1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: Our nation was founded to perpetuate democratic principles. These principles are that each man is to be treated on his worth as a man without regard to the land from which his forefathers came and without regard to the creed which he professes. If the United States proves false to these principles of civil and religious liberty, it will have inflicted the greatest blow on the system of free popular government that has ever been inflicted. Here we have had a virgin continent on which to try the experiment of making out of divers race stocks a new nation and of treating all the citizens of that nation in such a fashion as to preserve them equality of opportunity in industrial, civil, and political life. Our duty is to secure each man against any injustice by his fellows.
“Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.”
Source: Unpopular Essays
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Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970Related quotes
Speech opposing the Pearre Injunction Bill (1906); reported in L. White Busby, Uncle Joe Cannon (1927), p. 278. Cannon noted that Samuel Gompers blacklisted him for opposing the legislation. Cannon expanded this passage in a speech in Lewiston, Maine (September 5, 1906), while successfully campaigning for Representative Charles Littlefield, to counter efforts of Gompers and his labor forces to defeat Littlefield, referring to "any law which will make fish of one and fowl of another," reported in Joseph G. Cannon papers, box 1, Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield, Illinois.
The Indigenous Voice, Vol.2, Roger Moody, ed, UK.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Source: Leonardo's Notebooks
Hope and Memory: Reflections on the Twentieth Century (2003)
“Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government.”
Part 1.7 Conclusion
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)
Context: Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government. Instead, therefore, of exclaiming against the ambition of kings, the exclamation should be directed against the principle of such governments; and instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a nation should apply itself to reform the system.
“To be a serviceable man has always seemed to me something quite repulsive.”
Être un homme utile m'a paru toujours quelque chose de bien hideux.
Journaux intimes (1864–1867; published 1887), Mon cœur mis à nu (1864)