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Eigen’s Political & Historical Quotations™
Preface
Including Editorial Guidelines,
Searching Methodology
and Assistance for the User
Last
Revision: March 17, 2007
Editorial
Director & Compiler: Lewis D.
Eigen
Copyright © 2007
Contents 1
Introduction 7
Audience 8
Young Children Are Users 8
Searching the Quotations Collection 9
Simple Search 9
The Basic Search Screen 9
What Will Actually Be Found 11
String Sensitivity 11
Case Sensitivity 11
Time To Search 11
Displaying the Hits 13
Difference Between the Quotation Phrase and the Full
Quotation 15
Context 16
Multiple Words 17
Window Sizing 17
Left Side Searching 18
The Expanded Search Screen 18
Browsing:
List of Authors, Concepts, and Areas 24
Eigen
Number Search 25
Spelling and Searching 26
Searching for Strings 26
Popularity Index 27
About Quotations & Their Organization 28
Concept Searching 29
Hyperlinked Concepts 29
Large Type Feature 30
Context 30
“Out of Context” 30
Political Use 33
Quotation Inclusion 34
What Makes a Good Quotation 34
A Note About Historical Quotations 41
Medium 42
A Non-Criterion 43
Political Positions 43
Hateful Material 45
American Perspective 45
Quantity 46
Word Usage 47
Other Approaches 47
Special National Perspectives 47
England 47
Canada 48
Mexico 49
Russia 50
France 50
Ancient Rome 51
The Vatican 51
Ireland 52
Israel 52
Culture and Mores Influence Quotations 53
Protests & Demonstrations 53
Negativism About America 54
Journalists and Other Literati 55
Oral Traditions 56
Writers 58
Orators 60
Women 62
Religion 63
American Regional Material 67
Slavery & Race 67
Quotees Not Only Politicians 68
Attribution 68
Phantom Quotations 69
Message for Educators 71
Digital History 71
Educational Projects Involving Quotes 72
Editorial Issues 73
Precision and Accuracy 73
Parentheses & Brackets 74
Spelling 75
English Spelling 75
Archaic Spelling 76
Capitalization 77
Respect 77
Blacks and Whites 77
Native Americans 78
Punctuation 78
Accuracy of Punctuation 78
Initial Capitals 79
Quotation Marks within Quotations 79
Translations 79
Alphabetization of Names and Titles 81
Oriental Names 81
European Names 81
Hispanic Surnames 82
Ottoman Names 82
Titles of Nobility 82
Biblical References 84
Non-English Characters 84
Fiction 85
Sarcasm & Other Rhetorical Techniques 86
Missing and Incomplete Information 87
? Designates Scholarly Consensus as Inferred 87
c. and ~ Designate an Approximate Date 87
*
Designates Missing Information 88
Date Precision in Citations 89
Data Base Structure 89
Conceptual Index Terms 89
Difference Between Key Word and Conceptual Indexing 90
Subjective Nature of Key Terms 91
Sexist Conceptual Terms 92
African Americans 92
Hispanic-Americans 94
Searching for Nationality 94
England and Great Britain 95
Russia and The Soviet Union 96
Colonial America 96
Categories 97
Searching for Individuals 98
Broad Indexing 98
Treaties & Conventions 99
American Parallel Structures and Institutions 100
Legal Citations 101
Exemplary Conceptualization 101
Quotation Numbering & Quotation Cross Referencing 102
Unique Collection Numbering 102
Cross Referencing of Quotations 102
Communicating with Us Regarding a Quotation 103
Citations 103
Positions 103
Pre-Political Occupations 103
Presidents and Vice Presidents 103
Journalists, Editors and Commentators 104
Polemicists 104
Legislative Committee Assignments 105
Nobel Laureates 105
Birth and Death Years 105
Nationality of Quotees 106
Multiple Nationalities 107
Evolution of Nations 108
American & Canadian Indians 109
Proverbs and Sayings 110
Ephemera 111
Laws 111
Pictures 112
Published Works 114
Dates 114
Publisher 114
Appropriate Attribution 114
Originality 115
Sources 119
Terms of Use 120
Purpose 121
Students and Scholars 121
Conditions of Use 121
Educational Use 121
Commercial Use 122
Public Display 122
Pictures 122
Journalists & Publishers 124
Politicians 125
Legislation 125
Attribution 126
Making Editorial Suggestions or Adding New Quotations 126
Privacy Policy 126
Personal Acknowledgements 127
Family 128
Technology 129
Eigen’s
Political & Historical Quotations is the world’s largest collection
of quotations about and by historians, politicians and other public
figures. There are over 49,000
quotations with citations in the collection and the number grows every
day. The quotes are organized in a
searchable data base and is available to all on the World Wide Web of the
Internet. The collection may be
searched by author, idea, subject or actual text. For the technically inclined, we enable
field searching as well as free text searching.
The collection is
designed for the use of journalists, teachers, historians, political scientists
and the many other people who are interested in politics and political
history. It is also a tool for
working politicians and their staffs. Heavy use of it is made by students from
elementary school through the universities.
Political discourse
has always included material regarding ethics and morality. In addition sex has been a part of the
world’s political scene since Biblical times, both in terms of scandal,
influence, and behavior regulation, not to mention censorship. There are quotations herein which some
may not regard as suitable for children because of their sexual content. Also violence and atrocities are
covered. Quotations are included
from some of the most despicable human beings who have ever lived. Various religious views are herein as
well as attacks on almost all.
In the tens of
thousands of quotations there are many that would offend almost anyone. Certainly there are many that espouse
views different from any particular parent or caretaker for a child. Dr. Eigen has observed,
“When a
young child is skilled enough to use a tool like this and interested enough to
actually do so, that child is almost certainly mature enough to know that one
does not believe everything that one reads and that there are different
viewpoints. Also, that there are and have been evil people in the world. When
my granddaughter was 8 years old, we would use it to look up things together. I personally would have no qualms about
young children using the collection if they were interested, but in the final
analysis, this is a decision that belongs to the parent or guardian.”
Eigen’s
Political & Historical Quotations has been organized and programmed so that
a number of different kinds of searches are possible through Dynamic Quotesearcher™,. The searches can range from simple to
complex.

The graphic at the left is the basic search
screen for Eigen’s Quotations, Essentially, the search screen can be
thought of in two parts. The left
hand side, circled in green is for simple searching, and the right hand side,
circled in red, can be used for simple searching or for more expanded searches
where you can search only a part of the record—just authors, or just
concepts, as well as the whole record.
For a basic kind of
search, type the word for which you are searching in the left hand (green circled)
box. The graphic shows a search for
“Senate.” Then click on
the “Search” key or press the “Enter” key on the
keyboard.
After the search is
done two things will happen.
1. A
Search Results window opens summarizing your search and
telling you how many quotations were found
that contained the word “Senate.” In this example there were 530 found.
2. Following
that information a list of the “hits”—the found
quotations—will appear. You
can click on any one of these and view the full quotation display. Note that if there are more than 100
quotes found meeting your search criteria, as in this example, only the first
100 will be listed. If you want
more, narrow your search somewhat and repeat. Often by scanning several of the first
100 you will come up with a good way to get what you want for a more narrow
search.
Quotations will be
found where the word “Senate” appears anywhere in the record for
that quotation. All of the
following would be found and display as hits:
· Quotes
with “Senate” as a part of the quotation.
· Quotes
with “Senate” as one of the concepts for the quotation even of
“Senate” does not appear on the quotation itself.
· Quotes
where “Senate” might have been used in the citation.
· Quotes
where “Senate” might be a word in the commentary.
· Quotes
where “Senate” might have been part of the quotation author such as
“United States Senate”.
This is the most
powerful of the searches although the simplest. It finds any quote where the word
“Senate” used in any way.
Quotations will be
found where the word “Senate” is used. However, quotes will also be found where
“Senate is a part of a word.
“Senatorial” for example will generate a hit even if
“Senate” does not appear as a whole word.
All our searches
are case insensitive. This means
that capitalization is ignored.
Senate senate SENATE sENatE
will all produce
the same results.
The time it takes
to complete a search using Dynamic
Quotesearcher™ depends on a number of factors. Here are a few:
· The
complexity of the search
· The
number of other people trying to search at the same time
· The
speed of your connection to the Internet
· The
speed at which the Internet is operating at that moment (Yes, it varies.)
· The
characteristics of your computer: processor, memory, bus, etc.
Try and avoid
clicking the “Search” key several times. It does not speed the process up, and
often actually slows it down. Each
time you click “Search”, the search may start all over again. The vast majority of the searches
complete in just a few seconds.
Remember, the
search may have completed only you may not realize it. Depending on the configuration of your
browser and the size of your browser window, the hits may be appearing
“below” your screen and you may have to scroll down to see them.

Another clue is the screen refresh progress
indicator of Explorer or another web
browser. In the figure to the left
it is circled in Yellow. If the
indicator does not move at all or seems hung up for 15 or 20 seconds then
something is wrong, and you may want to open a new browser window and try
again. A short delay of a few
seconds however is not uncommon if there are many people searching at the same
time.
All the found
quotes that match the search criterion are displayed sequentially as the
illustration below illustrates. For
each hit a summary of the quotation information is displayed. It begins with a sequential number
followed by the authors name and the “Eigen
Number” of the quotation.
Each quotation has been assigned a unique number beginning with
10,001. If you communicate with us
about a quotation you can refer to it by the Eigen Number. Likewise Eigen Numbers will be used for
cross references throughout the collection.
After the Eigen Document ID Number, another
number is displayed in square brackets.
This is the “Popularity Index” for that quotation. This is a number based on how many and
how often other users have found this particular quotation in their searches. As a result of your search, each of the
quotations found and/or displayed will have its Popularity Index
recalculated. On the next line the
quotation phrase appears. In some
cases this is all the information you will want. However, if you click on the first line
with the Author and numbers, the entire full record of the quotation will be
displayed. The first line of each
quotation found appears in the traditional blue underlined font showing that it
is linked to the full record. The
full record contains (in order of appearance):
· The
name of the quotee
· The
Eigen Identification Number of the Quote
· The
quotation phrase
· A
graphic of the quotee (if one is in the system)
· The
full quotation
· The
quotee particulars (dates of birth and death) and positions held or profession
· The
citation showing the source of the quotation
· The
context of the quotation
· The
Eigen Numbers of other quotations which might have particular relevance to the
quote. These always appear in orange and they are linked to those entire
quotations. Clicking on any of
these will open and display that related quotation. Clicking on the Back Arrow of your web
browser will return you to the original quote from which you started. So will clicking on “Click Here
for Another Search” So cross
referencing or hypertext is built into Eigen’s
Political & Historical Quotations.
· The
conceptual terms for that quotation complete the record. The number of conceptual terms will be
at least 1 but there may be as many as 20 or more. These conceptual terms are also
hyperlinked and if you want to see other quotes which are also about that
concept, you simply have to click on a conceptual term.
Some quotations are
quite long. It is given and
referred to as the full quotation.
However, the editors have sometimes chosen the most famous phrase or the
most critical part of the quotation and designated that as the quotation
phrase. So the quotation phrase is
always a part of the full quotation.
In most cases, especially with the shorter quotation, the quotation
phrase and the full quotations are identical.
Some quotations
have meaning only in the context in which the quotation was first uttered or
written. Where that is the case,
that context is explained in this section.
The context field is also used to explain terms or words that are old
and have different meaning from the current one. Sometimes, the context field is used to
explain some of the historical background of the quotation. While this may be unnecessary for some
users, others may not be familiar with that aspect of the historical or
political context and with some quotations, that is provided. In many quotations, there is no context
that is included.
The right hand side
of the screen, the portion circled in red, is an alternate way of beginning a
new simple search. This right hand
panel is always visible—even
when lists or found quotations are displayed. This is the fastest way to start a new
sample search and avoids having to go back to the home page basic search
screen.
The simple search
described above finds all quotations regardless of where the search word
appears—in the quotation, the citation, the context commentary, the
concepts, the author. This is the
default simple searching method.
However, with the right hand search, you have some search options. Note in the screen graphic above that
there are five radio buttons under the “Search” button.
· All
Fields
· Author
Only
· Quotation
Only
· Area
Designations
· Concepts
The first is always
already selected by default.
However if you click the “Author Only” button, only
quotations where “Senate” appears in the author field will be
found. “U. S.
Senate”, “Canadian Senate”, “Senate Ethics
Committee” and the like will become hits only if those institutions are
the authors of the quotations.
Quotes about the Senate will not be, and quotes where the word is only
used in the citation will not become hits.
You could choose
the Concepts radio button and then the hits will be all those quotations in the
collections that are about The Senate or about any Senate for that matter
Another option is
the radio button for Quotation Only.
The Search for Senate with All Fields selected will produce hits for, by
or about the Senate or any Senate or any quotation where the word senator
appears in the citation. If you
select Quotation Only then the only hits will be those in which the word Senate
appears in the quotation itself.
Other appearances of senate will not count.
The right hand
simple search process can multiple words as well. However there the search will require
the presence of all of them to produce a hit. The order is irrelevant however. But they must all be present.
You probably know
that windows may be sized to the tastes and needs of the user. Ideally, Eigen’s Politician &
Historical Quotations will be used in a maximum sized window. However, it will function with a smaller
window except that it will not be as convenient. For example, if the width of the window
is diminished, the simple quotation panel on the right will be truncated and
might disappear from view. Changing
the height of the window tends to be easier, but ideally the maximum size is
most efficient.
The right side
search was limited to searching for a set of words all of which would have to
be present to produce a hit. Consider the phrase: “Freedom of
Speech”
If you used the right
hand search with those three words you would get any quote whose record
contained the phrase. However you
will obtain more on your list of hits.
For example, if a sentence in the records said, “We have to choose
the better or two alternatives.
Either we have to give a speech about freedom or hold a press
conference.” The search would
find this quotation also even though it has nothing to do with “freedom
of speech.” What we need is
an expanded form of searching that could find exact phrases—not just the
words but the words in a particular order.
On the left hand
search side, click on the phrase “Expanded Search,” The Expanded search screen will appear
in the left hand side.
Consider the screen shown at the left. It shows the expanded search
features. There are 4 different
logical kinds of searches possible in expanded search.
Word Match: This searches for all of the words any
place in the entire record for the quotation. If you search for
“Congress”, you will obtain quotations which use the word
“Congress”, quotations about Congress, quotations by the
Congress. The word
“Congress” need not appear in the actual quotation to obtain a hit. “Congress” may be one of the
concepts/key words. Or
“Congress” may appear in none of these but just appear in the
citation because the quotee was a member of Congress.
Note that there are
4 different rectangular boxes. Each
of these uses a different Boolean logic principle with which to do the
search. The first box uses a logical
AND. All the words in the box (separate with
spaces) must be in the quotation record for the quotation to be a hit. The order of the words makes no
difference. It is their absence or
presence that is important. So if
the box contained “Congress corruption debate” all the quotations
that would be found would have all three of the words.
Exact
Phrase: The second box will cause only the exact phrase to be
found. If you search for
“Cost of Living”, “of living costs” will not be found
even thought it uses the same key words.
This must be an exact match of words in the same order. This is the only search type that is a
little tricky. The reason is that
in order to handle all the people searching the entire data base much of the
searching software ignores so called “stop words” like
“the”, “an”, “in” and many other common
words. So the Exact Phrase search
functions perfectly only if you are searching the “Quotation
Only”. If one of the other
searches such as “All Fields” is wanted, use the “Word Match”
which requires all the words and do not bother with simple stop words.
Any Word:
The third box is the logical OR.
The quotes found may contain any of the words in the box. If there are several words from the box
found or just one, it makes no difference.
The quote will be displayed as a hit.
Not:
The fourth box is the logical NOT.
If any of the words in this box are present, the quote will not be returned as a
hit. This box is usually used in
conjunction with one or more or the first three boxes. For example, if you wanted to search for
quotes on treaties but were not interested in peace treaties, you might put
“treaties” in the first box and “peace war” in the 4th
box.
Area
Designation: All the
quotations are organized also by subject area. The first 7 areas are:
· Abortion,
Birth Control
· Agriculture
· Appointments
· Arts,
Culture & Entertainment
· Bureaucracy
· Business
& Commerce
· Campaigns
& Conventions
When you click on
the words “Area Designations” under the radio button, a new window
with a list of all the pre-designated areas—in alphabetical
order—appears...By clicking on any of the areas, a search is performed
for all quotations in that area of interest. For example, you might be interested in
reading some of the classic political insults of all time. You could choose the area
“Compliments & Insults” and click on that. You will find more than 2,200. As with all searches of Eigen’s
Quotations, the order in which the hits appear on the screen is based on the Popularity
Index of the quotations.
Concepts /
Key Words: Even though a word does not appear in a quote but it is
descriptive of the quotation or its subject, the quote can still be found in Eigen’s Political & Historical
Quotations. Each and every one
of the more than 40,000 quotations have been reviewed by Dr. Eigen and his
editors. They have added these
conceptual index terms, There are
over 17,000 different conceptual terms on which one can search. Click on the “Concepts/Key
Words” radio button Place the
concept words for which you are searching in one or more of the boxes. In the example below, we inserted
“treaties” and “covenants” in the 3rd box.
and clicked on the Search button.
In this case, all the quotations which
relate to the concept of treaties or to the concept of covenants will appear in
the hit list. As usual, they will
appear in order based on their Popularity Index. This will find all quotes about or
relating to either treaties or covenants—not just those quotations which
use the one or more of the search terms.
As an example, one of the quotations found will be one of Woodrow
Wilson’s famous ones, # 60150:
They have shamed us in the eyes of the
world
Note that this
quotation neither uses the words “treaties” nor
“covenants.” But it is
about the fact that the Republican-controlled Senate refused to ratify the
treaty that would establish a League of Nations. This covenant was thought by many to be
the most important of the first half of the 20th century and there
are those who believe that the consequent failure of the League of Nations
without the United States
was a major cause of WWII. So this
important historical quotation could easily be missed with a classic searching
engine—even a Google. Because
they can only search for the words in the quotation or other text. Here the quotation is found because it
is about a treaty.
Another use of this
kind of concept search is to find quotations about people as opposed to quotations by
people. For example, if you use the
All Fields button and input “John Kennedy”, you will find all the
quotes about President Kennedy. But
you will also get all the quotes by
Kennedy. However, if you use the
Concept/Key Word search radio button and input “Kennedy, John”, you
will only get quotations about
Kennedy and not by him. Note that
where names are used as concepts or key words, the form is to key in the last
name first, followed by a comma, followed by the first or other names if you
are using the “exact phrase” search.
Clicking on the
words will list all the possible index terms in the collection. There are over 17,000. They are presented alphabetically. Clicking on any one of these will
produce all the quotations for which the conceptual term was relevant. As usual, these are listed in Popularity
Index order.
Author
Search: The 4th
kind of search is an author search.
By clicking this radio button, the search will find all the quotes which
match the words you input. If you
only know the last name, that is all you absolutely need. For example the illustration shows the
hits if one searches for “Armstrong.”
Note that there are not only 10 quotes
listed on the first screen, but there are 8 different “Armstrongs”
displayed. If you want all the
quotations from one of them, do another author search using the first and last
name or the names and initial. The
more particulars that you key in, the better you will narrow down your hit list
to a single author.
Note at the bottom
of the first page of author hits there are 2 red page numerals—1 and 2.
This means that you have 2 screen pages of hits. The page number that is displaying is
NOT underlined; the others are. So
if you want to view the other pages, just click on any of the page numbers that
are underlined. As with any other quotation list, clicking on the blue first
line will display the entire quotation.
Hint:
Some cultures of the world use or have used different conventions for
naming. Latin America, parts of Asia,
and ancient Rome
are examples. Cicero had several first and middle
names. If you do not find the
author for whom you are searching using an author search, try the same name
with a general All Fields search or try an All Fields search with any word rather
than all words.
Should you want to
view all the possible authors in the collection, click the words “List of
Authors”. Another screen will
appear with the authors in alphabetic order. Clicking on any of these will display
all the quotations for that particular author in order of their respective
Popularity Indices. There are over
11,000 different authors represented in this collection. Quotations are added virtually every
week. The exact number at any
particular time can be seen just under the masthead on the basic search screen.
Problem:
In all societies there are fewer names in use than there are people so multiple
people often share the same name.
Over a long historical period, this problem can become extensive. Where there are two or more individuals
of the same name, we have referred to one or more by including the dates of
birth and death in parentheses after the name. So in this way you can identify the
different users of the same name.
Note that in these cases the birth and death dates will appear
twice—once in the citation after the author name as is typical of almost
all quotations and in those instances of potential duplicate use of names, the
dates will also appear in red after the name.
If you wish to
examine or browse all of the Authors, you can click on the Browse Authors
choice on the right hand side of the screen or on the List Authors on the
Expanded Search screen on the left hand side. A fill list of the over 11,000 authors
in the collection is made available.
Clicking on any one will return a list of quotations by that author in Popularity
Index order.
Similarly a list of
all the concept terms can be perused.
Clicking on any concept term will produce all the quotations dealing
with that concept. Not that there
are over 17,000 different concepts so this is a very extensive list. They are organized alphabetically in two
columns.
The Area
Designations can also be listed, and that list functions in the same manner
only there are just over 100 different areas.
It is also possible
to search for a quotation by number.
Recall that each quotation in the collection has been assigned a unique
Eigen Number. This is most
important for the editorial staff and the computer system. However, there are occasions where users
would use the Eigen Number. For
example, in the cross referencing options of a quote the Eigen Numbers appear
in orange and are hot linked to the quotations. But often, scholars, journalists or
others interacting with colleagues and editors use the Eigen Numbers as a
short-hand reference. Also, when communicating
with our editorial staff you can mention the Eigen Number and save effort.
If you do wish to
search for a quotation by Eigen Number, you will find a fill-in box below the
search button on the Expanded Search screen. Just enter the Eigen Number for which
you are searching there and click on the search button above—the same
button you always use in an expanded search. When searching by Eigen Number,
· Enter
one 5 digit number only.
· Do
not use commas or any punctuation marks.
· Be
sure that the other fill-in boxes above are blank.
The found quotation
will appear in the usual format.
Note that there are
a few Eigen Numbers for which no quotation will be found. In the past, if we discovered a phantom
quotation for example, we simply deleted the quotation from the collection. In other cases we inadvertently had a
duplicate quotation and deleted it.
We do not reuse the Eigen Number.
There are a few other reasons why a quotation may have been
deleted. In any event those are the
reasons for the apparently unused numbers.
Spelling is very
critical in computer searching. A
computer has been described as a giant moron who can only do a few things but
can do them very rapidly. The
computer has no judgment. Incorrect
spelling is the biggest problem in the utilization of computerized search
engines. So be careful, and if you
get no hits where you would think there should be some, check the spelling and
try again.
Google has done a
wonderful and exemplary job of detecting many possible misspellings and
offering the user the option of the correct spelling. However to do this one has to have a
usage base that is quite extensive.
After a few years, we will be able to also add alternatives for the most
common misspellings, but as of today, care is needed.
It is possible to search for an exact match
of a phrase. For example you might
want to search for “Ask not what your country can do”. This must be done in the expanded search
by placing the phrase “Ask not what your country can do” in the
“exact phrase” box. Do
NOT add the quote marks. Do not use
quote marks in the right hand search box or in the other boxes of the expanded
search. Some search engines allow
the quotations to signify an exact phrase, but if a quote mark is added to
Eigen’s Political & Historical Quotations the computer will search for
the phrase with the quotation mark and only find it if it exists in exactly
that form.
Also remember that the search
engine—except when it is searching for an exact phrase” ignores
common words such as “an”, “the”, “a”,
“of” etc. So do not
even include those when inputting words to search for in the right hand search
of the other (non exact phrase) boxes of the basic or expanded search boxes.
Each quotation
earns a Popularity Index based on how often and to what extent the quotation is
found and displayed. It takes into
consideration the aggregate behavior of all users of Eigen’s Political & Historical Quotations. The Popularity Index is a normalized
number. 100 represents and average
quotation for the collection. If
the index is higher than 100, it means that the quotation is more popular than
average. A number smaller than 100
indicates that the quotation is less popular than the average.
A popularity index
of 160 indicates a quotation that is much more popular than the average in the
collection. A 78 index would mean
that the quote was much less popular than the average. However an index of 187 would show a
quotation which is more popular than one with an index of 128 for example. And a 42 index indicates a quotation is
less popular than a 67.
All new quotations start off
with an average index of 100. Then
depending on the audience behavior, that score will go up or down thereafter.
Whenever search
hits are listed, the order of the list is in order of Popularity Index score with
the highest scores—the most popular quotations—being listed first.
At this time there
is no way to add a filter to the search to select only those quotations that
are above average in popularity or look for the unpopular ones. However, you can search for other
criteria and the most popular hits will be at the top of the list. If you would profit from an ability to
filter on Popularity Index please let us know and we will consider adding that
capability in future versions.
Please note that
the Popularity Index is not an indicator of importance necessarily or even of
value. It just measures what our
audience behavior has been over time.
During the 2006 debate over the prerogative of the President to override
Congressional passed laws for what he believed the nation’s defense,
quotations about wiretapping, secrecy executive powers, obedience to law, and
the Presidency were sought much more frequently than usual as journalists,
students, political scientists and others were studying these issues. So temporarily the Popularity Indices of
these quotations went up and stayed that way until the issue became less
popular and over time the quotations receded to their normal levels but they
stayed high for a while. Popularity
is simply popularity and does not necessarily imply anything else.
This is the only major
collection of political and historical quotations that can be searched by
concept as well as literal words.
Some quotation collections are searchable by subject but there is only
one subject for each quotation.
There can be many concepts inherent in a quotation, only one of which is
the subject. In this collection
quotations can be found based on the concept about which the originator was
talking or writing as well as the usual meanings of the literal words of what
he or she said or wrote. These selections
and choice of concept/index terms are somewhat subjective. When you display the full quotation on
the screen, the concepts chosen by the editors for that particular quotation
are displayed in blue under “Concepts and Keywords” as is
illustrated on the left.
These concept terms
are hyperlinked. If a particular quotation is of interest
to you, often it is because of the concepts that are covered by the
quotation. To follow up and see
more quotations about that particular concept, you need only to click on the
blue concept term and Dynamic
Quotesearcher™ will find all the other quotations related to that
particular concept So a journalist
working on a story or a student on a paper can follow the conceptual thread of
ideas and concepts.
For those users who
feel more comfortable using a larger type of font size, Eigen’s Political & Historical Quotations has made the
font size controllable by the user.
In the left side of the basic search screen there are three F’s
for font control:
F F F
These are in three
different sizes. Clicking on the
largest F will convert all the text to a much larger type. The smallest will give you the most
information on a line but will be harder to read for those of us who are far
sighted or who are getting a little older.
Click on the F that is most comfortable for you.
All
quotations, by definition, are out of context. There is obviously no substitute for
considering the entire source and knowing the circumstances then existent that
might bear on the quotation.
However, that is time-consuming and difficult, and although we always
encourage it, we apologize to all the quotees who have had their complete views
and thoughts truncated by the intellectual artificiality of the quotation
selection and reproduction process.
The
reader however should remember that context is extremely important. Specifically:
· The
quotation might not represent the views of the quotee. It well may have been a “cheap
shot” out of context.
· Public
figures change their views over time as all of us do. Their views in the quotations may have
been from an earlier, “less enlightened” portion of their career,
or, as in the case of William Jennings Bryant, running three times for
President, represented the high point
of his political thinking before disappointment at electoral rejection and the
need to earn a living from the “lecture circuit” dominated. The quotations changed
· Quotees
sometimes establish straw men, if only to knock them down. Occasionally they are remembered most
for the argument that they never believed to begin with.
· Occasionally,
a public figure is joking, but with the context gone, and sarcasm and irony
being what they are, it is hard to tell.
· Many
quotations were never intended by the quotee to be public. They thought that they were
private. To some, these are the
most interesting and more accurately reflect their views. To others, statesmen should only be
judged by their “official” pronouncements. We have sided with the former.
So
context is not just that of the individual quotation and its immediate time,
but of a public and private life that spans decades of time and a panoply of
thoughts and ideas.
However,
throughout the history of politics one of the strongest weapons politicians
have had is quoting their opponents out of context. Often it is very clear and transparent
as when orthodox Republican politicians banded together to defeat writer Upton
Sinclair who was poised to win the California
gubernatorial election. By handing
out flyers and sending agents to public places and correctly attributing to
Sinclair the dialogue of characters in his novels, he was made to look like the
very villains he was condemning.
Every nasty thing that a villainous character of his had ever said in a
novel was quoted implying that these quotations were Sinclair’s views
rather than the ravings of characters he had invented. Transparent as the technique was, it
worked.
Much
more subtle was the castigation by Vice President Cheney of candidate John
Kerry in the 2004 Presidential campaign.
The VP quoted Kerry as calling for a more “sensitive”
approach to administration war policy.
Kerry had used the term to propose being more delicate in the
relationships with our allies, actual and potential. Cheney stated that the opponent was
advocating being more sensitive towards the enemy. The difference hung on the context of
the full panoply of Kerry’s criticisms.
These
two dramatic examples should act as a warning to all who consider political
quotations ever—in this collection, in the media, in the history books or
anywhere else. The quotation may
well be notable, but it may not have been a fair representation of the authors
view. Read cautiously! Consider the source! Examine the context of the use of the
quotation as well as that of the original utterance or writing itself. For speakers and writers, consider
carefully how your words might be taken out of context, because they always
have been and unfortunately are likely to always be in the future.
Political
figures not only generate quotations but use them often. Sometimes they are used as civil
incantations in preludes or announcement of serious action. They can connote careful reflection and
study, consideration of history and precedent. Quoting another politician associates in
the public mind current views and character with those of the quotee -- virtue
and wisdom by association. In early
America,
politicians were most fond of quoting George Washington and Thomas
Jefferson. Then Abraham Lincoln was
included, and recently Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John
F. Kennedy have joined the ranks of frequently quoted American politicians by
other American politicians.
Often,
the politician uses the quotation for the age-old reason of communicating. The capture of an important idea in
relatively few clear words, has been the most important strength of the great
quotation over the ages. Thus,
proverbs and aphorisms have come down to us, even though there is no
identifiable author or authority.
Interestingly,
the more important or serious the speech, moment or crisis, the more likely a
leader is to use quotations for each of the reasons just given.
On
some occasions, the major reason a particular quotation is important is because
of the fact that it was used by a leader to announce a major policy or justify
significant action. Such is the
case with the quotation of Pope Gregory IX when he said, “It is the duty
of every Catholic to persecute heretics.” That was the beginning of the
Inquisition which not only had serious consequences for people the world over,
but had political implications throughout American history and has icons of
meaning for most of us to this day.
It was quoted by the American Know-Nothings to justify their
anti-Catholic positions, quoted by political enemies of Al Smith, the first
Catholic to run for President, refuted by the Kennedy forces in that
Presidential run, and constantly and clearly contradicted by the Catholic
Bishops of today. We can even see
the history of reform in a historical series of quotations.
What
Makes a Good Quotation
There is a long history of
collection of quotations, but most of these collections are not explicit about
their selection criteria, and when they are explicit there is not found much
agreement but the two qualities that seem to be most important are:
·
Length: The best quotes are terse. Benjamin Franklin’s description of
the policy choices for the colonies in forming a confederation is a classic
example: “Join or Die”
·
Idea: The quotation expresses an idea that
itself has significance.
·
Humor: This is
always better than not. The more sharper and pointed the better. Funny
put-downs and insults are among everyone’s favorites. Politicians such as Mo Udall and Alan
Simpson have used humor to make points and obtain more press and media coverage,
including placement and inclusion in this collection. And occasionally some of the funniest
lines come from public figures not known for their humor. Such was the case when President
Theodore Roosevelt had been accused of illegal, unethical and skulldugerous
behavior in obtaining the land on which to build the Panama
Canal. The President
had worked the better part of the night drafting a public defense of his
actions as he saw the situation. He
asked Elihu Root, his Secretary of State, for Root’s assessment of Roosevelt’s defense argument. The reply: “You
have shown that you were accused of seduction and you have conclusively proved
that you were guilty of rape.”
·
Insults:
Throughout history, politicians have had large egos and an instinct for the
jugular with respect to their rivals and in some cases even their friends and
colleagues. These make for many of
the most interesting quotations, humorous or not. Some or the most devastating insults are
made by friends and supporters who never intended the effect. One of the best examples of this class
is Marilyn Quayle’s defense of her husband, Vice President Dan
Quayle. He had been accused of
having carnal knowledge of a beautiful woman who was present at what the Vice
President had explained was just a golfing weekend. His wife explained why the innocent golf
explanation was credible. “Anyone who knows Dan Quayle knows he would
rather play golf than have sex any day.”
·
Eloquence:
Eloquent quotations are wonderful devices for the appreciation of the eloquence
without investing all the effort of reading entire speeches. Rhetorical qualities such as
alliteration make a quote more noteworthy such as “Sex and money always
prowl in the penumbra of power.”
·
Historical Significance: Historically significant quotations are
often included if one or two of the other elements are
present. The last words of Franz
Ferdinand, “It is nothing” after he had been shot by an assassin
would not be particularly notable except for the fact that the Archduke’s
death, far from “nothing” was one of the major links in the chain
of events that became the First World War.
Human history has had fewer events of such significance. Many quotations are included because
they accompanied (or were reactions to) the introduction of significant policy
changes or other key historical events.
·
Timeliness: Timely quotations are usually more
interesting than untimely ones. So
quotations, even from hundreds of years ago, that reflect on timely current
issues tend to be valued in a contemporary collection. A good example is the observation of Edward
Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, whose observation about the difficulty of
making the case for free trade was prescient. 75 years ago; he observed,
“The arguments for protection are more easily made attractive than those
for free trade.”
·
Surprise: Quotations that express
points of view or character traits that are unexpected tend to make for very
interesting quotations.
·
Gaffs:
The slip on the banana peel still has entertainment value
in almost all fields. Quotations
illustrating these are particular favorites, such as the response to a question
in the middle of a national election that was given by Canadian Prime Minister
Kim Campbell, “The election campaign is no time to get involved in very,
very serious issues.”
·
Extreme Views:
The very fact that humans can hold extreme views has
always had a fascination for most of us.
This is particularly true when the extreme view is held by someone who
generally is moderate. In the case
of extreme views, they tend to get included in any reportage, collection, or
anthology including this one. A
Christian cleric like Jerry Falwell is represented herein to a much greater
degree than Christian theologians who are far more profound and theologically
influential than he. His political
activism is one reason, but his extreme views are heavily covered and reported
and thus become more available to all of us. This has always been true, and so
extreme views are typically over-represented in scholarly works as well as more
popular efforts.
·
Contradictions:
We are endlessly fascinated by contradictions, especially
in great men and women. So it was when Theodore Roosevelt who was then liberal
enough to be the first President to have Blacks to the White House for dinner,
said of Indians, “I don't go so far as to think that the only good
Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't
like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.” Such a bias against one minority group,
in contrast to his liberal leadership roles with respect to other minority
groups, represents a contradiction in character and personality that has
fascinated people for years. And it
is a surprise, if not a shock to most of us, that an enlightened soul such as
Benjamin Franklin could say, “Those [German immigrants] who come hither
are generally the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own nation …. They
will soon so out-number us … that we will not be able to preserve our
language, and even our government will become precarious.”
·
Inspiration: Uplifting quotations that inspire are
among many people’s favorites.
Examples of courage, morality, loyalty are all often are included for
their inspirational value.
·
Explanations:
Those quotations which provide explanations of historical happenings are
usually enlightening. Although not
notable in their rhetoric, their content may well overcome other shortcomings
and justify their inclusion.
·
Lies: Politicians have
throughout history have made statements that were at variance with the truth or
actuality. Some of these are for
malevolent purposes. Others were
justified in their own minds as protecting military or state secrets or
campaign tactics. Dwight Eisenhower
wrote to President Truman, “The possibility that I will ever be drawn
into political activity is so remote as to be negligible.” Only a week later he announced that
“his hat was in the ring.” He was running for a Presidential
nomination and had obviously had been less than truthful with Truman. Still others, may or may not have
intended deception, but history or policy changes revealed the
contradiction. Lyndon
Johnson’s statement, “We are not about to send American boys 9 or
10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for
themselves” is a classic, and historians will debate for years whether
this deception was intentional or there was a genuine change of mind and
policy. The claims of the George W.
Bush administration to justify the Iraq war were obvious
untruths. Whether they represented
deliberate deceptions of the public, honestly motivated errors in facts,
judgments or intelligence, or an unwillingness to hear and/or accept
information contraindicating desired policy positions, or a combination of all
these reasons was debated as soon as the true facts emerged and ever since. Whatever the motivation, variations from
historical truth are particularly fascinating if only because they cause much
speculation as to motivation.
·
Hypocrisy: A
more general element that makes for a good quotation is hypocrisy. There seems to be an age-old delight in
exposing hypocrisy, especially of the powerful, the elites and those who hold
much of their influence and authority by virtue of their serving a larger
societal purpose. This love of
documenting hypocrisy tends to work to the detriment of those people who tend
to be political activists at any particular time. When liberal politicians who were
advocating integration of public schools were discovered sending their own
children to private schools, their statements got much more coverage than they
would normally obtain.
Conservatives, who were strong advocates and supporters of Polish labor
unions who were causing instability to Communist regimes and then opposed
virtually every American labor union and the rights of workers got particular
attention. But the social
conservative of history are probably the group most affected by the
proportional over-coverage of hypocrisy.
Those politicians who generally were opposed to government involvement
or interference with personal decisions generally got a pass from ridicule when
their own foibles were publicly exposed.
But when strong advocates of family values divorce loyal spouses in
favor of younger women or have illegitimate children, or politicians who have
castigated gays turn out to be homosexual themselves, or vehement abortion
opponents turn out to have facilitated abortions when their indiscretions led
them to facilitate abortions, their statements attract much more attention than
the same statement would have had they not taken such strong public positions.
·
Identity of Author:
There is definitely a double standard that operates. A quotation from a President may well be
included, while the exact same statement, if uttered by the mayor of a small
town, would not have been selected for inclusion. Famous, rich and powerful people simply
have a lower threshold for inclusion on each of the other factors. Perhaps that is the tabloid journalist
in each of us. Nonetheless, it is
operative in our collection as well as others. A good example of this principle is the
introduction that the famous author, Mark Twain, gave to lecturer Winston
Churchill in 1901. Twain was at the
zenith of his career and Churchill, a young up and comer. Twain’s quotation while notable
would never have made the collection had he been introducing almost any other
English lecturer. It is the
juxtaposition and confluence of contact of these two great public figures that
makes the otherwise prosaic quotation worthy of inclusion.
·
Duality: Some
quotations are particularly interesting because they have been taken by
listeners and readers to support diametrically opposed views on a subject. President George W. Bush told an
audience, “Let law enforcement determine guilt or innocence.” This is one of the many statements of
President Bush that contributed to his reputation as a polarizing
politician. His supporters turned
to this statement to illustrate that Bush was a supporter of the Constitution
and civil liberties by urging the nation not to engage in vigilantism or give
vent to their stereotypic views of minorities. Detractors took the same statement as a
perfect example of Bush’s assault on Constitutional freedoms. Law enforcement does not determine guilt
or innocence in our system. Police
and prosecutors in America
do not determine guilt or innocence; juries do. They argue that the Bush
administration’s law enforcement policies are designed to have law
enforcement usurp more and more of this facet of criminal justice. This type of quotation is quite rare,
but when these do occur, they provide grist for the journalistic and historical
mill.
·
Quotation Used By Others: There are many quotations that would not
necessarily score high on the other criteria but are used as quotations by
other politicians, pundits, political scientists, political philosophers, and
others in the political world. We
therefore give a higher priority to these than otherwise thereby taking the
empirical behavior of the political world and giving it great weight. If a quotation is a favorite of an
important politician or political critic is may be included even though it does
not meet the other criteria.
A Note
About Historical Quotations
Some historical quotations are valuable only for the event
or circumstances they describe. The
person can be of little importance.
One such example is that of a relatively obscure Confederate naval
officer who, after the Civil war, became a mercenary in the Khedive’s
army of Egypt:
James Morris Morgan, 1845-1928:
“Cairo had not yet become the stamping-ground
of tourists. Foreigners were curiosities, and the true believer's hatred for
the accursed Giaour, or "Christian dog," was something that he was
very proud of. A fanatic was liable
to make trouble at any moment.”
The significance of the quotation lies in the illustration
of the ambivalence of the Arab Moslem world with the West. While wanting and hiring its know-how
and technology, Islamic fundamentalists were extremely hostile to Westerners
and especially Christians. This
quotation illustrates that this phenomenon is not new, existed long before
there were foreign policy issues regarding Palestine
and Israel,
and probably stemmed from the Crusades.
The editorial decision to include a quotation in any
particular collection is, in large part, influenced by the medium in which the
collection is to be distributed.
Until relatively recently, the printed book was the typical distribution
mechanism. Given that the cost of
book production is essentially proportional to length, economic considerations
have traditionally limited editorial decision making. Most of us used the adage, “When
in doubt, edit it out.” Dr.
Eigen himself was an implementer of this principle when he compiled the large
volume, Macmillan Dictionary of Political Quotations.
However, that was then, and this is now! There are no longer any practical
economic influences on the issue of inclusion in an electronic collection where
storage costs have reached the Steve Jobs critical point whereby they are so
inexpensive that we behave as if they are free.
Digital searching and search-engine techniques have also
vastly improved in effectiveness, time, and cost. An extensive de-limited search, that
required specialized librarians working with mainframe computers a few hours in
the 1980s can be today accomplished by most Internet users without external
assistance in less than a minute.
In addition we have now, for the first time in publicly available
political data bases, added conceptual indexing
which enables even more precise searching.
Material will be found with a word search that describes concepts in the
material even if the word itself never appears.
The import of this new technology is that we have reversed
the now obsolete editing adage cited above. We have adopted, “When in doubt,
include it.”
One criterion that we deliberately do NOT use is one that
has become increasingly popular in prioritizing information: Popularity on the
Internet. Google has made one of the
great contributions to information science by using popularity as a selection
and ranking criterion. While this
is extremely valuable, there are a few areas where it is not—or even
counter productive. And quotations
are one of those areas. The reason
is this is so is that so many web sites have resorted to quotation
scraping. This means that the sites
automatically scour the Internet with “spiders”, indiscriminately
pick up anything that appears to be a quotation, and then add it unvetted to
their own collection. Then the
Google spiders then index all these quotation sites, the words of a quotation
might well pop up on dozens of different web sites when an editor or compiler
had only included that quotation once or twice. The truly popular quotations are
therefore not differentiable from the unpopular which have been scraped by so
many other sites. This practice
reaches its absurd extreme when a legitimate quotation site inadvertently
includes a bogus quotation—when that has been fraudulently created to
support a particular ideology or political viewpoint. Once the error is made, it gets
“legitimated” by the scrapers if the frequency of appearance on the
web is a criteria. Therefore we
have specifically rejected this criterion.
We have however, created a “Popularity
Index” which is a true measure of a certain kind of popularity:
Namely the likelihood of appearing as a hit to a search by our users. It depends on human behavior rather then
robotic spider behavior.
Eigen’s Political & Historical
Quotations is not a newspaper, radio show or TV news program. Although one of the design objectives
was to build a tool for journalists, it does not have a conscious political
position on each of the thousands of various issues that it covers. Nor is there any overt attempt to give
"equal time" or "balanced coverage" to issues. The collection is certainly not a
polemic and not intended, despite its length, as a Jeremiad. On most of the large, contentious issues
(abortion for example), there will be coverage of a broad spectrum of opinion
simply because there is a wide variety of quotations readily available. However on narrower issues (the
desirability of Jewish parochial schools) there may be only one or two
quotations which take only a single side of an issue. Immigration has been attacked ever since
the first colonists arrived from Europe and
some promptly became our first Nativists.
There has been a significant, vocal “Know Nothing” element
attacking further immigration in one form or another from ever since America
was colonized. Equally passionate
and extensively verbal immigration supporters have been in shorter supply
despite the fact that virtually all Americans—with the exception of
Native Americans—are and have been immigrants or descendants of
same. Therefore, there are far more
anti-immigration quotations than pro.
The quality of the quotation, (see What Makes a Good Quotation) is in this collection the
determining selection factor for inclusion with little attention paid to
fairness and balance. Most
political issues can rarely be dichotomized anyway, despite the almost
universal attempt by politicians and the media to make them so. Significant issues, especially over
time, tend to be more complex and subtle.
This is evident as one reads many different quotations across historical
time on the same issue.
Doubtless we have failed to include many quotations
that are excellent quotations and represent additional points of view. In many cases, it is not because these
were considered and rejected considering our editorial principle of when in doubt, include the quotation. But more likely, they have never come to
our attention. Almost every day we
discover another quotation which we are amazed that we missed. We then include them in this “work
in progress” which it will ever be.
We welcome suggestions from all.
Eigen’s Political & Historical Quotations™ has
been and is now made possible and practical by digital technology, a continuous
publication with an amorphous beginning and no end so long as humankind
politically organizes society and communicates about the process. If you have
any suggestions for us, [Click here to suggest additional
quotations to be included.]
We have included much—the utterances of Adolph
Hitler to the Grand Dragons of the Ku Klux Klan. We wish to apologize to those who are
offended by such. We are ourselves.
However, it is our belief that there is only two things worse for
society than the publication of such material. First is the suppression of the material
which if had been paid more attention to in its time, would have ameliorated
much human tragedy. The second is
the publication and dissemination while there is silence by those who teach and
lead. Our inclusion is made in the
fervent hope that Eigen’s Political & Historical Quotations
will be a useful tool in exposing the originators and the followers of hate
mongers for what they are, and give politicians, educators, journalists, and
other opinion leaders the resources to expose hateful material for what it is.
This work
is American in perspective. While
the roots of modern American political life were developed and nurtured in England and many other parts of the world,
material is included to provide perspective on America, it's history, and current
relationship with much of the world.
Non-American views about America
have a high probability of being included as opposed to say a Nigerian point of
view of South Africa or a
Chinese perspective on Mexico.
Simply put,
the majority of the quotations herein are by Americans. The majority are about America. The majority cover issues and events
important to America
and its history. However, there are
many thousands of quotations which relate to the fundamental aspects of
American Democracy and history which come from other nations and times far
before the birth of the American republic.
The United States
was legally created within a few short years. However, the intellectual concepts,
hopes, aspirations, fears and concerns of the Founding Fathers were shaped by
thousands of years of political history.
Indeed, things to be avoided were as strong drivers and motivators for
the American Revolutionists as were things to be aspired to—and those
were things of the past. The
Scottish historian and political philosopher David Hume had no knowledge of America,
but the early Americans all were familiar with Hume’s views and
perspectives. The same is true for
Locke, Plato, Voltaire, Martin Luther and countless others. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention in
Philadelphia,
the delegates had access to a library which contained many of these earlier
works. So this collection includes
many of the foreign historical antecedents and predecessors of our modern
political system—both positive and negative. In addition, there are many non-American
quotations illustrating the reaction of the world to the American political
scene.
When a
foreign politician or writer generated universally applicable political or
historical material these were also included even if there were no reference to
America.
This
American bias and perspective also manifests itself in the wording
throughout. "The
Constitution" refers to the U. S. Constitution and not the Constitution of
Clarendon or the Turkish Constitution, albeit quotations of both of those
documents are included. This is not
indended to imply any arrogance; just a limitation of objectives for this work.
It would be
of great interest and furtherance of knowledge for additional works of this
kind to be developed from the perspectives of other nations, but for the moment
our attentions have been more than fully occupied with this limited objective.
There are a
number of foreign countries which although not American are represented
extensively in this collection.
Each has a separate relationship and explanation.
England
The
political, legal, cultural and intellectual life of America
has been influenced more heavily by England than any other foreign
nation. The twin forces of the English
common law and the political and civil rights of Englishmen, even under
monarchy are implicit if not explicit in the every day lives of Americans. Historical alliances in the major
military conflicts in the last century is also reflected in many of the
quotations in this collection. The United States evolved from English colonies, and
England
was inextricably involved in American life thereafter, as our fiercest enemy,
out most steadfast friend and ally, our banker and our debtor. And the English language itself, is the
bridge over which most political ideas and descriptions have traveled
throughout America
and increasingly in the rest of the world.
Canada
The longest
undefended border in the world lies between the United
States and Canada. It was not always thus. America under the British fought
along side their Canadian English compatriots and their Indian allies against
the French and their Indian allies.
After the American Revolution, much Western American public opinion clamored
for the invasion of Canada. Such invasion was actually attempted but
failed. Indians, who had chosen the
losing side in the American Revolution emigrated to Canada, as did Tecumseh and Sitting
Bull. They joined the French,
English, Canadian Indians and the growing number of Scotch, Irish, Germans,
Scandinavians, Jews and more recently Asians and Moslems. When slavery was tearing America apart, fugitive slaves were welcomed
into Canada and given their
freedom and the kind of opportunity that America promised but did not yet
deliver to all. With time, trade,
close foreign policy efforts, joint development projects, and serving as Allies
in arms through four major conflicts and still today in peacekeeping, there is
certainly no country closer to the United States, by any reasonable
criteria--ranging from shared vales to ethnic background; from democratic
capitalistic structures to strong preferences for civil rights and privacy,
from business trade and cultural influences.
While
Canada from the outside looks much like the United States, from inside the
political system has evolved into a more gentle and genteel society, one in
which the Canadians are secure in their physical borders but are troubled over
the cultural erosion that America constantly makes against the traditional
French- and British-Canadians.
These groups have been so preoccupied by the esoteric issue of the
special place and privilege of the French-Canadians within Canada, that they hardly had a
chance to stop misunderstanding each other long enough to realize that the
Yankees from the South were dominating Canadian entertainment, fast food,
technology, finance, agriculture, fisheries, lumber. Perhaps most telling is the fact the a
Canadian like Peter Jennings can rise in America to be the ABC Evening New
Network Anchor and have two hundred million American viewers with not a clue to
most that he is a foreigner.
Commerce and entertainment and information flow across the border,
almost totally unimpeded in both directions. To most Americans, Canadians seem to be
us to the North, with a few quaint ideas and vocabulary words with which to
engage in the national sport of the country whereby the French-Canadian
Nationalists seem to make demands for the right to oppress other Canadian
groups in ways in which they used to be oppressed themselves. -- the
trickle-down approach to nation building.
Meanwhile the English Canadians seem to spend most of their creative
energies totally ignoring their historical partner’s different cultural
and other traditions. This vexing
problem parallels the American political dilemma of race and is heavily
represented in Canadian political and historical quotations. This and other Canadian issues have
blended into the American political and social scene just as American political
thought and ideology as been infused throughout Canada.
Mexico
To the
South, the immigration patterns and economic relationships appear in American
headlines each day and the Mexicans observe American politics, and comment upon
it, extensively because the policy of the President of the United States may
affect the majority of Mexicans as much as, if not more so, than the policies
of the President of Mexico.
Historically, a substantial part of the land mass of The United States
used to belong to Mexico,
and the benefit to us has to be balanced against the trauma to the
Mexicans. Historically, early
Americans were as preoccupied with the potential of foreign powers using Mexico as a platform for aggression against
American interests and territory in this hemisphere as we were with Cuba
just a few short years ago. The
history of Texas, New
Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California
would be vacuous without the interaction with the history of Mexico. This history and modern human and
commercial interaction provides much material in our collection of quotations.
Russia
The military and
geopolitical relationship with the Soviet Union
has seesawed between military alliance and potential martial adversary has
dominated American public military consciousness in the last 50 years of the 20th
century. It has affected our
national budget debate, civil liberties contests, educational and scientific
policy. The preoccupation of many
American leaders with the “Evil Empire” and the fear of American
capitalists with the preeminent advocate of communism, has been reflected in
American writing and speech. And
that has, in turn, been reflected in this collection.
But
even prior to the U. S. and Russia emerging as the world’s two
superpowers, Russian history of the 18th, 19th and the
early 20th centuries finds its way into political and historical
quotation sets as Russia was the archetype of backwardness of the so-called
“Christian nations.” As
such it provided material if even by contrast.
France
There was a
time when no American political leader was not acutely aware of France’s
history and metaphors of almost every political decision or situation could be
found in the highs and lows of this remarkable culture and people. For our founding fathers, the policies
of the French were, second only to England, in importance to
Americans. Without the assistance
of France,
it is doubtful that there would have been any successful American
Revolution. The most skilled of
American leaders were dispatched to France. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson among them. So France has had more of an influence upon the United States than Germany,
Sweden, or Holland.
Also, perhaps the greatest commentator, analyst, and documenter of
political and cultural America
was De Toqueville, a Frenchman.
These facts are reflected by many of the quotations relating to early America. In modern times, France’s influence and importance on the
world stage has been receding while that of China
and Japan
has been growing.
Although no
longer a country per se, the influence of the Roman Empire
on the world in general and the Western world in particular was without
peer. While we can trace most of
our basic legal notions to England,
they had precursors in the Roman Empire. The de facto cultural domination of the United States on the world stage does not
compare to the extent of the influence the Roman Empire
exerted. And no nation since has
actually governed as much of the world.
The Roman predilection to the written word, brings us much material that
enriches our contemporary understanding of governance and politics.
The Vatican
Although
not strictly a country, the seat of the Roman Catholic Church has for over a
millennium exerted a range of influence on world affairs raging from direct
governance and oversight of major European nations to influence throughout the
world. Popes have been more
influential than many kings and prime ministers and even wielded more power. While other religions have had profound
spiritual and philosophical influence on the world, no other religion has
organized itself as like a state and interacted with other states as if it were
a nation. There are no formal Hindu
or Jewish ambassadors in most major countries, but the Vatican is usually so represented. Popes throughout history have wielded
enormous political influence and this influence continues to this day with the Vatican playing a significant part in the fall
of the Soviet Union.
So in this
collection, although other religions are represented by intellectual and
spiritual leaders, Eigen’s
Political & Historical Quotations also includes quotations from the Vatican
and many Popes almost as if they were coming from a major state.
Ireland
It is hard
to imagine what the United States would be like if it were not the beneficiary
of the troubles of Ireland, inextricably bound up with England. Although there are only about 5 million
Irish men and women in Ireland,
there are many times that number of Americans of Irish decent. However, even beyond that special
relationship, the great Irish political and literary traditions combine to make
the Irish, on a per capita basis, the richest treasure trove of political
quotations in the world. The Irish
political literature not only reflects great traditions of aspirations of
independence and freedom, protest and revolution, war and peace, church and
state. But the Irish have been so
skilled politically, that under Parnell’s political leadership they even
were able to control the balance of power of England’s Parliament. With their great oratorical and literary
tradition, the Irish are much over-represented in this collection compared to
their population numbers.
Israel
A strong
alliance ever since the creation of that nation makes the relationship between America and Israel
a very strong one with Israel
the only free democracy in the Middle East. The volatility of the Middle East has
kept Israel on the American
media radar screen, and virtually no American President since Harry Truman has
not created and managed a foreign policy with Israel as a significant component
of his administration. And Israel has been suffering from, and coping with,
Islamic fundamentalist terrorism long before America was so victimized. Their politicians and military leaders
have had much to say that is useful in the current American debate on the
“War on Terror.”
Israel
also is an example of another element of political quotation collecting. The political mores of that nation, the
rough and tumble of a vibrant democracy, the political tradition of candor and
an aggressive press that reports it (except for “security issues”)
creates disproportionately more good material from which to draw. A comparison with Japan is useful. This country has a much longer history,
has much more of an economic impact and as much geopolitical, strategic
importance as Israel, yet
there are relatively few quotations in the collection from Japan. Language is only part of the
reason. The largest factor is that
Japanese political figures are traditionally prudent, circumscribed, and
verbally extremely responsible. The
Japanese press sees itself as an important extension of the government in
presenting the nation’s face to the public and the world. Modern Japanese politicians would not
likely get jailed or otherwise punished for political candor. It’s just that culturally, the
norm of maintenance of good relations and harmony, even with opposition
politicians, takes on a level of importance, which while in the view of the
Japanese is positive, makes the Japanese political scene relatively slim
pickings for great quotations.
The signs and
banners of protesters are the zoom lenses by which we can focus on the
difficult issues of a society.
Throughout this collection these appear frequently.
However, protest
signs and banners presuppose protests and demonstrations. These are only possible in societies of
relative freedom. Few dictators
allow any protests which will focus on their failings and foibles. The result, in a collection of quotation
is that the negative messages of most protest signs appear related to some
countries and not others. For
example, there are no quotations from anti-Government protestor’s signs
or banners for Saudi Arabia
or North Korean. This is not
because there are no problems which attract the ire of the citizenry. It is because, critical protests are not
allowed. As a general rule, the
more internal criticism publicly communicable within a society, the better and
freer the society.
There are many in
our country who decry the plethora of negative statements regarding our country
and its government. They are pained
by the constant barrage of negativity that is directed on what appears to be
the freest and most successful nation in human history. One of our Vice Presidents, Spiro Agnew,
even uttered a memorable characterization of the critics when he described them
as:
In the United States
today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism
This collection of
quotations is certainly guilty of the criticism of extensive criticism and
negativity. We would hope that the
reader would not conclude that our personal views of the nation are indicated
by the proportion of negative exemplars.
For we have been motivated by the same adage that drives other media:
When dog bites
man, that is not news.
When man bites dog, there is news.
There are literally
hundreds of thousands of utterances of the fact that America is the greatest country in
the world. There is hardly a
political leader or political commentator who has not literally said this or a
variant. The wonderful things about
America
are so obvious to all, that unlike the situation in a few third world counties,
no one has to look very hard to see them.
As the Romans used to say, “Res Ipso
Loquitor”—“The thing speaks for itself.” We see, hear, and read positive things
about America
so often, that it simply is of little use and less interest to try and collect
these. As a consolation to those
who are concerned with negative criticism about the country, as this and other
collections will show, the more negative material that is printed, broadcast,
or spoken about a country, the greater and better the country. It is only in the freest of nations that
people can not only criticize the government, fairly or unfairly, but in
extraordinarily few—only the greatest—do the negative materials get
very wide distribution. Look for
the nation where their media are full of criticisms, and there you will find a
nation sufficiently free and confident to consider possible improvement from
any and all sources.
As for the negative
anti-American views of others, there is a similar de facto imbalance. When foreigners stop voting with their
feet (immigrating) or with their treasure (investing), then perhaps we have to
take great umbrage with negative anti-American view. But until then, recall the quotation of
the contemporary historian Dr. Claire Berlinski:
Anti Americanism
has been around as long as there has been an America
Most of the
people quoted in this collection are politicians. However, there are many quotations about
politics and politicians from writers, philosophers, theologians, historians,
political scientists, and particularly journalists. The latter have had interesting
perspective on the political scene which they cover. In modern times, the journalists have
themselves become public figures, sometimes with more influence over political
events and public opinion than the politicians themselves. Can anyone doubt, for example, that
columnists like George Will or Thomas Friedman have more influence over American
national and governmental policy than most members of Congress? Or that Walter Lippmann had in his
time? This is perhaps one of the
great characteristics of a vibrant democracy. As long as public opinion influences
politicians, those who can influence public opinion will have great political
weight.
In
addition, there is what we call the “Chris Matthews principle”
which, crudely stated, argues that journalists are much better sources for
finding political information than politicians as the former make their living
by telling people everything that they know while the latter are generally very
guarded and consider the affect and impact of every phrase that they write or
utter.
Some cultures are
steeped in an oral tradition as opposed to a written one. Many African cultures and Native
American cultures are examples of oral traditional cultures where the written
word was not necessary or expected to be used.
Another example is
the contrast between Cambodia
and Vietnam. While the two countries are adjacent,
and both Asian, they have very different traditions and modern realities with
respect to reading and writing. In Vietnam
today, one can visit a university over 1,000 years old where the names of the
graduates are carved into stone tablets—one each for the graduating class
every 4 years. The tablets rest on
the backs of stone turtles, the slowness of the creatures having been symbolic
for the profession taught at the university: writing. Vietnam not only had the
traditional Chinese pictographs, but over 500 years ago adopted their own
Western style alphabet. The culture
has a rich written tradition, with many documents and writings. Today, although very poor, Vietnam has
an 80% literacy rate, In contrast,
neighboring Cambodia’s literature was much more limited, and much of the
existent written material was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge when they destroyed
so many of their countrymen. The
result is this collection has many quotations from Vietnam
and few from Cambodia.
While the oral
cultures may have had a wealth of political wisdom and doubtless there were
many great sayings that would qualify for a collection such as this. However, the fact that they did not get
written down, markedly decreased the likelihood that they would come to our
attention or that of anyone assembling a collection of quotations. Even when a proverb or adage has come
down to us, the speaker or originator and the context is usually lost. In modern times, where almost all
cultures use the written word, there are still differences in extent and perceived
legitimacy. A quotation from this
collection by the Native American Activist, Russell Means, probably states the
problem as well as it has ever been expressed.
“I detest writing. The process itself epitomizes the
European concept of “legitimate” thinking: what is written has an
importance that is denied the spoken.
My culture, the Lakota culture, has an oral tradition, so I ordinarily
reject writing. It is one of the
white world’s ways of destroying the cultures of non-European peoples
…
In marked contrast,
consider this anonymous aphorism attributed to the Washington DC
political and bureaucratic culture.
“If you didn’t write it down,
you didn’t say it.”
Or the quotation
from historian Thomas Cahill
“The illiterate leave few
records.”
The result is a
disproportionately small contribution and coverage of quotations from the oral
cultures despite our serious attempt to overcome the differential. The tree that falls in the forest makes
little sound. The oration that is
never written down by someone will not likely survive. Modern technology will change that over
the next centuries when we are able to capture, analyze, sort, and compare
audio and video material. From that
point on, the oral tradition may prospectively reach a par of written material,
but the vast history of the oral tradition has probably already been mostly
lost.
In creating this
collection there was no effort made to balance views or have everyone in a
given political class equally or proportionally represented. As a matter of fact, midway in the
collection process we noticed that we had more quotations from Eleanor
Roosevelt than from Franklin,
the longest serving American President.
Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, and Winston
Churchill all seemed to be profusely quoted compared to other great
leaders. The reason, we realized,
is that these political figures were great and prolific writers. Mrs. Roosevelt, in addition to her UN
and other political activities was a daily columnist and for many years of her
life produced a newspaper column virtually every day. From a quantitative point of view. she
wrote more columns than Walter Winchell, H.L. Mencken, or George Will. Thomas Jefferson’s letter output
was so prodigious that no president, even in modern times with staffs of
assistants, could claim so many letters.
Both TR and Churchill authored more books than most other great writers,
and had they not been great political leaders would have surely be known as
great men of letters. Churchill
wrote more books (38) than even prolific historians such as the great, late
historian Stephen Ambrose.
However, Alexander
Hamilton, who is known to us as George Washington’s Aide de camp and our
first Treasury Secretary is probably the American champion of creating political
written material. A journalist
before he ever came to America
as a young man, he never stopped writing throughout his political career which
was cut short by his premature death in a senseless duel. Hamilton,
at the beginning of the revolution, wrote numerous political tracts, many under
pseudonyms as was then common.
During the war, he was Washington’s
do facto Deputy and Secretary, producing a trove of materials both under his
own name and the General’s.
After the war, he was the organizing force and principle writer of the
Federalist Papers—perhaps the greatest documents ever written in the
political field. As Washington’s
Treasury Secretary, with no governmental precedents, he personally wrote all
the plans, rules, regulations, justifications and Congressional reports on what
was the largest of government departments.
Nothing seemed too small for his pen. Having the responsibility for collecting
import taxes and preventing smuggling, he organized the Coast Guard and
personally wrote the guidance for each cutter on how to behave civilly whenever
boarding ships. It is a testament
to his talent that in the Cuban Missile Crisis the naval vessels which boarded
the Russian ships still operated under his directives. If all that were not enough, throughout
his entire career he wrote material for newspapers in the Caribbean
from whence he had come. One could
produce volumes of wonderful quotations of his alone.
So the prolific
writer has a much greater chance of being read or coming to anyone’s attention,
than does the average politician or public figure. Further, professional writers, like
Eleanor Roosevelt and Alexander Hamilton know how to “turn a
phrase.” They have a great
advantage over their not so accomplished or prolific political contemporaries,
especially in their utterances or writings finding their way into collections
such as this.
The great orators,
in addition to persuasion—the purpose of their oratory—tend also to
be heavily represented in quotation collections. Because of their greatness, others
describe their orations and quote from them, thus increasing the probability
that their material would end up in quotation collections. Orators who prepared all their speeches
in writing and published them, have the combined advantage of both the orator
and the writer. The best example of
this is Robert Green Ingersoll.
Perhaps the greatest American orator in history, Ingersoll galvanized
people throughout the country. His
own political career was somewhat limited however as a result of his oratorical
fame. Unlike other politicians who
at the time could say different and at times contradictory things to different
audiences with almost assured impunity (Even Abraham Lincoln in his famous
debates with Stephen Douglas had different words for Southerners than he spoke
for voters of the North), Robert
Ingersoll, as the Attorney General of Illinois, was an atheist, and one who did
not hesitate to criticize established religion. For example, consider the following
quotation from his famous 1867 speech about slavery:
Every excuse that the ingenuity of avarice
could devise was believed to be a complete justification, and the great
argument of slave-holders in all countries has been that slavery is a divine
institution, and thus stealing human beings has always been fortified with a
"Thus saith the Lord."
Slavery had just
been abolished; the abolitionists had won.
Yet Ingersoll would not let all the moral and political blame fall alone
on Southern slave-holders and politicians.
He went after the established churches which had been silent on the
subject such as the Catholics and the Baptists and contrasted them negatively
with those religious organizations that had been major abolition factors such
as the Quakers and the Methodists.
Because his oratory
“had legs” as journalists describe news subjects that remain in the
public interest for a long period, he was one of the very easy politicians to
be heavily and deliberately quoted out of context. For example he was accused of calling the
Constitution “criminal,” describing the American Eagle as, “a
buzzard,” and the American flag, as “a rag.” While this was literally true, his
entire quotation which was very widely distributed was:
I hate to think that all this [slavery] was
done under the Constitution of the United States, under the flag of my
country, under the wings of the eagle.
The flag was not then what it is now. It was a mere rag in comparison.
The eagle was a buzzard; and the Constitution sanctioned the greatest crime of
the world
A lesser light
might and often did say things of which most voters and opponents had no
record. Ingersoll, with such large
audiences and so many speeches is perhaps the first America