Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 12
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 12
Context: I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from being lost in serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him.
Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 12
Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist
From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)
Context: I am convinced that human continuance depends entirely upon: the intuitive wisdom of each and every individual... the individual's integrity of speaking and acting only on the individual's own within-self-intuited and reasoned initiative... the individual's never joining action with others as motivated only by crowd-engendered-emotionalism, or a sense of the crowd's power to overwhelm, or in fear of holding to the course indicated by one's own intellectual convictions.
Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
Existentialism Is a Humanism, lecture http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm (1946) <br class="br">Context: We will freedom for freedom’s sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously, freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as there is a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as my own. I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim.
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist
Discours de réception de Louis Pasteur (1882)
Original: Où sont les vraies sources de la dignité humaine, de la liberté et de la démocratie moderne, sinon dans la notion de l’infini devant laquelle tous les hommes sont égaux?
Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union
Voltaire (1916)
Context: Voltaire was not the first or last man to convert a prison into a hall of fame. A prison is confining to the body, but whether it affects the mind, depends entirely upon the mind.
It was while in prison that he changed his name from the one his father gave him — Arouet — to the one he has made famous throughout all time — Voltaire. He said, "I was very unlucky under my first name. I want to see if this one will succeed any better."
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (2015), p. 136, of President Theodore Roosevelt
Muhammad Asad book The Principles of State and Government in Islam
Source: The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961), Chapter 5: The Citizens And The Government, p 89
Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician
Chap. V, The Period of Dictatorship <br class="br">"Hitlerism and Social Democracy" (1934) https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1934/hitler/index.htm
Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic
The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)