
“[O]ne person's 'barbarian' is another person's 'just doing what everybody else is doing.”
Source: Regarding the Pain of Others
“[O]ne person's 'barbarian' is another person's 'just doing what everybody else is doing.”
Source: Regarding the Pain of Others
On Freedom (1958)
Context: Although I consider our political world to be the best of which we have any historical knowledge, we should beware of attributing this fact to democracy or to freedom. Freedom is not a supplier who delivers goods to our door. Democracy does not ensure that anything is accomplished — certainly not an economic miracle. It is wrong and dangerous to extol freedom by telling people that they will certainly be all right once they are free. How someone fares in life is largely a matter of luck or grace, and to a comparatively small degree perhaps also of competence, diligence, and other virtues. The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.
The Absolute at Large (1921)
Context: I've tried all isolating materials that might possibly prevent the Absolute from getting out of the cellar: ashes, sand, metal walls, but nothing can stop it. I've even tried lining the cellar walls with the works of Professors Krejci, Spencer, and Haeckle, all the Positivists you can think of; if you can believe it, the Absolute penetrates even things like that.
Source: An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2005), p. 86
Source: War Talk
The Symbolic Life (1953); also in Man and His Symbols (1964)
“Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ.”
Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging