Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2018-08-28 Aug 28, 2018Does it not seem a vast waste of valuable human material that the pioneers of thought, those who by their genius dare to clear unknown paths in the arts and sciences and in government, should have to conform to the dictates of that non-creative, slow-moving mass, the majority? An appeal to the majority is a resort to force and not an appeal to intelligence; the majority is always ignorant, and by increasing the majority we multiply ignorance. The majority is incapable of initiative, its attitude being one of opposition toward everything that is new. If it had been left to the majority, the world would never have had the steamboat, the railroad, the telegraph, or any of the conveniences of modern life.~ Charles T. SpradingThe whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.~ Frederick DouglassCollective judgment of new ideas is so often wrong that it is arguable that progress depends on individuals being free to back their own judgment despite collective disapproval.~ Sir William Arthur Lewis Aug 27, 2018Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.~ Nancy AstorSuch being the happiness of the times, that you may think as you wish, and speak as you think. [Lat., Rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, et quae sentias dicere licet.]~ Cornelius TacitusUnder the surface of this global civilization, a great and secret war is taking place. The two opponents hold different conceptions of Reality. On one side, those who claim that humans operate purely on the basis of stimulus-response, like machines; on the other side, those who believe there is a gigantic thing called freedom. Phase One of the war is already over. The stimulus-response people have won. In Phase Two, people are waking up to the far-reaching and devastating consequences of the Pavlovian program.~ Jon Rappoport Aug 24, 2018Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.~ Lin YutangI am different from Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won't.~ Mark TwainTruth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it.~ Mark Twain Aug 23, 2018Freedom of speech and freedom of action [is meaningless] without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.~ Bergan EvansCensorship is advertising paid by the government.~ Federico FelliniComplete and accurate surveillance as a means of control is probably a practical impossibility. What is much more likely is a loss of privacy and constant inconvenience as the wrong people gain access to information, as one wastes time convincing the inquisitors that one is in fact innocent, or as one struggles to untangle the errors of the errant machine.~ Victor Ferkiss Aug 22, 2018If you admit that to silence your opponent by force is to win an intellectual argument, then you admit the right to silence people by force.~ Hans EysenckYou thus have no rights at all over our freedom of thought, you princes; no jurisdiction over that which is true or false; no right to determine the objects of our inquiry or to set limits to it; no right to hinder us from communicating the results, whether they be true or false, to whomever or however we wish.~ Johann Gottlieb FichteThe function of the censor is to censor. He has a professional interest in finding things to suppress.~ Thomas I. Emerson Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print