Celia Green (1935) British philosopher
The Decline and Fall of Science (1976)
Individual Liberty (1926), Anarchism and Crime
Context: Where crime exists, force must exist to repress it. Who denies it? Certainly not Liberty; certainly not the Anarchists. Anarchism is not a revival of non-resistance, though there may be non-resistants in its ranks. The direction of Mr. Ball's attack implies that we would let robbery, rape, and murder make havoc in the community without lifting a finger to stay their brutal, bloody work. On the contrary, we are the sternest enemies of invasion of person and property, and, although chiefly busy in destroying the causes thereof, have no scruples against such heroic treatment of its immediate manifestations as circumstances and wisdom may dictate. It is true that we look forward to the ultimate disappearance of the necessity of force even for the purpose of repressing crime, but this, though involved in it as a necessary result, is by no means a necessary condition of the abolition of the State.
Celia Green (1935) British philosopher
The Decline and Fall of Science (1976)
“Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.”
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian
Selected Writings of Lord Acton, ed. J. Rufus Fears, 3 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985-88), 3:519
“I certainly do not exist from nine to six, when I am at the office.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet
“All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.”
Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist
Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Appendix to Articles I and II, p. 935.
“Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.”
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
No. 13
1790s, Discourses on Davila (1790)
Context: Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist. But if unlimited or unbalanced power of disposing property, be put into the hands of those who have no property, France will find, as we have found, the lamb committed to the custody of the wolf. In such a case, all the pathetic exhortations and addresses of the national assembly to the people, to respect property, will be regarded no more than the warbles of the songsters of the forest. The great art of law-giving consists in balancing the poor against the rich in the legislature, and in constituting the legislative a perfect balance against the executive power, at the same time that no individual or party can become its rival. The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries. The executive and the legislative powers are natural rivals; and if each has not an effectual control over the other, the weaker will ever be the lamb in the paws of the wolf. The nation which will not adopt an equilibrium of power must adopt a despotism. There is no other alternative. Rivalries must be controlled, or they will throw all things into confusion; and there is nothing but despotism or a balance of power which can control them.
Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States
Source: The Expanse, Tiamat's Wrath (2019), Chapter 34 (p. 357)
Walter Terence Stace (1886–1967) British civil servant, educator and philosopher.
p. 24.