“A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.”
Section 28
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
Context: Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.
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Eric Hoffer 240
American philosopher 1898–1983Related quotes
“When people talk too fast the content becomes as superfluous as the speed.”
p, 125
The Discovery of Slowness (1983, 1987)
“Rational assessments too often led to rational surrenders.”
Source: Eat and Run (2012), Ch. 18, p. 182
"Prof. Robertson Davies: Courteous Conservative".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)
1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)
Context: And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic, or democracy — a government of the people by the same people — can or can not maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask, Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal weakness? Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?
Federalist No. 49 (2 February 1788)
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)