We should...be able to see that our interest would be best served not by asking the state to promulgate our read more

We should...be able to see that our interest would be best served not by asking the state to promulgate our values but by forbidding the state to promulgate any values at all. If the state can espouse some value that we love, it can, with equal justice, espouse others we do not love.

Rousseau had it backwards. We are NOT born free. We are born in the chains of the random and the read more

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.

Commencement speakers have a good deal in common with grandfather clocks: Standing usually some six feet tall, typically ponderous in read more

Commencement speakers have a good deal in common with grandfather clocks: Standing usually some six feet tall, typically ponderous in construction, more traditional than functional, their distinction is largely their noisy communication of essentially commonplace information.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying read more

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; read more

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.

Enemies promises were made to be broken.

Enemies promises were made to be broken.

In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.

In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.

All the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to read more

All the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.