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Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."
Latin: "A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's read more
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."
Latin: "A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. - Letters to Lucilius.
The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities. Peace, no read more
The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self-sacrifice and a righteous and dynamic faith.
It is maintained that a society is free only when dissenting minorities have room to throw their weight around. As read more
It is maintained that a society is free only when dissenting minorities have room to throw their weight around. As a matter of fact, a dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.
Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.
Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.
Except in the sacred texts of democracy and in the incantations of orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend read more
Except in the sacred texts of democracy and in the incantations of orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force. What other virtue can there be in fifty-one percent except the brute fact that fifty-one is more than forty-nine? The rule of fifty-one per cent is a convenience, it is for certain matters a satisfactory political device, it is for others the lesser of two evils, and for others it is acceptable because we do not know any less troublesome method of obtaining a political decision. But it may easily become an absurd tyranny if we regard it worshipfully, as though it were more than a political device. We have lost all sense of its true meaning when we imagine that the opinion of fifty-one per cent is in some high fashion the true opinion of the whole hundred per cent, or indulge in the sophistry that the rule of a majority is based upon the ultimate equality of man.
What is hateful to thyself do not do to another. That is the whole Law, the rest is Commentary.
What is hateful to thyself do not do to another. That is the whole Law, the rest is Commentary.
The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than read more
The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.
The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and read more
The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state. The history of the West, from the age of the Greek polis down to the present-day resistance to socialism, is essentially the history of the fight for liberty against the encroachments of the officeholders.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.