“The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia is the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced.”
Source: Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982), p. 84.
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Ayn Rand322
Russian-American novelist and philosopher 1905–1982Related quotes
“The root of happiness is altruism — the wish to be of service to others.”
Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet
The Dalai Lama at Harvard: Lectures on the Buddhist Path to Peace (1988) by Jeffrey Hopkins.
Context: What is the Great Vehicle? What is the mode of procedure of the Bodhisattva path? We begin with the topic of the altruistic intention to achieve enlightenment in which one values others more than oneself. The Great Vehicle path requires the vast motivation of a Bodhisattva, who, not seeking just his or her welfare, takes on the burden of bringing about the welfare of all sentient beings. When a person generate this attitude, they enter within the Great Vehicle, and as long as it has not been generated, one cannot be counted among those of the Great Vehicle. This attitude really has great power; it, of course, is helpful for people practicing religion, but it also is helpful for those who are just concerned with the affairs of this lifetime. The root of happiness is altruism — the wish to be of service to others.
Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher
Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 45
Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible
Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), pp. 168-169
Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse
The Pivot of Civilization, 1922
Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician
Source: False Necessityː Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy (1987), pp. 563-564
John Carroll (1944) Australian professor and author
Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 55