Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher
Entry (1957)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
Letter to Tench Coxe (20 March 1820), Montpelier https://books.google.com/books?id=EgpFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PR20&dq=%22portentous+evil%22+%22Madison%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAWoVChMIzqj-_8bOxwIVBnc-Ch365g4C#v=onepage&q=%22portentous%20evil%22%20%22Madison%22&f=false <br class="br">1820s
Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher
Entry (1957)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
James Rachels (1941–2003) American philosopher
Created from Animals (1990), p. 172
Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN
As quoted in Challenge of a Liberal Faith (1988), by George N. Marshall, Ch. 3 : A Contemporary Religion, p. 34
Context: I think that one of our most important tasks is to convince others that there's nothing to fear in difference; that difference, in fact, is one of the healthiest and most invigorating of human characteristics without which life would become meaningless. Here lies the power of the liberal way: not in making the whole world Unitarian, but in helping ourselves and others to see some of the possibilities inherent in viewpoints other than one's own; in encouraging the free interchange of ideas; in welcoming fresh approaches to the problems of life; in urging the fullest, most vigorous use of critical self-examination.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
Timothy Sprigge (1932–2007) British philosopher
Source: The Animal Welfare Movement and the Foundations of Ethics, p. 89
Rudolf Clausius (1822–1888) German mathematical physicist
Preface (August, 1864)
The Mechanical Theory of Heat (1867)
William Whewell (1794–1866) English philosopher & historian of science
The Elements of Morality, Book 1, ch. 1. (1845).
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
1820s, Letter to A. Coray (1823)
Context: But, whatever be the constitution, great care must be taken to provide a mode of amendment, when experience or change of circumstances shall have manifested that any part of it is unadapted to the good of the nation. In some of our States it requires a new authority from the whole people, acting by their representatives, chosen for this express purpose, and assembled in convention. This is found ' too difficult for remedying the imperfections which experience develops from time to time in an organization of the first impression. A greater facility of amendment is certainly requisite to maintain it in a course of action accommodated to the times and changes through which we are ever passing. In England the constitution may be altered by a single act of the legislature, which amounts to the having no constitution at all. In some of our States, an act passed by two different legislatures, chosen by the people, at different and successive elections, is sufficient to make a change in the constitution. As this mode may be rendered more or less easy, by requiring the approbation of fewer or more successive legislatures, according to the degree of difficulty thought sufficient, and yet safe, it is evidently the best principle which can be adopted for constitutional amendments.
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
My Religion / Light in My Darkness, Ch 6 (1927)
Context: Self-culture has been loudly and boastfully proclaimed as sufficient for all our ideals of perfection. But if we listen to the best men and women everywhere … they will say that science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.