61 Quotes by Daniel Ellsberg

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.

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

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

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

Obama is making a choice now that will lead to the deaths of many thousands of civilians in Afghanistan by American hands. By ordinary standards of presidents, he is a decent man. But those standards aren't good enough. He's in a position either to kill or not to kill, and he's made the decision to kill.

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

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

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

There are two types of courage involved with what I did. When it comes to picking up a rifle, millions of people are capable of doing that, as we see in Iraq or Vietnam. But when it comes to risking their careers, or risking being invited to lunch by the establishment, it turns out that's remarkably rare.