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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Human reason can neither predict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist in finding out where it has read more
Human reason can neither predict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist in finding out where it has been wrong.
To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that read more
To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed.
There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self read more
There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They asked to be deceived.
He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the read more
He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.
We cannot hate those who we despise.
We cannot hate those who we despise.
Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.
Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.
Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind. The difference lies not in the respective natures of read more
Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind. The difference lies not in the respective natures of savagery and civilization, but in their attendant circumstances, institutions, and so forth. The difference, therefore, does not operate in every sense, but it does in most of them. Even the most civilized peoples, in short, can be fired with passionate hatred for each other.
The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his read more
The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.
Anyone can escape into sleep, we are all geniuses when we dream, the butcher's the poet's equal there. - The read more
Anyone can escape into sleep, we are all geniuses when we dream, the butcher's the poet's equal there. - The Tempation to Exist.
