Political Quotes

“The horror of Saturday's bloodshed in Arizona, the senseless loss of life, and the cowardly attack on Gabby Giffords has for many Americans raised the question of whether we as a Nation have lost our way. Many wonder, if an act so benign as Gabby's effort to listen to her neighbors in the Eighth Congressional District of Arizona can be the target of such violence, whether there is hope and a future for our democracy. One voice from our recent past suggests there is still hope for that fragile ideal. On April 4, 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy spoke in Indianapolis, Indiana, shortly after the slaying of Martin Luther King at a time when political violence wracked our Nation. This is what he said: ``We have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these difficult times.'' He then said, ``My favorite poem was Aeschylus, and he once wrote, `Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' '' He concluded that what we need in the United States is not division. What we need is not hatred. What we need is not violence and lawlessness. It is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another.…”