Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. II : The Fellow-Craft, p. 44
Context: From the political point of view there is but a single principle,— the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of one's self over one's self is called Liberty. Where two or several of these sovereignties associate, the State begins. But in this association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty parts with a certain portion of itself to form the common right. That portion is the same for all. There is equal contribution by all to the joint sovereignty. This identity of concession which each makes to all, is Equality. The common right is nothing more or less than the protection of all, pouring its rays on each. This protection of each by all, is Fraternity.
Liberty is the summit, Equality the base. Equality is not all vegetation on a level, a society of big spears of grass and stunted oaks, a neighborhood of jealousies, emasculating each other. It is, civilly, all aptitudes having equal opportunity; politically, all votes having equal weight; religiously, all consciences having equal rights.
“To trample democracy with one’s feet and give power to a single man over almost eighty million people is so terrible that one can really tremble over the things that will come.”
September 17, 1939; Vol. 1, p. 26.
Diary (1939 - 1945)
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Friedrich Kellner 21
German Justice inspector 1885–1970Related quotes
“Show a people as one thing, only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.”
Source: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/15-quotes-from-chimamanda-adichie-that-have-change/
No. 104. (Usbek writing to Ibben)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)
“I see life as one life at one time, so many millions simultaneously, all over the earth.”
Seventy Thousand Assyrians (1934)
"1901", p. 76. Sometimes misquoted as "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing". Sometimes misattributed to Bertrand Russell or Anatole France
A Writer's Notebook (1946)
W. Somerset Maugham, A Writer's Notebook (1949), entry for 1901
Sometimes misquoted as "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
Sometimes misattributed to Anatole France
Note that Russell does say something similar in Marriage and Morals (1929): "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."
Misattributed
“No nobody can give you the power to rise over love and over hate.”
Source: Song Iron Sky