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2015 November 20
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"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country." |
"It must be admitted that the tendency of the human race toward liberty is largely thwarted, especially in France. This is greatly due to a fatal desire -- learned from the teachings of antiquity -- that our writers on public affairs have in common: They desire to set themselves above mankind in order to arrange, organize, and regulate it according to their fancy." |
"What chiefly distinguishes the daily press is its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion." |
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2015 November 19
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"Ten million ignorances do not constitute one knowledge." |
"And what sort of philosophical doctrine is this -- that numbers confer unlimited rights, that they take from some persons all rights over themselves, and vest these rights in others. ... How, then, can the rights of three men exceed the rights of two men? In what possible way can the rights of three men absorb the rights of two men, and make them as if they had never existed. ... It is not possible to suppose, without absurdity, that a man should have no rights over his own body and mind, and yet have a 1/10,000,000th share in unlimited rights over all other bodies and minds?" |
"The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny." |
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2015 November 18
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"Thought that is silenced is always rebellious.
Majorities, of course, are often mistaken.
This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous.
Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions." |
"Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few." |
"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." |
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2015 November 17
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"I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries
lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common;
but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all.
So they mend many more ills than they cause." |
"Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man
who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself." |
The Seven Deadly Sins of the Press:
- Concentrated Power of the Big Press.
- Passing of competition and the coming of monopoly.
- Governmental control of the press.
- Timidity, especially in the face of group and corporate pressures.
- Big Business mentality.
- Clannishness among the newspaper publishers that has prevented them
from criticizing each other.
- Social blindness. |
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2015 November 16
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"English character and English freedom depend comparatively little on
the form which the Constitution assumes at Westminster. A centralised
democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour
of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family,
each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its
self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own
affairs and think its own thoughts." |
"Tis a Mistake to think this Fault [tyranny] is proper only to Monarchies; other Forms of Government are liable to it, as well as that. For where-ever the Power that is put in any hands for the Government of the People, and the Preservation of their Properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the Arbitrary and Irregular Commands of those that have it: There it presently becomes Tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many." |
"While democracy must have its organizations and controls,
its vital breath is individual liberty." |
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