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Quotations about appeasement
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) US President (1933-1945)
“Fireside Chat” radio address (29 Dec 1940)
We learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American poltician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Press conference (28 Jul 1965)
Defending his decision to to not withdraw US troops from Vietnam.
But all history has taught us the grim lesson that no nation has ever been successful in avoiding the terrors of war by refusing to defend its rights — by attempting to placate aggression.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
“Security in the Free World,” broadcast speech (15 Mar 1959)
You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.
John Ruskin (1819-1900) English art critic, painter, writer, social thinker
The Two Paths, Lecture 5 (1859)
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
School History, “Dane-Geld (A.D. 980-1016)” (1911) [with C. Fletcher]
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
(Attributed)
Churchill reportedly used used this phrase frequently prior to WWII, but it has not been found per se by Churchill scholars in his writings, speeches, press conferences, radio addresses, or parliamentary debates. However, on a radio broadcast (20 Jan 1940), speaking of the neutral states standing by while Germany (and Russia) swallowed them up (referencing Finland fighting against Russia in particular), "Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear -- I fear greatly -- the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, even more loudly, even more widely."
Also attributed to Franklin Roosevelt.
Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will turn vegetarian.
Heywood Broun (1888-1939) American journalist, author
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in Lin Yutang, The Wisdom of China and India (1942).
But it must be remembered that, in spite of the proverb, it takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Patriotism,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1915)
Sometimes quoted as "while wolves remain of a different opinion."
