Implicit in the activist conception of government is the assumption that you can take the good things in a complex system for granted, and just improve the things that are not so good. What is lacking in this conception is any sense that a society, an institution, or even a single human being, is an intricate system of fragile inter-relationships, whose complexities are little understood and easily destabilized.
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Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will read more
Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
We should listen first and foremost to our own experience...We should stop looking for saviors... Society has not existed for read more
We should listen first and foremost to our own experience...We should stop looking for saviors... Society has not existed for thousands of years because it had a succession of saviors. It's existed because it has institutions and processes through which people can realize their own goals.
Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and read more
Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and the mediocre.
Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness.
Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness.
Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.
Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.
When you learn not to want things so badly, life comes to you.
When you learn not to want things so badly, life comes to you.
They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even when read more
Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even when men league themselves mightily together to promote tolerance and peace on earth, they are likely to be violently intolerant toward those not of a like mind.
