“This is where each individual must decide for himself. The essential thing is the decision to challenge the modern state, which without this small group of protesters will be checked by neither brake, value, nor reason.”

—  Jacques Ellul

Source: The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), p. 397

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This is where each individual must decide for himself. The essential thing is the decision to challenge the modern stat…" by Jacques Ellul?
Jacques Ellul photo
Jacques Ellul125
French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarch… 1912–1994

Related quotes

Aage Niels Bohr photo

“The constant questioning of our values and achievements is a challenge without which neither science nor society can remain healthy.”

Aage Niels Bohr (1922–2009) Danish physicist

Nobel Prize Banquet Speech http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1975/bohr-speech.html, December 10, 1975.

Vernon L. Smith photo

“Complexity. In general individual decision makers must be assumed to have multidimensional values which attach nonmonetary subjective cost or value to (1) the process of making and executing individual or group decisions, (2) the end result of such decisions, and (3) the rewards (and perhaps behavior) of other individuals involved in the decision process.”

Vernon L. Smith (1927) American economist

Source: "Relevance of laboratory experiments to testing resource allocation theory," 1980, p. 348.

Johann Georg Hamann photo

“Without language we would have no reason, without reason no religion, and without these three essential aspects of our nature, neither mind nor bond of society.”

Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) German philosopher

Sämtliche Werken, ed. Josef Nadler (1949-1957), vol. III, p. 231.

Ilana Mercer photo

“Cannabis: The reason it's not in the Constitution is because letting states and individuals decide is in the Constitution. That thing of beauty is called the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

&quot; Whodunit? Who Meddled With Out Democracy? https://www.unz.com/imercer/whodunit-who-meddled-with-our-democracy/&quot; February 8, 2018, The Unz Review. <br class="br">2010s, 2018

Peter F. Drucker photo

“Political freedom is neither easy nor automatic, neither pleasant nor secure. It is the responsibility of the individual for the decisions of society as if they were his own decisions--as in moral truth and accountability they are.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The Future of Industrial Man (1942), p. 115

Miguel de Unamuno photo

“Absolute relativism, which is neither more nor less than skepticism, in the most modern sense of the term, is the supreme triumph of the reasoning reason.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), V : The Rationalist Dissolution

Stephen R. Covey photo

“Begin each day with the blueprint of my deepest values FIRMLY in mind then when challenges come, make decisions BASED on those values.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Kenneth N. Waltz photo

“States in the world are like individuals in the state of nature. They are neither perfectly good nor are they controlled by law.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VI, The Third Image, p. 163

Miguel de Cervantes photo

“A knight errant who turns mad for a reason deserves neither merit nor thanks. The thing is to do it without cause.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Unplaced as yet by chapter

“The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free – which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.”

Alan Barth (1906–1979) American journalist

The Rights of Free Men: An Essential Guide to Civil Liberties (1984).

Related topics