Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power. Consequently those who live under the dominion of Puritanism become exceedingly desirous of power. Now love of power does far more harm than love of drink or any of the other vices against which Puritans protest. Of course, in virtuous people love of power camouflages itself as love of doing good, but this makes very little difference to its social effects. It merely means that we punish our victims for being wicked, instead of for being our enemies. In either case, tyranny and war result. Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda.more Bertrand Russell quotes |
Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.more Bertrand Russell quotes |
The earth becomes more crowded, and our dependence upon our neighbours becomes more intimate. In these circumstances life cannot remain tolerable unless we learn to let each other alone in all matters that are not of immediate and obvious concern to the community. We must learn to respect each other's privacy, and not to impose our moral standards upon each other. The Puritan imagines that his moral standard is the moral standard; he does not realize that other ages and other countries, and even other groups in his own country, have moral standards different from his, to which they have as good a right as he has to his. Unfortunately, the love of power which is the natural outcome of Puritan self-denial makes the Puritan more executive than other people, and makes it difficult for others to resist him. Let us hope that a broader education and a wider knowledge of mankind may gradually weaken the ardour of our too virtuous masters.more Bertrand Russell quotes |
From the standpoint of stable political conditions, it is perhaps well that Hitler is now in a position to wield unprecedented power.more Frederic Sackett quotes |
True, it is evil that a single man should crush the herd, but see not there the worse form of slavery, which is when the herd crushes out the man.more Antoine de Saint-Exupéry quotes |
European merchants supply the best weaponry, contributing to their own defeat.more Saladin quotes |
A government which will turn its tanks upon its people, for any reason, is a government with a taste of blood and a thirst for power and must either be smartly rebuked, or blindly obeyed in deadly fear.more John Salter quotes |
By a Declaration, Liberty is born.
With Courage she is nourished, and
with unceasing Commitment she is guarded.more Eric Schaub quotes |
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I am not free until I say so.
And there's a good chance
I am going to have to fight once I do.
Ever since I declared my Independence,
I have had to support and defend it.more Eric Schaub quotes |
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No, there is a limit to the tyrant's power!
When the oppressed man finds no justice,
When the burden grows unbearable, he appeals
With fearless heart to Heaven,
And thence brings down his everlasting rights,
Which there abide, inalienably his,
And indestructible as stars themselves.
The primal state of nature reappears,
Wherein man confronts his fellow man;
And if all other means shall fail his need,
One last resort remains—his own good sword.
The dearest of our goods we may defend From violence.
We stand before our country,
We stand before our wives, before our children!
more Friedrich Schiller quotes |
I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.more Albert Schweitzer quotes |
CRIMINAL: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.more Howard Scott quotes |
The welfare state that is built upon this conception seems to prove precisely away from the conservative conception of authoritative and personal government, towards a labyrinthine privilege sodden structure of anonymous power, structuring a citizenship that is increasingly reluctant to answer for itself, increasingly parasitic on the dispensations of a bureaucracy towards which it can feel no gratitude.more Roger Scruton quotes |
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Once again prosperous and successful crime goes by the name of virtue; good men obey the bad, might is right and fear oppresses law.more Lucius Annaeus Seneca quotes |
Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long.more Lucius Annaeus Seneca quotes |
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Our minds must have relaxation: rested, they will rise up better and keener. Just as we must not force fertile fields (for uninterrupted production will quickly exhaust them), so continual labor will break the power of our minds. They will recover their strength, however, after they have had a little freedom and relaxation.more Lucius Annaeus Seneca quotes |
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Republics are formed only after revolution. The change to the empire is slow and gradual. One of the saddest lessons of history is that whenever these schools of politics have met in the republics of old, the imperial school, with its dazzling influence of wealth and power, has always won.more John F. Shafroth quotes |
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If the president alone was vested with the power of appointing all officers, and was left to select a council for himself, he would be liable to be deceived by flatterers and pretenders to patriotism.more Roger Sherman quotes |
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If vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.more Algernon Sidney quotes |
As Hitler showed us, a press suppressed does not make a recovery. As Lenin indicated, a press controlled does not revert to a critic’s role. As history reminds us, free speech surrendered is rarely recovered.more William J. Small quotes |
The man of system…is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it… He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.more Adam Smith quotes |
The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would ... assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.more Adam Smith quotes |
Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs
chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.more Adam Smith quotes |
The physical capacity to coerce others can never generate a moral obligation to obey the dictates of [government] power.more George H. Smith quotes |
Congress will ever exercise their powers to levy as much money as the people can pay. They will not be restrained from direct taxes by the consideration that necessity does not require them.more Melancton Smith quotes |
No one is fit to be trusted with power. ... No one. ... Any man who has lived at all knows the follies and wickedness he's capable of. ... And if he does know it, he knows also that neither he nor any man ought to be allowed to decide a single human fate.more C. P. Snow quotes |
Fortunately, there is a weapon for preserving life and liberty that can be wielded effectively by almost anyone -- the handgun. Small and light enough to be carried habitually, lethal, but unlike the knife or sword, not demanding great skill or strength, it truly is the 'great equalizer.' Requiring only hand-eye coordination and a modicum of ability to remain cool under pressure, it can be used effectively by the old and the weak against the young and the strong, by the one against the many.more Jeffrey R. Snyder quotes |
Not surprisingly, the federal judiciary nearly always rules in favor of the federal government. Judicial review, contrary to the assurances of its advocates, has hardly restrained Congress at all. Instead it has progressively stripped the states of their traditional powers, while allowing federal power to grow unchecked.more Joseph Sobran quotes |
The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honour you can bestow on him. It means that you recognise his superiority to yourself.more Joseph Sobran quotes |
At the end of a century that has seen the evils of communism, Nazism and other modern tyrannies, the impulse to centralize power remains amazingly persistent.more Joseph Sobran quotes |
Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right.more Joseph Sobran quotes |
The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today. Starting with nothing whatever of their own, they have got the whole world into their debt irredeemably, by a trick. This money comes into existence every time the banks 'lend' and disappears every time the debt is repaid to them. So that if industry tries to repay, the money of the nation disappears. This is what makes prosperity so 'dangerous' as it destroys money just when it is most needed and precipitates a slump. There is nothing left now for us but to get ever deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion and growth. An honest money system is the only alternative.more Frederick Soddy quotes |
The most sinister and anti-social feature about bank-deposit money is that it has no existence. The banks owe the public for a total amount of money which does not exist. In buying and selling, implemented by cheque transactions, there is a mere change in the party to whom the money is owed by the banks. As the one depositor's account is debited, the other is credited and the banks can go on owing for it all the time. The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today. Starting with nothing whatever of their own, they have got the whole world into their debt irredeemably, by a trick. This money comes into existence every time the banks 'lend' and disappears every time the debt is repaid to them. So that if industry tries to repay, the money of the nation disappears. This is what makes prosperity so 'dangerous' as it destroys money just when it is most needed and precipitates a slump. There is nothing left now for us but to get ever deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion and growth. An honest money system is the only alternative.more Frederick Soddy quotes |
Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another.more Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quotes |
