Martha Gellhorn - Governments Quotes

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America has made no reparation to the Vietnamese, nothing. We are the richest people in the world and they are among the poorest. We savaged them, though they had never hurt us, and we cannot find it in our hearts, our honor, to give them help — because the government of Vietnam is Communist. And perhaps because they won.

Martha Gellhorn
Americans did not acquire their fear neurosis as the result of a traumatic experience — war devastating their country, pestilence sweeping the land, famine wiping out helpless millions. Americans had to be taught to hate and fear an unseen enemy. The teachers were men in official positions, in government, men whom Americans normally trust without question.

Martha Gellhorn
By its existence, the Peace Movement denies that governments know best; it stands for a different order of priorities: the human race comes first.

Martha Gellhorn
In more than half the nations of our world, torture certifies that the form of government is tyranny. Only tyranny, no matter how camouflaged, needs and employs torturers. Torture has no ideology.

Martha Gellhorn
Never believe governments, not any of them, not a word they say; keep an untrusting eye on all they do.

Martha Gellhorn
Public opinion, though slow as lava, in the end forces governments towards more sanity, more justice. My heroes and heroines are all private citizens.

Martha Gellhorn
After a lifetime of war-watching, I see war as an endemic human disease, and governments are the carriers.

Martha Gellhorn