When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating.
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The great questions are those an intelligent child asks and, getting no answers, stops asking.
The great questions are those an intelligent child asks and, getting no answers, stops asking.
Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, read more
Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, by the ideas and the theories.
We envy those whose possessions or achievements are a reflection on our own. They are our neighbors and equals. It read more
We envy those whose possessions or achievements are a reflection on our own. They are our neighbors and equals. It is they, above all who make plain the nature of our failure.
...the more original a discovery the more obvious it seems afterwards.
...the more original a discovery the more obvious it seems afterwards.
All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes read more
All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.
Blaming "society" makes it awfully easy for a person of weak character to shrug off his own responsibility for his read more
Blaming "society" makes it awfully easy for a person of weak character to shrug off his own responsibility for his actions.
It is perhaps not entirely so, though it has often been said, that man makes his God in his own read more
It is perhaps not entirely so, though it has often been said, that man makes his God in his own image. Rather does he create Him in the image of his cravings and dreams- in the image of what man wants to be. God making could be part of the process by which a society realizes its aspirations: it first embodies them in the conception of a particular God, and then proceeds to imitate that God. The confidence requisite for attempting the unprecedented is most effectively generated by the fiction that in realizing the new we are imitating rather than originating. Our preoccupation with heaven can be part of an effort to find precedents for the unprecedented.
He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the read more
The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
