Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2006-05-08 May 8, 2006The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types -- the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.~ Gilbert Keith ChestertonTrue, 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.~ Antoine De Saint-ExuperyTruth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion -- and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion ... while Truth again reverts to a new minority.~ Soren Kierkegaard May 6, 2006All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.~ Dr. Samuel JohnsonThe Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.~ Daniel WebsterA society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.~ Bertrand de Jouvenel May 4, 2006The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, including classical Aristotelian and Thomist philosophers, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State.~ Murray N. RothbardBut to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you – the social reformers – see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.~ Isaiah BerlinDo we desire to be cradled, and then carried throughout life to our graves by this partisan propelled bureaucratic monstrosity? ...as individuals of sovereign dignity, are we now so terrified, bewildered, and impotent that our main purpose is to seek asylum from the potential hazards of freedom? Have we no faith in our natural strengths and abilities?~ Sergei Hoff May 3, 2006Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.~ Calvin CoolidgeEven more significant of the inherent weakness of the collectivist theories is the extraordinary paradox that from the assertion that society is in some sense more than merely the aggregate of all individuals their adherents regularly pass by a sort of intellectual somersault to the thesis that in order that the coherence of this larger entity be safeguarded it must be subjected to conscious control, that is, to the control of what in the last resort must be an individual mind. It thus comes about that in practice it is regularly the theoretical collectivist who extols individual reason and demands that all forces of society be made subject to the direction of a single mastermind, while it is the individualist who recognizes the limitations of the powers of individual reason and consequently advocates freedom as a means for the fullest development of the powers of the interindividual process.~ Friedrich August von HayekAny attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism.~ Herman Hesse May 2, 2006The first great struggle for liberty was in the realm of thought. The libertarians reasoned that freedom of thought would be good for mankind; it would promote knowledge, and increased knowledge would advance civilization. But the authoritarians protested that freedom of thought would be dangerous, that people would think wrong, that a few were divinely appointed to think for the people.~ Charles T. SpradingIn republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.~ Charles-Louis de SecondatThe individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.~ Rudyard Kipling Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print