WIST Quotations

Burke, Edmund -- (Spurious)

Dave — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 18:13:55 +0000

Education is the cheap defence of nations.

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
(Spurious)

American spelling variant: "Education is the cheap defense of nations."

While widely quoted since the early 19th Century, there is no record of Burke having said or written it. The earliest references come from Thomas Chalmers (1827, 1832), who mentions it as a well-known quotation, but many other uses of it show up quickly after (1835, 1837, 1838, 1839, etc.), continuing through the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Burke did, in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), make a reference to the "cheap defence of nations," but in the very different context of praising the social order of genteel nobility and honor. In a passage bemoaning the execution of Marie Antoinette, he wrote (emphasis mine):

But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

It's unclear how this phrase got "Education is ..." grafted to it, though some see it as an intentional and nefarious fabrication.

Roosevelt, Theodore -- Autobiography, ch. 7 “The War of America the Unready” (1913)

Dave — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:25:42 +0000

I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer; US President (1901–09)
Autobiography, ch. 7 “The War of America the Unready” (1913)

Eisenhower, Dwight David -- Speech (1953-04-16), “The Chance for Peace,” American Society of Newspaper Editors, Hotel Statler, New York City

Dave — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:07:45 +0000

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general, US President (1953–61)
Speech (1953-04-16), “The Chance for Peace,” American Society of Newspaper Editors, Hotel Statler, New York City

Describing the cost of the Cold War. Also known as the "Cross of Iron" speech, it was delivered shortly into his presidency and just after Stalin's death.