Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-20] of 97 Collectivist quotesCollectivist QuotesCollectivist Next 20 quotes It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.~ Samuel Adams Character assassination is at once easier and surer than physical assault; and it involves far less risk for the assassin. It leaves him free to commit the same deed over and over again, and may, indeed, win him the honors of a hero in the country of his victims.~ Alan Barth 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.~ Alan Barth The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free – which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.~ Alan Barth But 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 Berlin Vote: The instrument and symbol of a free man's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.~ Ambrose Bierce Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.~ James Bovard Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority.~ James A. C. Brown And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for pre-emptive action.~ George W. Bush He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.~ Samuel Butler If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.~ Orson Scott Card I think that every true reformer, every real friend of liberty, will agree with me in saying that if we must erect safeguards, they should be rather for the security of the individual than of the mass, and that our chiefest care must be to train the majority to respect the rights of the minority, to prevent the claims of the few from being trampled under foot by the caprice or passion of the many.~ Sir Richard John Cartwright The freedom to express varying and often opposing ideas is essential to a variety of conceptions of democracy. If democracy is viewed as essentially a process – a way in which collective decisions for a society are made – free expression is crucial to the openness of the process and to such characteristics as elections, representation of interests, and the like.~ Jonathan D. Casper What is education? Properly speaking, there is no such thing as education. Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. Whatever the soul is like, it will have to be passed on somehow, consciously or unconsciously, and that transition may be called education. ... What we need is to have a culture before we hand it down. In other words, it is a truth, however sad and strange, that we cannot give what we have not got, and cannot teach to other people what we do not know ourselves.~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton Correctitude implies nowadays a formal or fastidious use of words; and what is wanted is not so much the correct as the living use of words. It is the memory of the meaning of a word which is the life of the word.~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton The 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 Chesterton The Byzantines hammered away at their hard and orthodox symbols, because they could not be in a mood to believe that men could take a hint. The moderns drag out into lengths and reels of extravagance their new orthodoxy of being unorthodox, because they also cannot give a hint -- or take a hint. Yet all perfect and well-poised art is really a hint.~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.~ Sir Winston Churchill We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.~ Hillary Clinton Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print