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    It is a dangerous and idle dream to think that the state can become rule by philosophers turned kings or scientists turned commissars. For if philosophers become kings or scientists commissars, they become politicians, and the powers given to the state are powers given to men who are rulers of states, men subject to all the limitations and temptations of their dangerous craft. Unless this is borne in mind, there will be a dangerous optimistic tendency to sweep aside doubts and fears as irrelevant, since, in the state that the projectors have in mind, power will be exercised by men of a wisdom and degree of moral virtue that we have not yet seen. It won't. It will be exercised by men who will be men first and rulers next and scientists and saints long after.

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When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong you cannot be too conservative.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong you cannot be too conservative.

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The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation. No primitive State read more

The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation. No primitive State known to history originated in any other manner.

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War: a wretched debasement of all the pretenses of civilization.

War: a wretched debasement of all the pretenses of civilization.

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Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole read more

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."
N.B.: This quote refers to the British disarmament of the Indian Army. Gandhi never advocated the individual right to bear arms. - Gandhi, An Autobiography.

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A wise man learns more from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

A wise man learns more from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

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Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing read more

Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what has worked with what sounded good. In area after area- crime, education, housing, race relations- the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.

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Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing read more

Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong.

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I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government.

I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government.

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Ours is an abiding faith in the cause of human freedom. We know it is God's cause.

Ours is an abiding faith in the cause of human freedom. We know it is God's cause.

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