the wrong kind of power which results in a feeling of impotence when it fails to achieve its desired ends.
J. William Fulbright
Image
A nation's budget is full of moral implications it tells what a society cares about and what it does not care about it tells what its values are.
J. William Fulbright