However human, envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as "the most anti-social and evil of all passions.
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Irony is the hygiene of the mind.
Irony is the hygiene of the mind.
It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands read more
It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it.
If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you'll read more
If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you'll abort it if you do. Be patient and you'll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait.
Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. read more
Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.
Science itself, therefore, may be regarded as a minimal problem, consisting of the completest possible presentment of facts with the read more
Science itself, therefore, may be regarded as a minimal problem, consisting of the completest possible presentment of facts with the least possible expenditure of thought.
Power concedes nothing without a demand.
Power concedes nothing without a demand.
My enemy is not the man who wrongs me, but the man who means to wrong me.
My enemy is not the man who wrongs me, but the man who means to wrong me.
Everything that we think God has in his mind necessarily proceeds from our own mind; it is what we imagine read more
Everything that we think God has in his mind necessarily proceeds from our own mind; it is what we imagine to be in God's mind, and it is really difficult for human intelligence to guess at a divine intelligence. What we usually end up with by this sort of reasoning is to make God the color-sergeant of our army and to make Him as chauvinistic as ourselves.
The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a read more
The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a tribe, nation, church or cause, and to espouse its credo uncritically and enthusiastically, even if its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation.We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.
