Day One
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)
Context: It always seems to me extreme rashness on the part of some when they want to make human abilities the measure of what nature can do. On the contrary, there is not a single effect in nature, even the least that exists, such that the most ingenious theorists can arrive at a complete understanding of it. This vain presumption of understanding everything can have no other basis than never understanding anything. For anyone who had experienced just once the perfect understanding of one single thing, and had truly tasted how knowledge is accomplished, would recognize that of the infinity of other truths he understands nothing.
“Something in all human beings makes them want to do the right thing. Not that this desire always prevails; oftentimes it is overcome and they turn towards evil. But some power is constantly calling them back. Ever there comes a resistance to wrongdoing. When bad conditions begun to accumulate, when the forces of darkness become prevalent, always they are ultimately doomed to fail, as the better angels of human nature are roused to resistance.”
1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)
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Calvin Coolidge 412
American politician, 30th president of the United States (i… 1872–1933Related quotes
Discussion with Ela Bhatt, Founder, Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)
The Quran calls on the weak and oppressed to gain strength http://english.bayynat.org/TheHolyQuran/Quran_QuranCalls.htm
Section 13; often the final portion of this is quoted alone as: "Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power."
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
Context: The Savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience; a readiness to attempt the impossible; a bias for simple solutions — to cut the knot rather than unravel it; the viewing of compromise as surrender; the tendency to manipulate people and "experiment with blood."
Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
"Gun Violence? No! Goon Violence," http://www.unz.com/imercer/gun-violence-no-goon-violence/ The Unz Review, September 4, 2015.
2010s, 2015
Broadcast from the Cabinet Rooms at 10 Downing Street (3 September 1939)
Prime Minister
Context: This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany. … It is evil things that we will be fighting against— brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution— and against them I am certain that the right will prevail.
Chap. 7 : Soften People’s Resistance by Confirming Their Self-opinion
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)
Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 33 (p. 677)