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    ...regrettable as it may seem to the idealist, the experience of history provides little warrant for the belief that real progress, and the freedom that makes progress possible, lies in unification. For where unification has been able to establish unity of ideas it has usually ended in uniformity, paralysing the growth of new ideas. And where the unification has merely brought about an artificial or imposed unity, its irksomeness has led through discord to disruption.Vitality springs from diversity- which makes for real progress so long as there is mutual toleration, based on the recognition that worse may come from an attempt to suppress differences than from acceptance of them. For this reason, the kind of peace that makes progress possible is best assured by the mutual checks created by a balance of forces- alike in the sphere of internal politics and of international relations.

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  13  /  15  

The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars.

The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars.

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  7  /  18  

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.

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  4  /  10  

That government is best which governs least.

That government is best which governs least.

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  13  /  9  

The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the read more

The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.

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  5  /  14  

One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most read more

One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most wars, however, are started by well-fed people with time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances.

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  7  /  9  

The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on it.

The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on it.

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  12  /  10  

No serious historian of politics would imagine that he had accounted for the protective tariff of the system of bounties read more

No serious historian of politics would imagine that he had accounted for the protective tariff of the system of bounties or subsidies, for the monetary and banking laws, for the state of law in regard to corporate privileges and immunities, for the actual status of property rights, for agricultural or for labor policies, until he had gone behind the general claims and the abstract justifications and had identified the specifically interested groups which promoted the specific law.

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What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying read more

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.

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There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the read more

There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

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