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Cannabis

Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. Cannabis has long been used for hemp fibre, for hemp oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a recreational drug. Industrial hemp products are made from cannabis plants selected to produce an abundance of fiber.

B

 * Marijuana will not tolerate repression. Tranquillizers and depressants relax the body and release tension, but the state of mind associated with these drugs is "unconsciousness" whereby we escape rather than resolve our dilemmas. Alcoholism is an extreme need of both the body and personality sometimes to release the nervousness that has accumulated and continues to build up to an unbearable degree. It serves the same function for the collective personality for the society as well. A culture in which alcohol and tranquillizers are the prevalent form of release prefers not to witness internal confusion and actually chooses to act without conscious participation, maintaining a semi-numb condition.
 * Joan Bello, The Benefits of Marijuana: Physical, Psychological & Spiritual (2007), p. 56

 * Marijuana can act as the loosening agent, so that whatever has been banned from consciousness may come cascading forth. To uncover our deceptions without our usual rationalizations can be unpleasant, an experience that has turned many psychologically fragile individuals away from marijuana despite its therapeutic catharsis.
 * Joan Bello, The Benefits of Marijuana: Physical, Psychological & Spiritual (2007), p. 50

 * For me, it was like this: pronounced antipathy to conversing about matters of practical life, the future, dates, politics. You are fixated on the intellectual sphere as a man possessed may be fixated on the sexual: under its spell, sucked into it.
 * Walter Benjamin, "Main features of my first impression of hashish," December 18, 1927, On Hashish (2006), p. 21

 * You follow the same paths of thought as before. Only, they appear strewn with roses.
 * Walter Benjamin, "Main features of my first impression of hashish," December 18, 1927, On Hashish (2006), p. 22

 * HEMP, n. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.
 * Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

 * I believe pot should be legalized (and Jack Daniels should always remain legal!)
 * Brent Budowsky, In shock poll, Libertarian Johnson beats Trump among economists, The Hill (August 23, 2016)

C

 * I had gotten caught with a shopping bag full of Marijuana, a shopping bag full of love - I was in love with the weed and I did not for one minute think that anything was wrong with getting high. I had been getting high for four or five years and was convinced, with the zeal of a crusader, that marijuana was superior to lush - yet the rulers of the land seemed all to be lushes. I could not see how they were more justified in drinking than I was in blowing the gage. I was a grasshopper, and it was natural that I felt myself to be unjustly prosecuted.
 * Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (1968), p. 22

E

 * The Rastas, more than any other group, have elevated ganja to a central place in their religious practice and have developed a well-articulated ideology justifying its use and explaining its significance. ... Rastas regard the proscription of ganja use by Babylon's government as part of its strategy of social control.
 * Ennis Barrington Edmonds, Rastafari: From Outcasts to Culture Bearers (Oxford University Press: 2002), pp. 60-61

 * As a source of illumination, ganga has become an instrument in the war against Babylon and Babylonian consciousness. Its use, therefore, plays a major role in the de-alienation and decolonization of the African mind.
 * Ennis Barrington Edmonds, Rastafari: From Outcasts to Culture Bearers (Oxford University Press: 2002), p. 61

 * The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
 * John Ehrlichman, as Interviewed by Dan Baum, in "Legalize it All" Harper's Magazine, April 2016

F

 * It's a moral problem that the government is making into criminals people, who may be doing something you and I don't approve of, but who are doing something that hurts nobody else. Most of the arrests for drugs are for possession by casual users. Now here's somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he's caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That's the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons.
 * Milton Friedman, America's Drug Forum interview (1991)

G

 * Not only is pot way cooler than alcohol, it’s also non-toxic. Dylan Thomas could not have smoked himself to death.
 * Greta Gaines, in rhetoric for an end to Marijuana prohibition laws, in "Why Are No Women Celebrity Stoners Willing to Come Out of the Greenhouse?" (16 August 2012)

H

 * The perception that cannabis is a safe drug is a mistaken reaction to a past history of exaggeration of its health risks.
 * Wayne Denis Hall and Meredith Engel, "Marijuana can cause mental disorders, loss of intelligence: 20-year study", New York Daily News (7 October 2014)

 * The main effects of smoking marijuana are contentment, relaxation, sedation, euphoria, and increased hunger, all peaking within five to fifteen minutes after smoking and lasting for about two hours...very high THC concentrations...can cause mild paranoia and visual and auditory distortions, but even these effects are rare and usually seen only in very inexperienced users.
 * Carl Hart Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear (2021) chapter 7

 * I'm now firm in my belief that marijuana is a key ingredient to happiness for a great number of people. What kind of person prevents another's responsible pursuit of happiness? Not a very humane one.
 * Carl Hart Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear (2021) chapter 7

J

 * I've smoked marijuana, I choose not to smoke marijuana, but when I smoked it the first time, you know what I thought when I smoked it the first time? I thought, "the government lied." I just think that the government should tell the truth when it comes to these drugs. Look, marijuana is safer than alcohol, and don't trust me on this but the City of Denver, five years ago, voted on the decriminalization of marijuana on a campaign based on marijuana being safer than alcohol.
 * Gary Johnson,

 * The fact that I got to be the CEO of a publicly traded company in the marijuana space, that was something that was completely unexpected. But very quickly, marijuana products medicinally compete with legal prescription drugs that statistically kill 100,000 people a year. There's not been one documented death due to marijuana. Then on the recreational side, I've always maintained that legalizing marijuana will lead to less overall substance abuse because people will find it as such a safer alternative than everything else that's out there, starting with alcohol.
 * Gary Johnson, in an interview with ´s John Harwood (August 22, 2016)

K

 * I think that marijuana should not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry. It would be wonderful for the state of Maine. There's some pretty good homegrown dope. I'm sure it would be even better if you could grow it with fertilizers and have greenhouses.
 * Stephen King.

M

 * One's condition on marijuana is always existential. One can feel the importance of each moment and how it is changing one. One feels one's being, one becomes aware of the enormous apparatus of nothingness — the hum of a hi-fi set, the emptiness of a pointless interruption, one becomes aware of the war between each of us, how the nothingness in each of us seeks to attack the being of others, how our being in turn is attacked by the nothingness in others.
 * Norman Mailer, Interview in Writers at Work Third Series (1967) edited by George Plimpton

 * When you smoke herb, herb reveal yourself to you. All the wickedness you do, the herb reveal itself to yourself, your conscience, show up yourself clear, because herb make you meditate. Is only a natural t'ing and it grow like a tree.
 * Bob Marley, as reported in Martin Booth, Cannabis: A History (2005), p. 366

 * I smoke a fat pound of grass and fall on my ass faster than a fat bitch who sat down too fast!
 * Marshall B. Mathers, "My Name Is" (1999), The Slim Shady LP (February 1999)

 * A young boy called up and asked me if I preferred grass or astroturf … And I told him that I had never smoked astroturf. I guess that I shouldn’t have said that.
 * Tug McGraw, when asked if he preferred grass or artificial turf, (1974), as quoted in The Times of San Mateo, California (30 April 1974), and at The Quote Investigator

 * The question arises, therefore, why cannabis is so regularly banned in countries where alcohol is permitted. [...] It may be that we can ban cannabis simply because the people who use it, or would do so, carry little weight in social matters and are relatively easy to control, whereas the alcohol user often carries plenty of weight in social matters and is difficult to control, as the U.S. prohibition era showed. It has yet to be shown, however, that the one is more socially or personally disruptive than the other.
 * H.B.M Murphy, M.D., Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal. "The Cannabis Habit" (1963). (As quoted in 'Bulletin on Narcotics' by UNDCP)

N

 * You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana are Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob? What is the matter with them? I suppose it is because most of them are psychiatrists.
 * Richard Nixon, statement (May 26, 1971) as quoted in Newsweek (May 27, 2004)

S

 * There is a myth about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we’re down the next day. Some of the hardest work I’ve ever done has been to put such insights down on tape or in writing. The problem is that ten even more interesting ideas or images have to be lost in the effort of recording one. It is easy to understand why someone might think it’s a waste of effort going to all that trouble to set the thought down, a kind of intrusion of the Protestant Ethic. But since I live almost all my life down I’ve made the effort—successfully, I think. Incidentally, I find that reasonably good insights can be remembered the next day, but only if some effort has been made to set them down another way. If I write the insight down or tell it to someone, then I can remember it with no assistance the following morning; but if I merely say to myself that I must make an effort to remember, I never do.
 * Carl Sagan, Marihuana Reconsidered (1971)

 * That is not a drug. It's a leaf.
 * Arnold Schwarzenegger, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,305797,00.html#ixzz1mbhenmUh

 * Dope gets you through times with no money better than money gets you through times with no dope.
 * Gilbert Shelton, lines for Fat Freddie and Freewheeling Franklin in Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers

T

 * I have always loved marijuana. It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits - and millions of Americans agree with me.
 * Hunter S. Thompson, "Lapse in Judgment"

W

 * If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe.
 * Kerry Wendell Thornley, in the Introduction to the 5th Edition of Principia Discordia.

V

 * Cannabis, just like morphine, has its usage in medicine. It's unpardonable that authorities forbid sick people access to this medicament and in majesty of law permit to sell cigarettes.
 * Jerzy Vetulani, Puls Medycyny, 2013

W

 * Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!
 * George Washington in a note to his gardener at Mount Vernon (1794), The Writings of George Washington, Volume 33, page 270 (Library of Congress)
 * Washington also recorded his concern that the male and female plants be separated:
 * May 12-13 1765: Sowed Hemp at Muddy hole by Swamp.
 * August 7, 1765: —began to seperate [sic] the Male from the Female Hemp at Do —rather too late.
 * Some assert his interest in separating the male and female plants is an indication that he may have used Indian hemp medicinally to treat his chronic tooth aches. Others note that fiber of the male and female hemp plants have different optimum harvest times.

 * Some people have said that the aggressiveness that alcohol stimulates, and that is certainly the characteristic of alcohol, is consistent with Western values and Western culture, whereas, for example, the more introspective, meditative, reverie kind of state that marijuana produces, or opium produces, seems more consistent with some of the Eastern cultures than with Western cultures, and maybe some of our discomfort with those drugs has to do with that feeling that this is culturally out of sync with us.
 * Andrew Weil, interviewed in Ancient Altered States

Essay as "Mr. X" (1969)

 * Carl Sagan, "Essay as Mr. X" (and here), written in 1969 for Marihuana Reconsidered (1971) by Lester Grinspoon

 * I had become friendly with a group of people who occasionally smoked cannabis, irregularly, but with evident pleasure. Initially I was unwilling to partake, but the apparent euphoria that cannabis produced and the fact that there was no physiological addiction to the plant eventually persuaded me to try. My initial experiences were entirely disappointing; there was no effect at all, and I began to entertain a variety of hypotheses about cannabis being a placebo which worked by expectation and hyperventilation rather than by chemistry. After about five or six unsuccessful attempts, however, it happened.

 * There's a part of me making, creating the perceptions which in everyday life would be bizarre; there's another part of me which is a kind of observer. About half of the pleasure comes from the observer-part appreciating the work of the creator-part. I smile, or sometimes even laugh out loud at the pictures on the insides of my eyelids. In this sense, I suppose cannabis is psychotomimetic, but I find none of the panic or terror that accompanies some psychoses. Possibly this is because I know it's my own trip, and that I can come down rapidly any time I want to.

 * The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I'm down. This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse. There also have been some art-related insights — I don't know whether they are true or false, but they were fun to formulate.

 * Cannabis also enhances the enjoyment of sex — on the one hand it gives an exquisite sensitivity, but on the other hand it postpones orgasm: in part by distracting me with the profusion of image passing before my eyes. The actual duration of orgasm seems to lengthen greatly, but this may be the usual experience of time expansion which comes with cannabis smoking.

 * I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs. The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness. Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I've had have been in sharing talk and perceptions and humor. Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds. A sense of what the world is really like can be maddening; cannabis has brought me some feelings for what it is like to be crazy, and how we use that word "crazy" to avoid thinking about things that are too painful for us. In the Soviet Union political dissidents are routinely placed in insane asylums. The same kind of thing, a little more subtle perhaps, occurs here: "did you hear what Lenny Bruce said yesterday? He must be crazy."

 * When I'm high I can penetrate into the past, recall childhood memories, friends, relatives, playthings, streets, smells, sounds, and tastes from a vanished era. I can reconstruct the actual occurrences in childhood events only half understood at the time. Many but not all my cannabis trips have somewhere in them a symbolism significant to me which I won't attempt to describe here, a kind of mandala embossed on the high. Free-associating to this mandala, both visually and as plays on words, has produced a very rich array of insights. There is a myth about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we're down the next day.

 * Incidentally, I find that reasonably good insights can be remembered the next day, but only if some effort has been made to set them down another way. If I write the insight down or tell it to someone, then I can remember it with no assistance the following morning; but if I merely say to myself that I must make an effort to remember, I never do. I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for.

 * I can remember the night that I suddenly realized what it was like to be crazy, or nights when my feelings and perceptions were of a religious nature. I had a very accurate sense that these feelings and perceptions, written down casually, would not stand the usual critical scrutiny that is my stock in trade as a scientist. If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men, I may tend to disbelieve; but when I'm high I know about this disbelief. And so I have a tape in which I exhort myself to take such remarks seriously. I say "Listen closely, you sonofabitch of the morning! This stuff is real!" I try to show that my mind is working clearly; I recall the name of a high school acquaintance I have not thought of in thirty years; I describe the color, typography, and format of a book in another room and these memories do pass critical scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs. Such a remark applies not only to self-awareness and to intellectual pursuits, but also to perceptions of real people, a vastly enhanced sensitivity to facial expression, intonations, and choice of words which sometimes yields a rapport so close it's as if two people are reading each other's minds.

 * My high is always reflective, peaceable, intellectually exciting, and sociable, unlike most alcohol highs, and there is never a hangover. Through the years I find that slightly smaller amounts of cannabis suffice to produce the same degree of high, and in one movie theater recently I found I could get high just by inhaling the cannabis smoke which permeated the theater. There is a very nice self-titering aspect to cannabis. Each puff is a very small dose; the time lag between inhaling a puff and sensing its effect is small; and there is no desire for more after the high is there.

 * I think the ratio, R, of the time to sense the dose taken to the time required to take an excessive dose is an important quantity. R is very large for LSD (which I've never taken) and reasonably short for cannabis. Small values of R should be one measure of the safety of psychedelic drugs. When cannabis is legalized, I hope to see this ratio as one of the parameters printed on the pack. I hope that time isn't too distant; the illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.'''

Quotes from music

 * When I die bury me in smoke
 * Phillip Anselmo - DOWN (first album)

 * Straight people don't know, what you're about They put you down and shut you out you gave to me a new belief and soon the world will love you sweet leaf
 * Black Sabbath, "Sweet Leaf", Master of Reality (1971)

 * Smoke weed everyday
 * Nate Dogg "The Next Episode" (Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Dogg) from the album 2001 (2000)

 * "Cuz if at first you don't succeed, won't hurt to smoke some weed. Now them words are just a little more personal for me. Seeing as how I blew up off of puffing them trees."
 * Dr. Dre, "Old Time's Sake" (feat. Dr. Dre) - Eminem

 * When you get a mouthful, That's Hot Lunch When you smoke a cashed bowl down too much You need to refill that with buds Fat-C, I only smoke fresh nugs.
 * Fat-C, "Hot Lunch" from the album Fear and Loathing in Minnesota

 * Let us burn one from end to end And pass it over to me my friend Burn it long, we'll burn it slow To light me up before i go
 * Ben Harper, "Burn One Down" from Fight for your Mind (1995)

 * Excuse me while I light my spliff (spliff) Good God, I gotta take a lift (lift) From reality I just can't drift (drift) That's why I am staying with this riff (riff)
 * Bob Marley, "Easy Skanking" from the album Kaya (1978)

 * When the stress burns my brain just like acid raindrops, Mary Jane is the only thing that makes the pain stop.
 * People Under the Stairs, "Acid Raindrops"
 * Let me get to the point Let's roll another joint Turn the radio loud I'm too alone to be proud.
 * Tom Petty, "You Don't Know How It Feels"

 * Panama Red, Panama Red He'll steal your woman, then he'll rob your head Panama Red, Panama Red On his white horse, Mescalito He come breezin' through town I'll bet your woman's up in bed with Panama Red
 * Peter Rowan, "Panama Red", as performed by Jerry Garcia and Peter Rowan in Old and in the Way in 1973 and thereafter by New Riders of the Purple Sage

 * I smoke two joints in the morning I smoke two joints at night I smoke two joints in the afternoon It makes me feel alright I smoke two joints in time of peace And two in time of war I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints And then I smoke two more
 * Sublime, "Smoke Two Joints", 40oz. to Freedom (1992)

 * You must have been high
 * You must have been so high
 * Weeping shades of indigo
 * Liar, lawyer, mirror; for you, what's the difference? Kangaroo be stoned; he's guilty as the government
 * Tool, "The Pot," 10,000 Days (Tool album) (2006).

title: Cannabis


text:
Talk:Cannabis

Comments
'''This page will no doubt be one that there are notable quotes upon, but we need quotes here by noted individuals. I know of a few and will probably track some down and post them tonight, but will be too busy with other things to go about it right away. I will leave the posted comment up until I can find some quotes to replace it. ~ Kalki 22:06, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"Marijuana is addictive in the sense that all great things in life are worth repeating" -jenna sheehan

Unsourced
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 * "If someone wants to do drugs … as long as he or she isn’t corrupting minors or driving under the influence or endangering others, shouldn’t a person have that right?"
 * Brad Pitt

 * "Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves."
 * Ronald Reagan, U.S. President (1980-1988)

 * "If the words 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on."
 * Terence McKenna

 * Pot opens everything up. All the anxieties, the creepy crawly blues, it just drifts away and you can slowly remember what it was like to be alive. Even more importantly, you can take a step back and what really is important, which of the many things in your life really deserves worrying about. Not much!
 * Marilyn Monroe

 * Maybe if all the politicians out there would just take a few minutes to sit back, listen to some Dave Matthews Band, and smoke some pot, maybe the world wouldn't be so fucked up.
 * Dave Matthews (15 May 1998)

 * "Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the fields?" - quote has been edited, found on page 8 of the Rotarian Magazine September 1933 - https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=B0MEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8&dq=Why
 * Henry Ford

 * "It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics dope and all of that stuff. It is a thousand times better than whiskey.  It is an assistant and a friend."
 * Louis Armstrong

 * "All these governments and this and that, these people that say they're here to help, why them say you cannot smoke the herb? Herb... herb is a plant, you know? And when me check it, me can't find no reason. All them say is, 'it make you rebel'. Against what?"
 * "Herb is the unifier of the people."
 * "Music and herb go together. It's been a long time now I smoke herb. From 1960s, when I first start singing."
 * Bob Marley

 * "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."
 * Harry J. Anslinger, Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner for 32 years, testimony to Congress, 1938

 * "Please don't throw your shit at me... unless that shit resembles a bag of marijuana"
 * Les Claypool

 * "Pot is a better drug than alcohol. I'll prove it to you.  You're at a ball game or a concert, and someone's really violent and agressive and obnoxious, are they drunk or are they smoking pot?"
 * Bill Hicks

 * "I have never seen two people on pot get in a fight because it is fucking IMPOSSIBLE. 'Hey, buddy!'  'Hey, what?'  'Ummmmmmm....'  End of argument."
 * Bill Hicks

 * Why is pot against the law? It wouldn't be because anyone can grow it, and therefore you can't make a profit off it, would it?
 * Bill Hicks

 * "I think that marijuana makes you stupid but sensual. I've watched many of my friends and loved ones become more erotic and dumber--just going around with a glazed expression on their faces from their last orgasms to the next--and found them really quite boring."
 * Timothy Leary

 * "A poem: Slowly the foreign air enter me. I feel tingles and sensations. My life becomes a fantasy. Cannabis now rules thee."
 * Thaddeus
 * "Marijuana is addictive in the sense that all great things in life are worth repeating."
 * Jenna Sheehan

 * "Hey hey heyeyea...Smoke weed every day."
 * Nate Dogg, from Dr. Dre's "Chronic 2001" (NOT Dave Chapelle)

 * "Legalize it, and I will advertise it."
 * Peter Tosh

 * "When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale."
 * Bill Clinton, U.S. President (1993-2001)

 * "I never understood that line. The point was to inhale. That was the point."
 * Barack Obama, When asked, "Unlike other presidents, did you inhale?"

 * "I'm not going to be Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled. I did inhale. I liked tobacco a lot better."
 * Frank Zappa

 * "You bet I did -— and I enjoyed it."
 * Michael Bloomberg - New York City Mayor, when asked if he had ever smoked marijuana.

 * "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana."
 * Jimmy Carter, U.S. President in a message to the U.S. Congress (1977)

 * "Congress should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana... We should concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are a menace to society."
 * Dan Quayle U.S. Representative and Vice president (March 1977)

 * "You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years — rrreal fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few tunes."
 * Bill Hicks

 * My choice is what I choose to do, And if I'm causing no harm, it shouldn't bother you. Your choice is who you choose to be, And if you're causin' no harm, then you're alright with me.  If you don't light my fire, then don't come around, 'cause I'm gonna burn one down. Yes, I'm gonna burn one down.  Herb the gift from the earth, And what's from the earth is of the greatest worth. So before you knock it try it first, Oh, you'll see it's a blessing and not a curse.
 * Ben Harper

 * "I don't know what is marijuana. Perhaps I will try it when it will no longer be criminal. I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand."
 * Jean Chretien, former Prime Minister of Canada, on the decriminalization of Marijuana

 * “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.” - Thomas Jefferson

 * “Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.” - George Washington

 * “We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.” - John Adams

 * “Considering the fact that I’ve used it in the past, and know what it is, and seen the results of it, I don’t view marijuana as a dangerous drug.” - Tim Robbins

 * “Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.” - William F. Buckley, Jr.

 * “The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents.” - William F. Buckley

 * “I think hard drugs are disgusting. But I must say, I think marijuana is pretty lightweight.” - Linda McCartney

 * I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong? - Willie Nelson

 * “When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale and never tried it again.” –Bill Clinton

 * “I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be. We really need a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment…Our imprisonment policies are counterproductive.” - Bill Clinton

 * “I was going to go make a film in Greece. if they caught you with this much marijuana, they threw you in jail, no questions asked, and I was trying to stuff it in my deodorant bottles. I thought, what I am doing?” - Dyan Cannon

 * “I wasn’t driving down the wrong side of the street, smoking marijuana, waving my gun out the window.” - Coolio

 * “If you substitute marijuana for tobacco and alcohol, you’ll add eight to 24 years to your life.” - Jack Herer

 * “Instead of taking five or six of the prescriptions, I decided to go a natural route and smoke marijuana.” - Melissa Etheridge

 * “Is marijuana addictive? Yes, in the sense that most of the really pleasant things in life are worth endlessly repeating. - Richard Neville

 * “Marijuana you can give up, Iv given it up for fifteen years now and it never occurs to me to smoke it anymore.“ - Larry Hagman

 * “The only dead bodies from marijuana are in the prisons and at the hands of the police. This is ridiculous.” - Jack Herer

 * “Well, as I understand it, the main supporters are beer companies and the pharmaceutical companies. I’d like them to show me the dead bodies from marijuana. But they can’t because there aren’t any.” - Jack Herer

 * “Whenever the people are for gay marriage or medical marijuana or assisted suicide, suddenly the “will of the people” goes out the window.” - Bill Maher

 * “They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you’re high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it’s not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.” - Bill Hicks

 * “I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast.” - Ronald Reagan  - hehehe!….. u gotto be kidding me Ronie!!

 * “Marijuana is the finest anti-nausea medication known to science, and our leaders have lied about this consistently. [Arresting people for] medical marijuana is the most hideous example of government interference in the private lives of individuals. It’s an outrage within an outrage within an outrage.” - Peter McWilliams

 * “Smoking’s a way to let you down slowly from a ballgame. It also makes you use less of the resources around. It makes people better in the way they act towards society. Everybody’s nicer. It’s hard to be mean when you’re stoned.” - Bill Lee

 * “Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.” - Bob Marley

 * “When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.” - Bob Marley

 * “little wine sometimes, that’s all. Spirits are bad. Alcohol wrong. Herb does grow .” - Bob Marley

 * “Music and herb go together. It’s been a long time now I smoke herb. From 1960s, when I first start singing.” – Bob Marley

 * “The drug is really quite a remarkably safe one for humans, although it is really quite a dangerous one for mice and they should not use it.” - J.W.D Henderson Director of the Bureau of Human Drugs, Health and Welfare, Canada

 * “The War on Drugs has been an utter failure. We need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws.” - Barack Obama

 * “When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point.” - Barack Obama

 * “Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit … unnatural?” - Bill Hicks

 * “Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn’t like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton.” - Jay Leno

 * “Casual drug users should be taken out and shot” - Darryl Gates Head of Los Angeles Police Department United States Senate Judiciary Committee

 * “Now, like, I’m President. It would be pretty hard for some drug guy to come into the White House and start offering it up, you know? … I bet if they did, I hope I would say, ‘Hey, get lost. We don’t want any of that.’” - George W. Bush

 * “I wouldn’t answer the marijuana questions, You know why? Because I don’t want some little kid doing what I tried.” Said George Bush, he was then reminded that he’d publicly denied using cocaine, Bush replied, “I haven’t denied anything.”

 * “I think pot should be legal. I don’t smoke it, but I like the smell of it.” Andy Warhol

 * “I used to smoke marijuana. But I’ll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening - or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early midafternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning… . But never at dusk.” - Steve Martin

 * “I enjoy smoking cannabis and see no harm in it.” – Jennifer Aniston

 * “…marijuana is one of the safest, therapeutically active substances known to man.” – Judge Francis Young (DEA)

 * “That is not a drug. It’s a leaf” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

 * “The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.” - Albert Einstein

 * “When a private enterprise fails, it is closed down; when a government enterprise fails, it is expanded. Isn’t that exactly what’s been happening with drugs?” - Milton Friedman

 * “It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics … dope and all that crap. It’s a thousand times better than whiskey - it’s an assistant - a friend.” - Louis Armstrong

 * “There’s been no top authority saying what marijuana does to you. I really don’t know that much about it. I tried it once but it didn’t do anything to me.” - John Wayne

 * “If John Lennon is deported, I’m leaving too…with my musicians..and my marijuana.” - Art Garfunkel

 * “The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.” - Carl Sagan

 * “When you return to this mundane sphere from your visionary world, you would seem to leave a Neapolitan spring for a Lapland winter - to quit paradise for earth - heaven for hell! Taste the hashish, guest of mine - taste the hashish!” - Alexander Dumas, ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’, 1844

 * “Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?” - Henry Ford

 * “If the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.” - Terence McKenna

 * “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use… Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana.” - Jimmy Carter, U.S. President

 * “I do smoke, but I don’t go through all this trouble just because I want to make my drug of choice legal. It’s about personal freedom. We should have the right in this country to do what we want, if we don’t hurt anybody. Seventy-two million people in this country have smoked pot. Eighteen to 20 million in the last year. These people should not be treated as criminals.” - Woody Harrelson

 * “I think the ‘Just say no’ mentality is so crazed. I saw a thing in a women’s magazine the other day. ‘He smokes cannabis, what am I to do? He laughs it off when I try to tell him, he says it’s not really harmful…’ Of course you’re half hoping the advice will be, ‘Well, you know it’s not that harmful; if you love him, if you talk to him about it, tell him maybe he should keep it in the garden shed or something,’ you know, a reasonable point of view. But of course it was, ‘No, no, all drugs are bad. Librium’s good, Valium’s good. But cannabis, ooooh!’ I hate that unreasoned attitude.” - Sir Paul McCartney

 * “I smoked this joint and then it hit me. I thought, what you gotta do is play your own simply blues.” Iggy Pop

 * “Hey, whats in this shit man. Mostly maui wowie, but its got some labrodor in it. Whats labrodor man? Its dog shit. My dog ate my stash so I had to follow him around with a little baggy for 3 days. It really blew the dogs mind.” - Cheech and Chong

 * “Marijuana is not a drug!!! I used to suck dick for coke! You ever suck DICK for marijuana?” - Bob Saget in Half Baked

 * “I was a heavy drinker, but the alcohol affected my heart rather than my liver. So I stopped. I smoke grass now. I say that to everybody, because marijuana should be legalized. It’s ridiculous that it isn’t. If at the end of the day I feel like smoking a joint I do it. It changes the perception of what I’ve been through all day.” - Robert Altman

 * “You bet I did. And I enjoyed it!” - Michael Bloomberg (NY mayor) when asked if he ever smoked pot.

 * “I don’t consider weed to be any worse than having a beer,” says actor James Franco

 * “I’m the one who’s got to die when it’s time for me to die. So let me live my life, the way I want to.” - Jimi Hendrix

 * “I have always loved marijuana. It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits - and millions of Americans agree with me.” - Hunter S Thompson

 * “Jesus was a pothead-- long hair, beard, sandals, carpenter-- do the math it all adds up. Living with twelve guys with no visible means of support.”- Ralphie May

 * “kryptichronicuttilyte”- Katt Williams

 * “Every time it smells like pinecones, daddy be trippin'.”- Katt Williams

 * “The more medicated the more dedicated” - Snoop Dogg

 * “My point of view, while extremely cogent, is unpopular… . That the repressive nature of the legalities vis-a-vis drugs are destroying the legal system and corrupting the police system.” - Jack Nicholson

Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Is there any evidence the following quote refers to cannabis rather than tobacco?

 * Woman in this scale, the weed in that, Jupiter, hang out thy balance, and weigh them both; and if thou give the preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles thee—O Jupiter, try the weed.
 * Edward Bulwer-Lytton, What Will He Do With It? (1858), Book I, Chapter VI

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Cannabis


text: User:RealGrouchy

title: User:RealGrouchy


text:
Charles M. Schulz

Charles Monroe Schulz (November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000) was an American cartoonist, the creator of the comic strip Peanuts.
 * See also: Peanuts Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown.

Quotes

 * It seems beyond the comprehension of people that someone can be born to draw comic strips, but I think I was. My ambition from earliest memory was to produce a daily comic strip.
 * As quoted in a profile at HarperCollins

 * A cartoonist is someone who has to draw the same thing day after day without repeating himself.
 * You Don't Look 35, Charlie Brown! (1985) ISBN 0030056241

 * I never give my work to somebody else and say, "What do you think about that?" I just don't trust anybody. If I think it's funny, or if I think it's silly, I send it in anyway because I'm just trying to please myself. I never try to please a certain audience. I think that's disastrous. There's no way in the world you can anticipate what your reader is going to like or dislike.
 * National Cartoonist Society talk, 1994

 * If I were a better artist, I'd be a painter, and if I were a better writer, I'd write books — but I'm not, so I draw cartoons!
 * 1992, as quoted by Tom Tomorrow in his comic strip This Modern World (21 February 2000)

 * I just draw what I think is funny, and I hope other people think it is funny, too.
 * Address to the Sonoma County Press Club as quoted in the Sonoma County Press Democrat (13 February 2000)

 * The only thing I really ever wanted to be was a cartoonist. That's my life. Drawing.
 * Address to the Sonoma County Press Club as quoted in the Sonoma County Press Democrat (13 February 2000)

Misattributed

 * Don't worry about the world coming to an end today ...... It's already tomorrow in Australia.
 * Came from an online quiz falsely attributed to Schulz. However, in the 13 June 1980 Peanuts strip, Marcie does say "I promise there'll be a tomorrow, sir. In fact, it's already tomorrow in Australia."

title: Charles M. Schulz


text:
Simón Bolívar

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios y Blanco (24 July 1783 – 17 December 1830) was a South American revolutionary leader.

Quotes

 * A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism. The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability.
 * Letter from Jamaica (Summer 1815)

 * Among the popular and representative systems of government I do not approve of the federal system: it is too perfect; and it requires virtues and political talents much superior to our own.
 * Letter from Jamaica (Summer 1815)

 * The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.
 * Statement of 1829, as quoted in The Great Fear : The Reconquest of Latin America by Latin Americans (1963) by John Gerassi
 * Variant translations:
 * [The United States] appears destined by Providence to plague America with miseries in the name of Freedom.
 * As quoted in Simón Bolívar : Essays on the Life and Legacy of the Liberator (2008) by David Bushnell and Lester D. Langley, p. 135
 * The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.
 * As quoted in Latin American Evangelical Theology in the 1970's : The Golden Decade (2009) by J. D. S. Salinas and Daniel Salinas, p. 38

 * Colombians! My last wish is for the happiness of the patria. If my death contributes to the end of partisanship and the consolidation of the union, I shall be lowered in peace into my grave.
 * Final proclamation to the people of Colombia (8 December 1830), as quoted in Man of Glory : Simón Bolívar (1939) by Thomas Rourke
 * Variant translations: If my death contributes to the end of the parties and the consolidation of the Union, I shall go quietly to my grave.
 * Colombians! my last wishes are for the welfare of the fatherland. If my death contributes to the cessation of party strife, and to the consolidation of the Union, I shall descend in peace to the grave.
 * For my enemies I have only forgiveness. If my death shall contribute to the cessation of factions and the consolidation of the Union, I can go tranquilly to my grave.

 * The three greatest fools of History have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote . . . and me!
 * Words reportedly said to his physician in his final days, but not his last words, as quoted in Our Lord Don Quixote : The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho, with Related Essays (1967) by Miguel de Unamuno, as translated by Anthony Kerrigan, p. 386
 * The exact word used by Bolívar in Spanish is majadero.
 * Variant translations or versions:
 * The three greatest fools of history have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote — and I!
 * As quoted in Simón Bolívar and Spanish American Independence, 1783-1830 (1968) by John J. Johnson and Doris M. Ladd, p. 115
 * The three greatest idiots in history, have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote, and myself.
 * As quoted in Nineteenth-century Gallery : Portraits of Power and Rebellion (1970) by Stanley Edward Ayling, p. 122
 * In the course of history, there have been three radicals: Jesus Christ, Don Quixote, and... me.
 * The three biggest fools in the world have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote, and... me.
 * Jesus Christ, Don Quixote and I: three greatest fools of history.
 * We have sewn the sea — Jesus Christ, Don Quixote and me: the three great fools of history...
 * I’ve been plowing in the sea. Jesus Christ, Don Quixote and I — the three great mavericks of history.

 * Do not compare your material forces with those of the enemy. Spirit cannot be compared with matter. You are human beings, they are beasts. You are free, they are slaves. Fight, and you shall win. For God grants victory to perseverance.
 * As quoted in Simón Bolívar (1969) by Gerhard Masur

 * Damn it, how will I ever get out of this labyrinth?
 * A statement made in the last months of his life, occasionally said to be his last words, and portrayed as such in The General in His Labyrinth (1990) by Gabriel García Márquez, as translated by Edith Grossman, p. 267.

 * All who have served the Revolution have plowed the sea.
 * Statement written in his final days, as quoted in Simón Bolívar : A Story of Courage (1941) by Elizabeth Dey Jenkinson Waugh, p. 320; These are sometimes said to have been repeated many times while he was dying, and to be his last words.
 * Variant translations or reports:
 * America is ungovernable; those who served the revolution have plowed the sea.
 * As quoted in Man, State, and Society in Latin American History (1972) by Sheldon B. Liss and Peggy K. Liss, p. 133
 * Those who have served the cause of the revolution have plowed the sea.
 * We have plowed the sea.
 * I plowed furrows in the ocean.
 * I have plowed the sea. Our America will fall into the hands of vulgar tyrants.

Cartagena Manifesto (15 December 1812)

 * The most grievous error committed by Venezuela in making her start on the political stage was, as none can deny, her fatal adoption of the system of tolerance—a system long condemned as weak and inadequate by every man of common sense, yet tenaciously maintained with an unparalleled blindness to the very end.

Decree of War to the Death (1813)

 * Venezuelans! An army of brothers, sent by the Supreme Congress of New Granada, has come to liberate you, and is now amongst you after having expelled the oppressors from the provinces of Mérida and Trujillo. We have been sent to destroy the Spaniards, to protect Americans and to re-establish the republican governments which made up the Venezuelan Confederation. The states which we have liberated are once again ruled by their old constitutions and leaders, and they fully enjoy their liberty and independence. Our sole mission is to break the chains of servitude which still oppress some of our peoples. We have no intention of passing laws or exercising power, even though the laws of war might authorize us to do so.

Second Republic of Venezuela (1814)

 * Flee the country where a lone man holds all power: It is a nation of slaves. - Speech spoken in Caracas on 1814, January 2nd.
 * Though there might be some published translation of such a statement, it resembles the remark of Maximilien Robespierre, as quoted in Robespierre (1935) by James Matthew Thompson, p. 135: "There is one thing more despicable than a tyrant — it is a nation of slaves."
 * Original quote in Spanish: Huid del país donde uno solo ejerza todos los poderes: es un país de esclavos. Sources: Archivo del Libertador, document N° 565; Pérez Vila, Manuel (compilator, 2009), Simón Bolívar. Doctrina del Libertador, p. 45, ISBN 978-980-276-474-7.

The Angostura Address (1819)

 * Speech to the Congress of Angostura (15 February 1819) - Online text

 * We have been ruled more by deceit than by force, and we have been degraded more by vice than by superstition. Slavery is the daughter of darkness: an ignorant people is a blind instrument of its own destruction. Ambition and intrigue abuses the credulity and experience of men lacking all political, economic, and civic knowledge; they adopt pure illusion as reality; they take license for liberty, treachery for patriotism, and vengeance for justice. If a people, perverted by their training, succeed in achieving their liberty, they will soon lose it, for it would be of no avail to endeavor to explain to them that happiness consists in the practice of virtue; that the rule of law is more powerful than the rule of tyrants, because, as the laws are more inflexible, every one should submit to their beneficent austerity; that proper morals, and not force, are the bases of law; and that to practice justice is to practice liberty.
 * Variant translation: Slavery is the daughter of darkness; an ignorant people is the blind instrument of its own destruction; ambition and intrigue take advantage of the credulity and inexperience of men who have no political, economic or civil knowledge. They mistake pure illusion for reality, license for freedom, treason for patriotism, vengeance for justice.
 * As translated by Frederick H. Fornoff in El Libertador : Writings Of Simon Bolivar (2003) edited by David Bushnell

 * Let the entire system of government be strengthened, and let the balance of power be drawn up in such a manner that it will be permanent and incapable of decay because of its own tenuity. Precisely because no form of government is so weak as the democratic, its framework must be firmer, and its institutions must be studied to determine their degree of stability … unless this is done, we will have to reckon with an ungovernable, tumultuous, and anarchic society, not with a social order where happiness, peace, and justice prevail.

 * Let us give to our republic a fourth power with authority over the youth, the hearts of men, public spirit, habits, and republican morality. Let us establish this Areopagus to watch over the education of the children, to supervise national education, to purify whatever may be corrupt in the republic, to denounce ingratitude, coldness in the country's service, egotism, sloth, idleness, and to pass judgment upon the first signs of corruption and pernicious example.
 * As quoted in Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as Told in the Lives of their Liberators (1918) by William Spence Robertson, p. 239

 * The continuation of authority in the same person has frequently proved the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential to the system of popular governments, because there is nothing so dangerous as to suffer Power to be vested for a long time in one citizen. The people become accustomed to obeying him, and he becomes accustomed to commanding, hence the origin of usurpation and tyranny.
 * As quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, edit., Dover Publications Inc. (1958) p. 386

 * A perverted people, should it attaint its liberty, is bound to lose this very soon, because it would be useless to try to impress upon such people that happiness lies in the practice of righteousness; that the reign of law is more powerful than the reign of tyrants, who are more inflexible, and all ought to submit to the wholesome severity of the law; that good morals, and not force, are the pillars of the law and that the exercise of justice is the exercise of liberty.
 * As quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, edit., Dover Publications Inc. (1958) p. 388

 * Liberty, says Rousseau, is a succulent food, but difficult to digest. Our feeble fellow citizens will have to strengthen their mind much before they will be ready to assimilate such wholesome nourishment.
 * As quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, edit., Dover Publications Inc. (1958) p. 388

 * When I contemplate this immense reunited country, my soul mounts to that height demanded by the colossal perspective of a picture so wonderful. My imagination takes flight toward future ages and admiringly observes from them the prosperity, the splendor, and the life which will exist within this vast territory. I am carried away; and I seem to behold it in the heart of the universe, stretching along its extensive coasts between two oceans which nature has separated; but which our fatherland has united by long and wide canals. I see it serve as the bond, as the center, as the emporium of the human race. I see it sending to the ends of the earth the treasures of gold and silver which its mountains contain. I see it, through the healing virtue of its plants, dispensing health and life to afflicted men of the Old World. I see it disclosing its precious secrets to the sages who know that the store of knowledge is more valuable than the store of riches which nature has so prodigally bestowed upon us. I see it seated upon the throne of liberty, the scepter of justice in its hand, crowned by glory, showing to the Old World the majesty of the New World.
 * Close of the address, as quoted in Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as Told in the Lives of their Liberators (1918) by William Spence Robertson, p. 239

Letter near the end of his life (November 9, 1830)
As you know, I have led for twenty years and have obtained only a few certain results:
 * 1) America is ungovernable by us.
 * 2) He who serves a revolution plows in the sea.
 * 3) The only thing one can do in America is emigrate.
 * 4) This country [Colombia] will fall unfailingly into the hands of the unbridled crowd and then pass almost imperceptibly to tyrants of all colors and races.
 * 5) Devoured by all crimes and extinguished by ferocity, the Europeans will not deign to conquer us.
 * 6) If it were possible for one part of the world to return to primitive chaos, this would be the last period of America.

Undated

 * Unlimited freedom, absolute democracy, are reefs upon which all the republics have come to grief.
 * Quoted in Jacques Bainville, Dictators (1937), p. 139

 * It must never be forgotten that the excellence of a government consists, not in its theoretic perfection, but in the degree to which it is adapted to the nature and character of the people for whom it is set up.
 * Quoted in Jacques Bainville, Dictators (1937), pp. 139-140

 * It is not right to leave everything to the chances and hazards of an election. The masses are more prone to error than those who have been trained and tempered by education.
 * Quoted in Jacques Bainville, Dictators (1937), p. 140

 * The shouts of human-kind on the battlefield, or in the tumult of assemblies are protests to heaven against inconsistent legislators who have thought it possible to experiment with chimerical constitutions without suffering the consequences
 * Quoted in Jacques Bainville, Dictators (1937), p. 140

 * Absolute democratic government is as much a tyranny as despotism.
 * Quoted in Jacques Bainville, Dictators (1937), p. 140

 * The most accomplished nation in the world, ancient or modern, was unable to resist the violence of the storms inherent in pure theories. If a European country like France, ever sovereign and independent, was not able to support the burden of unrestricted liberty, how can anyone expect Colombia to realize the delirious hallucinations of Robespierre and Marat. Could anyone even dream of such a piece of political moonshine? Legislators, see to it that the inexorable verdict of posterity does not liken you to the monsters of France!
 * Quoted in Jacques Bainville, Dictators (1937), p. 140

Quotes about Bolívar

 * To-day we are beginning to realise that the Colombian dictator was above all things a positivist, a realist. He wrote some trenchant things about codes "drawn up by gentle visionaries who, dreaming of republics away up in the clouds, have sought to attain to political perfection by taking it for granted that human nature is indefinitely perfectible". Despite his republican utterances, he was an uncompromising opponent of democracy, which he defined as "a state of things so incapable of resistance that the slightest difficulty is enough to throw it into confusion and bring it to naught".
 * Jacques Bainville, Dictators (1937), p. 139

 * And so Bolivar, being a realist in politics, was always moved to indignation when he saw the States of South America adopting cut and dried constitutions, based on abstract theory, and not created expressly to suit them. What he would have liked to see put into practice was what Latin-American writers have called the Bolivarian theory, that is to say the principle of "sociocratic heredity" on the Comtean or pre-Comtean pattern. He would have desired, taking his cue no doubt from the example of the Antonines at Rome, that, at the head of each of the Republics he had created, there should be a Life-President, who should appoint his own successor. In this manner he thought to combine absolutism and continuity, the apanage of hereditary monarchies, while discarding the hereditary principle.
 * Jacques Bainville, Dictators (1937), pp. 140-141

 * Both San Martín and Bolívar have been accused by their enemies of plotting to make themselves kings, but most scholars agree today that there is no basis for either accusation. Bolívar, with his sense of drama, felt that to make himself monarch would mean a refutation of his entire past career. Such an attempt would render him ridiculous at the bar of history, and although he intended to keep political control in his hands, it was the control exercised by the power of a political chief, a kind of super-boss.
 * Margaret Hayne Harrison, in Captain of the Andes : The Life of José de San Martín, Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru (1943), p. 199

 * Bolívar, the hero who brought glory to the nation. Bolívar, the military and political genius, the Liberator, the Father of His Country. Today, the main square of almost every city and town in Venezuela is named Plaza Bolívar. And each one has a statue of the Liberator. Some show him standing, some on horseback. In the city named for him, Bolívar City, which is the capital of Bolívar state, there is of course a Plaza Bolívar, with a Bolívar statue: on a high marble pedestal the Liberator appears in the guise of a Roman emperor or senator, his cape wrapped around him to look like a toga, a sword in his right hand, a law scroll in his left. All this fed what became a state religion: Bolívar as civic god. Venezuelan historians refer to it as Bolívar worship.
 * William Neuman, Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela (2022)

 * In his eventful forty-seven years Bolívar said enough, wrote enough, gave enough speeches, corresponded widely enough, and changed his thinking often enough, that today you can find material in the vast Bolivarian catalog to support virtually any ideology, position, or cause. Bolívar ruled as a dictator—so Venezuelan dictators held him up as an example of how the country needed to be ruled by a firm hand. Bolívar said that elections were essential—so democrats embraced him. Bolívar warned that elections would lead to anarchy—so conservatives revered him. Outside Venezuela, both Mussolini and Franco saw Bolívar as a fascist precursor. Marx called him “the dastardly, most miserable, and meanest of blackguards.” Cuban communists honored him. Chávez hailed Bolívar as a socialist. Chávez once ordered Bolívar’s remains, entombed in the National Pantheon in Caracas, to be exhumed. He then commissioned a computer-generated portrait of the Liberator, based on digital projections from the great man’s skull. It looked a lot like the portraits of Bolívar painted by his contemporaries, but Chávez said that for the first time, modern Venezuelans were seeing Bolívar’s “true face.” This was a quaint notion. The true face of Bolívar is what you want it to be. He was a democrat. He was an autocrat. He was an egalitarian. He was an elitist. He was an abolitionist. He was a slaveholder. He was a cruel tyrant. He was a tolerant humanist. In fact, he was all those things at one time or another.
 * William Neuman, Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela (2022)

title: Simón Bolívar


text:
User talk:212.50.31.211

Welcome to Wikiquote. I have placed the quote that you were trying to place in the Quote of the Day archive into the Quote of the Day proposals page, with minor adjustment to what I believe might be the correct spelling. I have protected the Quote of the Day archive because it seems to pick up many improper additions, perhaps because some people mistake it for the Quote of the Day proposals page. You are very welcome to post quotations of the director Emir Kusturica and others, and to login to create your own user pages, if you wish to do so. I hope that you will find Wikiquote interesting and useful. ~ Kalki 18:55, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:212.50.31.211