Amos Oz Quotes

The tongue is a powerful tool. And the words we say are never forgotten. Never.

Words, as you well know, can be powerful. - Digger

I work in a world of words - words that inspire, words that persuade and, increasingly, words that can send the message that it is acceptable to hate.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

There's no difference between one's killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It's exactly the same thing, or even worse.

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.

Science has brought forth this danger [the atomic bomb], but the real problem is in the minds and hearts of men.

I've learned that my word carries weight, and that's something I have to always have to keep in mind.

Law is justice. And it is under the law of justice - under the reign of right; under the influence of liberty, safety, stability, and responsibility - that every person will attain his real worth and the true dignity of his being. It is only under this law of justice that mankind will achieve - slowly, no doubt, but certainly - God's design for the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity.

The question before the United States is whether the magnitude of its power will eclipse the light by which it was founded, or whether it will use its power to serve greater light. Does it seek mastery to dominate or mastery to serve?

Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit--- YOU choose.

Free will is "corrupted nature's deformed darling, the Pallas or beloved self-conception of darkened minds"

We have been led to believe that we have come a long way toward world nuclear disarmament. But that is not the case. Our government is not doing all that it could. We must urge our leaders to fulfill the obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States must assume world leadership to end once and for all the threat of nuclear war. It is our moral responsibility.

Nowadays, the tragedy of war is mediated through technology. It is no longer mediated through a human being with moral responsibilities.

In any civilized society, it is every citizen's responsibility to obey just laws. But at the same time, it is every citizen's responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

Words have incredible power. They can make people's hearts soar, or they can make people's hearts sore.

Benedict Arnold was a war hero, wounded in battle--before he turned against his country. Hitler was likewise a decorated and wounded veteran of the First World War. Being a war hero is not a lifetime...exempt[ion]...from responsibility for what you do thereafter.

We create an image of who we are inside our self. The image then becomes very deeply entrenched, and it becomes the thing that we attribute responsibility to - we say "I", "I" did this because "I" wanted to, because "I" am a good person or because "I" am a bad person. The loop is the fact that we represent our selves, our desires, hopes, dreads and dreams: it is the way in which we conceive of ourselves, rather than the way we conceive of Mount Everest or of a tree. And I say it exists entirely in the loop: the self is an hallucination hallucinated by an hallucination.

Yes, I did have to struggle very hard to get this [the vote on the Iraq war] through, but the reason I did it was because I thought it was the right thing to do. I didn't take this on myself... just because I thought, 'Let's give myself a really hard time for a couple of years!'

He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause.

Words people say not only have a shelf life but have the ability to shape life.

O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.

The power of language, it seems to me, is the only kind of power a writer is entitled to.

There can be no self-government without self-discipline. There can be no self-government without self-control. There can be no liberty unless it is grounded in moral discipline and the ability to do what is right.

A common lament of the World War II generation is the absence today of personal responsibility