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.
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To desire the attainment of this equality or superiority by the particular means of others being brought down to our read more
To desire the attainment of this equality or superiority by the particular means of others being brought down to our own level, or below it, is, I think, the distinct notion of envy.
The American people want to preserve their American heritage, and they have the quaint belief that public lands belong to read more
The American people want to preserve their American heritage, and they have the quaint belief that public lands belong to them as much as to the people of the state where the lands are located.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man read more
The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.
The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing read more
The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."N. B.: This read more
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."N. B.: This quote is commonly attributed to Voltaire, but it is not found in his writing. - The Friends of Voltaire.
The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all read more
The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty.
Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor.
Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor.
We are the people our parents warned us about.
We are the people our parents warned us about.
