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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I met someone on the street who said wasn't it great that we're going to have a movie star for read more
I met someone on the street who said wasn't it great that we're going to have a movie star for president, that it was so Pop, and (laughs) when you think about it like that, it is great, it's so American.
One can become a leader only if one is supported by an ideology which makes other people tractable and accommodating.
One can become a leader only if one is supported by an ideology which makes other people tractable and accommodating.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because read more
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.
In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its read more
In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects.
A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it -- it keeps him upright.
A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it -- it keeps him upright.
The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.
The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.
Glory is the child of peril.
Glory is the child of peril.
Free institutions are not the property of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimited powers. The rights of read more
Free institutions are not the property of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimited powers. The rights of the majority are limited rights. They are limited not only by the constitutional guarantees but by the moral principle implied in those guarantees. That principle is that men may not use the facilities of liberty to impair them. No man may invoke a right in order to destroy it.
