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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The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes.
The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes.
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by read more
The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by to the Bill of Rights.
The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.
The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.
...the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, read more
...the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to the flag, a leader, a religious faith or political conviction.
We once worried that democracy could not survive if an undereducated populace knew too little. Now we worry if it read more
We once worried that democracy could not survive if an undereducated populace knew too little. Now we worry if it can survive us knowing too much.
This is, I say, the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but read more
This is, I say, the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but to come to the aid of their country.
The part of our social order which can or ought to be made a conscious product of human reason is read more
The part of our social order which can or ought to be made a conscious product of human reason is only a small part of all the forces of society.
