"We thought that whatever we wanted to do was right and good, simply because we were Americans, and we would succeed at it because we were Americans."

Thought, Americans, Right, Succeed

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"We thought that whatever we wanted to do was right and good, simply because we were Americans, and we would succeed at it because we were Americans."

Exlpore more Thought quotes

"I've always thought of myself as a reporter."

Gwendolyn Brooks, American Poet

Thought,

"Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory."

Virginia Woolf, British Author

Thought, Action, Theory

"Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal."

Nathaniel Hawthorne, American Novelist

Thought, Deep

"To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost."

Barbara Tuchman, American Historian

Thought, Thoughts, Order, Sin

"As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself."

Arthur Schopenhauer, German Philosopher

Thought, Knowledge, Disorder, May

"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in."

Virginia Woolf, British Author

Thought,

"I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'."

Thomas Huxley, English Scientist

Thought,

"He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow."

George Eliot, British Author

Thought, Sun

"A radical generally meant a man who thought he could somehow pull up the root without affecting the flower. A conservative generally meant a man who wanted to conserve everything except his own reason for conserving anything."

Gilbert K. Chesterton, English Writer

Thought, Conservative, Man, Radical

"Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous."

Confucius, Chinese Philosopher

Thought, Labor, Learning

Explore more quotes by Neil Sheehan

"We had a military and political leadership at that period which was genuinely deluded."

Leadership, Military

"World War II had been such a tremendous success story for this country that the political and military leadership began to assume that they would prevail simply because of who they were. We were like the British at the turn of the 19th century."

Leadership, Success, War, Country

"Americans, particularly after World War II, tended to romanticize war because in World War II our cause was the cause of humanity, and our soldiers brought home glory and victory, and thank God that they did. But it led us to romanticize it to some extent."

Home, War, God, Victory

"You remember all those phrases about how "these people" - Asians - don't value human life like we do. Well if you spend any time around them, you discover that they love their children just as much as we love ours. That is certainly true of the Vietnamese."

Life, Love, Time, Children

"Just because you put higher-octane gasoline in your car doesn't mean you can break the speed limit. The speed limit's still 65."

Car,

"We wanted to see this country win the war just as much as those advisors did. We felt we would help to do that by reporting the truth. And so there was the moral outrage over this general and the ambassador in Saigon who kept denying the truth we would see."

War, Truth, Country, Help

"I think you have to remember that Americans saw their purpose as so innately good that they could excuse the pain they would inflict on others to carry out those purposes. Because the purposes were so good, they would justify this pain we were inflicting on other people."

People, Purpose, Americans, Pain

"At least I'm at peace with myself. I have done my best to write a book about what really happened there and why it happened and it's done, it's published. I won't write another book on Vietnam."

Peace, Vietnam

"The destruction of civilian hamlets, the killing and the wounding of civilians, became vastly greater than it had been before, and it was very upsetting; but I still couldn't bring myself to understand that the policy itself was wrong."

Policy, Destruction, Killing, Wrong

"These men were wrongfully rejected, the veterans. The fighting man should never have been blamed for Vietnam."

Man, Men, Fighting, Veterans