“A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom.”
Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist
Source: Liberty and the news
“A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom.”
Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist
Larry Sanger (1968) American former professor, co-founder of Wikipedia, founder of Citizendium and other projects
"Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism" at kuro5hin (31 December 2004).
Edwin Muir (1887–1959) British poet, novelist and translator
Scott and Scotland (1936), Introduction.
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
Source: I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994), p. 308
Context: He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means "I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve". It's easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.
George Kubler (1912–1996) American art historian
Source: The Shape of Time, 1982, p. 13
Irving Kristol (1920–2009) American columnist, journalist, and writer
Source: Essay in American Spectator Magazine (1977).
“I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.”
Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author
An Englishman Abroad (1983).
Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher
Source: Nietzsche (1946), pp. 187-188
Context: For any community and those living in it, only that is true which can be communicated to all. Hence universal communicability is unconsciously accepted as the source and criterion of those truths that promote life through communal means. Truth is that which our conventional social code accepts as effective in promoting the purposes of the group. … This community will condemn as a “liar” the person who misuses its unconsciously accepted, and therefore valid, metaphors. … Community members are obliged to “lie” in accordance with fixed convention. To put it otherwise, they must be truthful by playing with the conventionally marked dice. To fail to pay in the coin of the realm is to tell forbidden lies, for, on this view, whatever transcends conventional truth is a falsehood. To tell lies of this kind is to sacrifice the world of meanings upon which the endurance of his community rests. Conversely, there are forbidden truths: This same threat to the continuance of the community is also counteracted by relentlessly preventing anyone from thinking and uttering unconventional but authentic truths.
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman
Letter to Charles-Jean-François Depont (November 1789), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 42
1780s