People From Philadelphia

"And I heard the scientists say the other day when a man votes for a woman he actually transitions into a woman."

"[On White Dudes for Harris male-created Zoom call] It was basically saying "If you want to be accepted by women you should vote for a woman"."

"The love of Jesus Christ is the most powerful weapon against hatred. Only the light of Christ can quench the torches of hatred and violence. Let us pray for peace."

"A younger brother, Sullivan A. Meredith, fell in and took arms at the outbreak of the rebellion and joined the Army to the Shenandoah, whose equal in personnel had scarcely been rallied under any flag since the crusades. Col. Meredith, who subsequently earned the yellow sash, was one of that large body of gallant men who volunteered to remain after their term of service bad expired, to hold for the federal government that old battle ground of nature where the river of swans, reinforced by the Shenandoah, bursts through the Blue Ridge."

"Now, Messrs Editors, I should deem it an insult to you and to the public to attempt to weigh the oath of General U. S. Grant with a counterpoise so lignt as the assertion of Robert Ould. The testimony I have placed before you is undoubted and cannot be refuted.Read it, Soldiers of the North, before, in friendship, you strike the hands of these infamous fiends whose garments are even yet dripping with the blood of thirty thousand of your worse-than-murdered comrades, and who are already whetting their knives and preparing their weapons in anticipation of the election of Seymour, in which event an appalling cry of murder will come up from the South, rendering utterly insignificant the feeble moans we already have from Camilla and Opelouses. Do not insult the memories of those who have freely poured out their life-blood in defence of civil liberty by forgetting at the end of three short years the story of their terrible sufferings. Let the tortures, the starvings, the cold-blooded murders, inflicted upon your heroic comrades be remembered at least so long an the present generation of traitors shall exist. Let It be the proud work of the Democratic party to warm into political life, traitors whose only regret is that their power to destroy the Government is not commensurate with their will to do it. Let it be the peculiar province of this Democratic party to strive for the honor of placing your beloved country once more in the minds of the wilful murderers of your poor comrades."

"All we want to-day is to have the temple erected to liberty perfect and entire. There is but one way for the right to go, that is straight ahead, whatever may stand in our way."

"Anna Dickinson, in the Philadelphia Mint, working for a pittance and making impassioned speeches on various occasions for the enslaved black man, was regarded as a nuisance. But Anna Dickinson on the platform, with impassioned speech and fervid moral earnestness, pleading the cause of the slave and receiving $100 and $200 a night for the service; Anna Dickinson in the Connecticut and New Hampshire Republican campaigns, thrilling both States with her eloquent utterances, the acknowledged power that won the victory in both for the Republican party, became the heroine of the hour, and was hailed as the Joan d’Are of the nineteenth century."

"What are our sufferings to those of the slave girl, or the slave mother, lashed from the embrace of her children? Has your purity no feeling for purity outraged? — your parental affections no sympathy for the lacerated love of the slaves? Can you hesitate to speak the word — Be free? God has put slavery into our hands to choke it. He alone should be able to take it out again alive. Let us storm the slave system, as Smith took Fort Donelson. If the President will not give us the order, let us go ourselves."

"The march of events has at length brought us face to face with the question which cannot be said to be one of public expediency and of military necessity. To-day the question presented to us is one of abstract right and wrong. The republican party must proclaim as its watchword universal liberty if it ever hopes to win, and if it ever repudiates that watchword it must die."

"Slavery is a poor school teacher. No one denies that these men must, to a great extent, are in the condition of the prisoners of St. Mark, who, after being long imprisoned in the dark and filthy dungeons for months and years, ten, twenty and thirty years, when brought into the great square of St. Mark, and standing in the sunshine so long shut out from their eyes, they stood stricken blind for ever. It is not strange that these slaves, freed from the dungeons and caverns of slavery, brought into the full blaze of light, into the bright sunlight of liberty should be dazzled and lose their eyesight at least for a little time, and confound friends with foes. T"

"We may beat their armies everywhere, take every city and seaport: what then? Subjugated, are they subdued? They would rise in sixty days again, should the military arm be withdrawn. Success cannot gild our banners while the shadow of the blacks obscures it."

"In the field, Gen. Mitchell rejects the bondmen who flee to him for protection. everywhere those who bring us the most important intelligence are liable to be thrust back into slavery, there to be whipped, tortured, burned to death."

"Kentucky, which fished the halter for liberty in the person of John Brown (abolitionist), has strangled her again, through her representative in the Presidential chair!"

"Our history, the history of our fathers, who to a man loved liberty yet sustained slavery, who prayed that justice might be established in the time to come yet secured the oppression of the present, and who said the men who come after us will secure it."

"It is said we can conquer without emancipation. The rebellion is almost crushed — our armies are pressing southward — the end approaches, when all things will be restored as of old. The South, having been deceived in regard to Mr. Lincoln and the aims of the Republican party, went to war to protect slavery. Now, perhaps, they are beginning to see that Mr. Lincoln is not so far from a slave-catcher, after all. The loyalty of the South is a myth. It will of course grow, as our armies advance, because between hanging and loyalty the advocates of a sinking cause can have but one choice"

"Cleaner hands next time, he vowed silently. I’ll let others do the killing the next time. That’s what separates Presidents from mobsters, after all."

"There’s no dumber animal on earth than a man with a hard-on."

"“I guess it just happens. How many really happy couples do you know?” Arens blew smoke skyward. “Not many. Seems like everybody settles for less than they thought they were going to get.” “I thought we were going to be different.” “Everybody does,” Arens said."

"“I thought Green was where the mob owned Washington.” “It is,” Tackett said. “It makes less difference than you might think.”"

"The bureaucracy staggers on like a beheaded chicken, its stubborn autonomic functions creating the illusion of life."

"“I see you’re not quite the moralist, after all.” “A pragmatist will grow fat while a moralist starves,” Wilkins said."

"“Thank you for not disappointing me,” Somerset said. “You’re every bit the ass I was told to expect.” “So you don’t bother to deny it.” “No, I don’t. Because I don’t bother to deny idiotic blather,” Somerset snapped."

"“Peace,” Robinson repeated. His head lolled back against the chair until he was looking up into the cabin’s rafters. “There’s been more fighting about that than almost anything you can name. Do you know, Gregory, there’s a very simple reason why peace on earth is a pipe dream. Peace has the disadvantage of freezing the status quo, and there’ll always be individuals, groups, nations who find the status quo unacceptable.”"

"People ask if your first kill is hard. It was easy as squashing a bug. I released a lot of anger."

"I drove trucks. I drove Jeeps. I tried to be versatile. I didn't say a word to nobody. I just did it. If I told them, they'd have me all over the damn place. So I played dumb like a fox. Keep your mouth shut, never volunteer. You got to learn that real fast. When you first come in everybody volunteers. Once you volunteer, you think, What the hell did I do that for? I said to myself, Keep your mouth shut, you dummy. You don't know what the hell they're going to throw at you. It's usually the worst thing in the world. Never volunteer. Turn your back and run the other way. Say you didn't hear it."

"I first made contact with Bill on November 18, 1999- the night before my fourth and final audition for the miniseries. It was a gig I wanted more than anything in my life and I was hoping that a last-minute call would give me some kind of good luck- some edge that would make the difference. I had read the book a few months before our first chat and had spent every waking moment since becoming an expert on all things Easy Company and all things Guarnere. The more I learned about him the more superhuman he became to me. From his rough-and-tumble childhood on the streets of Depression-era South Philly to his losing a leg in Bastogne to save the life of his friend- it all added up to a man unlike any other I had ever known. A hero. A legend, and I needed to hear his voice to make him "real" to me."

"In June, we got attached to the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles. They were formed August 1942. They had the 502nd as their only parachute regiment. Then they added the 506th and the 501st. We didn't know what the 101st was about. We were hoping to go to the 82nd because they were going overseas real fast. The 82nd Airborne was well established. They were a damn good outfit. They were in Africa, and they fought on D-Day and up in Holland and Bastogne, too. When we became part of the Screaming Eagles, we put on our eagle patches, and we were so proud. Our division general was Maj. Gen. Bill Lee. He's the one who said, "We have no history, but we have a rendezvous with destiny." He never made it into combat. He had a heart attack before we left."

"My leadership abilities came through right away. You can tell the leaders, they're at the front, they're observers, they're always looking out for the guys. The kids who are leaders make good choices, think quickly, have good instincts, figure things out for themselves; they don't wait to be told. They can read people and situations. If you lived on the streets, you done these things to survive. I got promoted to corporal pretty quick. It was just a promotion in stripes. I had two: one for private first class, and then corporal. The stripes went on both arms and showed your rank. Later at Camp Mackall, I was promoted to squad sergeant, leading the mortar squad. I never wanted to become a sergeant, it was just the way I was. Most of the men did not want to accept that kind of responsibility. They're smart. They know what it entails and they don't want no part of it."

"Combat was getting closer, and I took it upon myself to learn every gun that I could get my hands on. Taking initiative is part of what makes a person a little better. No one tells you to do it, but you do it."

"Believe me, I know the sacrifices made by those who fought and lived, and the complete sacrifice made by the kids who never came home. But I saw the faces of the people we set free from their occupiers- from France to Holland to Belgium, and I saw the people in the concentration camp- and I saw the life, even joy, return to people who'd been starved and beaten close to death, who'd seen their family members die horrible deaths. Even they could find joy again once they were free. At least they had the choice. Even if the people visiting Liberty Bell don't understand what it symbolizes, it doesn't change what we accomplished. I put my hand on Bill's shoulder and told him, yeah, the sacrifice was worth it. He said, "Yeah, I think so, too.""

"When you're a paratrooper, you're the elite of the Army, you're always on the front lines. You know you're going to pay the price. Then you had the German army. They were fighting the war for years. By World War II, they had it perfected, they had the best weapons in the world. We were no match for German artillery. Those Germans were technologically advanced for being a small country. They had the best fighters in the world, the Fallschirmjaeger, German paratroopers, and the SS- Nazis, even the Germans were scared of them. They were fearless, raised as boys to live and die for Hitler. Germany was prepared, and America was sound asleep. We didn't make the plans for it, kid."

"I kept my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut. That's what I learned growing up in South Philly. You want to get educated? You observe, but you don't say a word."

"Camp Toccoa was only about one thing: weeding out the weaklings. Our training schedule was brutal, and the training was brutal- all physical conditioning, led by Captain Sobel. Sobel didn't look like an officer. He was kind of awkward, and all he did was scream. He was high-strung, ranted and raved, criticized everything, a mean son of a bitch. He'd punish you for the hell of it. He was a chickenshit. Any GI knows what chickenshit is. A tyrant, takes authority to an extreme, the type that would get their ass kicked if the situation was reversed!"

"Bill and Babe came to visit while we were filming, and the excitement on set that day was palpable- Babe and Bill were coming! By the time I arrived there was a huge semicircle of people listening to them chat with Tom Hanks. I introduced myself to Babe and he did likewise before looking me up and down. Then he asked how I was getting on with the accent. "Fine," I replied. "Let me hear it," he said, and so I took a deep breath and did my best Philly accent. "No, your Philly accent," Babe said. He must have seen the disappointment on my face because he didn't let it hang in the air too long before breaking into a laugh and giving me a slap on the back. "I'm only messing wicha, you did fine." That moment has to rank among the proudest in my life."

"Well, at this point, I think, we have to conclude that there is a universal opposition to any peace arrangement that involves a recognition of any Russian success. In fact, if anything, it looks more and more as though Ukrainians are almost incidental to the operation, in the sense that they are there to impale themselves on the Russian army and die in great numbers. Because the real goal of this entire thing is the destruction of the Russian state and Vladimir Putin. And no one is prepared to stop anything as long as there is the slightest hope that something terrible will happen to Russia and to Putin. Of course, I don't see much evidence that that's going to be the case, but it doesn’t really matter here. Everyone has universally signed on for the Russian hate campaign, or hatred for Russia campaign, and that seems to go on regardless of what is reported. And frankly, the absence of much truth and reporting and a lot of wishful thinking in its place is hard to overestimate or exaggerate. It’s terrible."

"I really think the president and his supporting advisers believe that somehow or another, they're going to arrive at a negotiating table in the future where they will be able to dictate terms to Moscow. And that's not going to happen."

"The issue for the Russians from the very beginning has been, "How do we proceed without killing large numbers of civilians and inflicting a lot of property damage?" And Putin gave very strict orders from the outset that they were to avoid these things. The problem with avoiding it is that it has slowed the progress of the operation to the point where it has given false hope both to the Ukrainians, but I think has been seized on by people in the West to try and convince the world that a defeat is in progress when, in fact, the opposite is the case. So, the war itself at this stage of the game could be decided very, very rapidly—permanently if Putin were to give the order and allow the forces to disregard the concern for civilians and property damage. But he hasn't done that. He has continued to negotiate even though he recognizes that the people sitting across from him really are not in a position to deliver very much. They’re being told what to do, and it's very obvious that Washington wants this to continue as long as possible in the hopes that Russia will be desperately harmed. I just don’t see that happening."

"The Twist is putting out a cigarette with both feet or coming out of the shower and wiping off your bottom with a towel to the beat of the music. If you're wiping off your bottom with a towel to the beat of the music, you can't touch your partner at the same time. That instantly gives us this thing we call dancing apart to the beat."

"I've been baking this cake for the last 30 years, and all of a sudden the Fat Boys come and put icing on it. And it looks like we're gonna put some candles on it and blow 'em out."

"It's time for real Christians to stand up and take this country back. ... This country is not ours. This country is his. He is king. God is king. Christ is king. And, the minute we get that back, we get our country back."

"Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely."

"We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this, right here."

"If you're judging any creative effort, longevity is the reward."

"I'm just so sick of new artists picking themselves apart trying to find something different about themselves. I'm not going to buy into it, because, quite frankly, I hate images. I'm just going to be me, whatever that is, and do my music, because it makes me happy. What makes me different is really up to you guys."

"The truth as given to us by God is the only path to freedom and to peace and to the joy that we are seeking. For us, to convey that truth compassionately is what we do to help others. We are not going to try to help and support others beginning with an error or falsehood. A falsehood cannot bring about peace and happiness in one’s life. While the answer to a problem might be complicated, we cannot begin with that which is untrue, that's not the loving thing to do."

"The stance against abortion is the pre-eminent priority. How could it not be? We have to get it right from the beginning. Our stance on life, that is our pre-eminent priority. We have to fight against this evil."

"You can't give to the people all that you wish to offer unless you're rooted in a deep spiritual life. I was on fire as a young priest, and wanted to conquer the world, which was good, because the priesthood is about service. However, I learned quickly that that enthusiasm must be rooted in a deep prayer life, or it can’t be sustained. It was a great lesson to learn early in my priesthood. I also learned I needed to stay in touch with my priest friends. It's important to have family and lay friends, but you also need contact with your brother priests, who understand from firsthand experience the challenges you face and can help you to become better."

"Our fish ancestors had internal and external nostrils, too, and to nobody’s surprise these are the same fish that have armbones and other features in common with us."

"What do billions of years of history mean for our lives today? Answers to fundamental questions we face—about the inner workings of our organs and our place in nature—will come from understanding how our bodies and minds have emerged from parts common to other living creatures. I can imagine few things more beautiful or intellectually profound than finding the basis for our humanity, and remedies for many of the ills we suffer, nestled inside some of the most humble creatures that have ever lived on our planet."

"Humans are a timekeeping species, and much of our history can be traced to the ways we parse the moments of our lives."