“If a person never contradicts himself, it must be that he says nothing.”
“Liberty is as much a matter of compulsion as duty, but where duty says to a person that he must or must not, liberty says to other persons that they must not interfere with that person, or that they even must help to prevent still other persons from interfering, if necessary.”
Source: Legal foundations of capitalism. 1924, p. 95
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John R. Commons 26
United States institutional economist and labor historian 1862–1945Related quotes
“Each person must live their life as a model for others.”
1790s, First Principles of Government (1795)
Context: An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
“Tell only what is necessary to the person one must tell, and only when it must be told.”
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership
Session 95, Page 62
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 3
Samuel Pepys Diary, November 5, 1665.
Criticism
Source: Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (1976), pp. 7-8
Alfred Binet (1894). Psychologies des grands calculateurs et joueurs d’echecs. Paris: Hachette. p. 71; As cited in: John Carson, "Minding matter/mattering mind: Knowledge and the subject in nineteenth-century psychology." in: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C. 30.3 (1999): p. 363
Presidency (1977–1981), 1977