Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2004-05-11 May 11, 2004For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.~ Niccolo MachiavelliThe real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable.~ U. S. Privacy Study Commission...So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.~ Voltairine de Cleyre May 10, 2004A man’s liberties are none the less aggressed upon because those who coerce him do so in the belief that he will be benefited.~ Herbert SpencerWe have plenty of freedom in this country but not a great deal of independence.~ John W. RaperThe people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness… This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs, when he first appears he is a protector.~ Plato May 7, 2004At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to state this or that or the other, but it is “not done”… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.~ George OrwellThere is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom for in that way one captures volition itself.~ Jean-Jacques RousseauQuis costodiet ipsos custodies? (Who will watch the watchers?)~ Juvenal May 6, 2004The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.~ James MadisonIn framing a government, which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.~ James MadisonThere is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.~ James Madison May 5, 2004Freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorships.~ Andrei SakharovIf the political-correctness fascists get their way, we can safely assume it will be correct-thinking, “political cleansing” squads deciding what we can or cannot say on the Intenet. These people fear public debate and demand homogenization of “acceptable” attitudes compatible with their emotional, utopian idealism.~ Charles W. MooreIt is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power -- power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate.~ Eric Hoffer Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print