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Quotes of the Day for 19 July 2009 – George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern was born at Avon, South Dakota on this day in 1922 and grew up in nearby Mitchell. He graduated from Dakota Wesleyan University, took private flying lessons to overcome his fear of heights, then joined the Civilian Pilot Training Program before enlisting in the Army Air Force. He flew 35 missions over enemy territory in his B-24 bomber, named Dakota Queen. After the war he went to seminary, was ordained as a Methodist minister, but left the ministry to take a PhD in history at Northwest University at Evanston, Illinois. He was an active supporter of Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party in 1948, became a Democrat after hearing Adlai Stevenson in 1952. He served two terms in the House, served as director of the Food for Peace program, then won a Senate seat in 1962 which he held for three terms. He ran for president on an anti-war platform against Richard Nixon in 1972, losing in the most lopsided electoral defeat in modern history. Since leaving the Senate in 1980 he has taught istory and campaigned for international food programs.
You will find an expanded profile, photo, additional biographical links, and all quotes from this author on the author's Notable Quotable page.
The quotes:
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
No man should advocate a course in private that he's ashamed to admit in public.
It is simply untrue that all our institutions are evil,... that all politicians are mere opportunists, that all aspects of university life are corrupt. Having discovered an illness, it's not terribly useful to prescribe death as a cure.
Politics is an act of faith; you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public.
The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plane.
You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.
- George Stanley McGovern
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