Internal Conflict Quotes

It's probably better to have the son-of-a-bitch inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an unuprooted small corner of evil. Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.

… an enemy within the gates, doing more harm than good.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

I think people are born bisexual and the make subconscious choices based on the pressures of society. I have no question in my mind about being bisexual. But I'm also a hypocrite: I would never date a girl who is bisexual, because that means they also sleep with men, and men are so dirty that I'd never sleep with a girl who had slept with a man.

In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

They say it's the white man I should fear, But it's my own kind doin' all the killin' here.

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him.

The gay thing has always been hard for me.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

Even though I'm a leftist. I think the left eats its own.

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

It reminds me of myself - seemingly perfect on the outside but inside is all a mush.

Should the idea get abroad that there is likely to be no union among us, it will damp the minds of the people, diminish the glory of our struggle, and lessen its importance; because it will open to our view future prospects of war and dissension among ourselves

The Democratic Party has always been a party that is not known for its unanimity.

Only self-hatred could lead him to ruin himself because his heart was "broken.

The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.

Every hero is the villain of his own story.

He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart

I never had a moral problem with being gay.

Loyalty is a word which has worked vast harm; for it has been made to trick men into being "loyal" to a thousand iniquities, whereas the true loyalty should have been to themselves - in which case there would have ensured a rebellion, and the throwing off of that deceptive yoke.

I try not to look at my old stuff or my new stuff, really. I'm not a fan.

The trap in Hamlet is he's the most passive of Shakespeare's characters. He's not a Richard III, not out there taking a lot of action. It's a lot of asides and soliloquies where he's wrapped in angst, and that's not a very interesting character.

Better a thousand enemies outside the house than one inside.