Daniel Ellsberg Quotes

#1. President Johnson put destroyers in harm's way in the Tonkin Gulf not only once, but several times, with the, with a lot of his people hoping that it would lead to a confrontation and claiming that it had. And could have resulted in the lost of many lives in the course of it.

Daniel Ellsberg

#2. I agree that there are things that should be kept secret.

Daniel Ellsberg

#3. It is time for the rest of the world to join ... in demanding that ALL the nuclear weapons states -including Israel, India and Pakistan, but above all the US and Russia - negotiate concrete steps on a definite time-table toward the global, inspected abolition of nuclear weapons.

Daniel Ellsberg

#4. But it is important always to keep in mind that the danger of harming humans is not connected only or even mainly with telling secrets, there can be great danger in keeping secrets.

Daniel Ellsberg

#5. If monarchy is corrupting - and it is - wait till you see what overt empire does to us.

Daniel Ellsberg

#6. You needn't think there is nothing you can do-you can tell the truth.

Daniel Ellsberg

#7. Truth-telling to Congress and the public is not disloyal in America: it is an expression of the higher loyalty officials owe to the Constitution, the rule of law, and the sovereign public. It is a courageous, patriotic, and effective way to serve our country. The time to speak out is now.

Daniel Ellsberg

#8. Look, all administrations, all governments lie, all officials lie and nothing they say is to be believed. That's a pretty good rule.

Daniel Ellsberg

#9. This wholesale invasion of Americans' and foreign citizens' privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we're trying to protect.

Daniel Ellsberg

#10. For an American to be patriotic is to be loyal to the principles of our Constitution, and the First Amendment. The truth is that the policies of the government is sometimes in conflict with that. In our country, patriotism should not be defined as obedience to an authority.

Daniel Ellsberg

#11. We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right.

Daniel Ellsberg

#12. If there's another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country.

Daniel Ellsberg

#13. There are some things that should not be leaked without authorization.

Daniel Ellsberg

#14. It is a tribute to the American people that our leaders perceived that they had to lie to us, it is not a tribute to us that we were so easily misled.

Daniel Ellsberg

#15. Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress.

Daniel Ellsberg

#16. Nixon did have a secret plan, and I knew that it involved making threats of nuclear war to North Vietnam.

Daniel Ellsberg

#17. The effect of that is to poison the flow of information to the President himself and to create a situation where a President can be almost, to use a metaphor, psychotically divorced from the realities in which he is acting ...

Daniel Ellsberg

#18. Those of us who finally saw through the Vietnam war saw through this war, and all the actions that were necessary to end the Vietnam war will be necessary here. I think the American people will get us out of this war.

Daniel Ellsberg

#19. It's true that most people find it far more comfortable to trust an authority than to have their faith questioned.

Daniel Ellsberg

#20. EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.

Daniel Ellsberg

#21. WikiLeaks serves as a back-up for those who want to tell the truth about the inner workings of government when the mainstream media is not willing or taking too long to publish.

Daniel Ellsberg

#22. The fact is that when it comes to judgment as to what should be secret and what should not be secret, Julian Assange's judgment has been pretty good so far.

Daniel Ellsberg

#23. In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material, and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago.

Daniel Ellsberg

#24. I found draft resistors very conscientious, reasonable, and not fanatics.

Daniel Ellsberg

#25. I see Edward Snowden as someone who has chosen, at best, exile from the country he loves-with a serious risk of his assassination by agents of his government or life in prison (in solitary confinement)-to awaken us to the danger of our loss of democracy to a total-surveilla nce state

Daniel Ellsberg

#26. It is urgent to prevent new U.S. aggression. The time is now for the world to say 'no' to U.S. threats of air attack against Iran, and to the very notion of a nuclear first-use 'option' by America or any other nation.

Daniel Ellsberg

#27. There should be at least one leak like the Pentagon Papers every year.

Daniel Ellsberg

#28. My feelings of revulsion and foreboding about nuclear weapons had not changed an iota since 1945, and they have never left me. Since I was 14, the overriding objective of my life has been to prevent the occurrence of nuclear war.

Daniel Ellsberg

#29. I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.

Daniel Ellsberg