“…the other three were of a breed Verkan Vall had learned to recognize on any time-line--the arrogant, cocksure, ambitious, leftist politician, who knows what is best for everybody better than anybody else does, and who is convinced that he is inescapably right and that whoever differs with him is not only an ignoramus but a venal scoundrel as well.”

— H. Beam Piper

Verkan Vall in Last Enemy (1950)

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H. Beam Piper 11

American science fiction writer 1904–1964

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“It was suddenly obvious to everybody in the studio that something quite special must be going on inside the man, because something quite special was coming out. He was singing now, cold or no cold, with power and warmth, he was letting himself go, the public arrogance was gone, the private side was in this song about the girl who, it is said, understands him better than anybody else, and is the only person in front of whom he can be unashamedly himself.”

Gay Talese (1932) American writer

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“A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.”

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“I think he who knows himself will know accurately, not the opinion of others about him, but what he is in reality… he ought to discover within himself what is right for him to do and not learn it from without…”

Julian (emperor) (331–363) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer

As quoted in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1923) by Wilmer Cave France Wright, p. 91
General sources

“He who does not know what the world is, does not know where he is. And he who does not know for what purpose the world exists, does not know who he is, nor what the world is. But he who has failed in any one of these things could not even say for what purpose he exists himself. What then dost thou think of him who [avoids or] seeks the praise of those who applaud, of men who know not either where they are or who they are?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

He that knows not what the world is, knows not where he is himself. He that knows not for what he was made, knows not what he is nor what the world is.
VIII, 52
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII

“Everybody, my friend, everybody lives for something better to come. That's why we want respect for every man — who knows what's in him, why he was born and what he can do?”

Maxim Gorky The Lower Depths

The Lower Depths (1902)

“Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed. She is said to lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is far better looking than he had imagined.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

On Democracy (6 October 1884)

“Any man that does not give to everybody else the rights he claims for himself, is not an honest man.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: Religions are for a day. They are the clouds. Humanity is the eternal blue. Religions are the waves of the sea. These waves depend upon the force and direction of the wind -- that is to say, of passion; but Humanity is the great sea. And so our religions change from day to day, and it is a blessed thing that they do. Why? Because we grow, and we are getting a little more civilized every day, -- and any man that is not willing to let another man express his opinion, is not a civilized man, and you know it. Any man that does not give to everybody else the rights he claims for himself, is not an honest man.

“He is a dissimulator, a back-pedaler, a coward, and a self-serving ignoramus. In other words, he’s a politician.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" Another billboard kerfuffle http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/another-billboard-kerfuffle/" December 22, 2013

“The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”

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Paragraph 1 (p. 7 of Welcome to the Monkey House)
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“One criticizes in others what one recognizes and despises in oneself. For example, an artist who is revolted by another’s ambitiousness.”

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Source: As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

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H. Beam Piper 11

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