Richard Mitchell

We should...be able to see that our interest would be best served not by asking the state to promulgate our read more

We should...be able to see that our interest would be best served not by asking the state to promulgate our values but by forbidding the state to promulgate any values at all. If the state can espouse some value that we love, it can, with equal justice, espouse others we do not love.

...far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to read more

...far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to keep the American people thoughtless enough to go on supporting the system.

There is no other way to judge the work of a mind except through its words.

There is no other way to judge the work of a mind except through its words.

If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your thoughts, read more

If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your thoughts, you have no choice but to think them, however silly they may be.

Rousseau had it backwards. We are NOT born free. We are born in the chains of the random and the read more

Rousseau had it backwards. We are NOT born free. We are born in the chains of the random and the reflexive, and are ignorant and unreasonable by simple nature. We must learn to be free, to organize the random and detect the reflexive, to acquire the knowledge of particulars and the powers of reason. The examined life is impossible if we cannot examine, order, classify, define, distinguish, always in minute particulars.