| Quotes |
Topic |
| Government | ...the ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs. |
| Government | The part of our social order which can or ought to be made a conscious product of human reason is only a small part of all the forces of society. |
| Government | Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men. |
| Government | ...if we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion. |
| Government | Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom. |
| Government | There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. |
| Government | What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free. |
| Government | A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom. |
| Government | ...the case for individual freedom rests largely on the recognition of the inevitable and universal ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievements of our ends and welfare depend. |
| Government | All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. |
| Government | Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong. |
| Psychological Subjects | From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step. |
| Psychological Subjects | Human reason can neither predict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist in finding out where it has been wrong. |
| Psychological Subjects | The mind cannot foresee its own advance. |
| Religion | Should our moral beliefs really prove to be dependent on factual assumptions shown to be incorrect, it would be hardly moral to defend them by refusing to acknowledge the facts. |
| Religion | ...the ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs. |
| Society | Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. |
| Society | ...it is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better. |
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