“I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.”

— Orson Scott Card , book Future on Fire

Future on Fire (1991), introduction.

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Orson Scott Card 586

American science fiction novelist 1951

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Variant: We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.
Context: Even despots accept the excellence of liberty. The simple truth is that they wish to keep it for themselves and promote the idea that no one else is at all worthy of it. Thus, our opinion of liberty does not reveal our differences but the relative value which we place on our fellow man. We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.