Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2004-05-19 May 19, 2004Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on a people. To know how to be free is not given equally to all men and all nations.~ Paul ValéryMankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.~ John Stuart MillMan is condemned to be free. Condemned because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does.~ Jean-Paul Sartre May 18, 2004Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes.~ Will DurantAll communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and the well-born; the other the mass of the people ... turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the Government ... Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.~ Alexander HamiltonNone can love freedom but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope than under tyrants.~ John Milton May 17, 2004He is free who knows how to keep in his own hand the power to decide, at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power.~ Salvador de MadariagaProtection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.~ John Stuart MillThe public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.~ Walter Lippmann May 14, 2004The civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical, to demand the credentials of all statements that claim to be facts.~ Bergan EvansIn all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.~ Bertrand RussellWhat are the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism is a sin.~ Thomas Henry Huxley May 13, 2004It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.~ Bruce SchneierThe State…has had a vested interest in promoting attitudes that would tend to make us skeptical of our own abilities, fearful of the motives of others, and emotionally dependent upon external authorities for purpose and direction in our lives.~ Butler D. ShafferTo the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief from the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.~ Eric Hoffer Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print