Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.
Thomas Szasz, in The Second Sin (1973), “Science and Scientism,” p. 115.
Society is purely and solely a continual series of exchanges. It is never anything else, in any epoch of its duration, from its commencement the most unformed, to its greatest perfection. And this is the greatest eulogy we can give to it, for exchange is an admirable transaction, in which the two contracting parties always both gain; consequently society is an uninterrupted succession of advantages, unceasingly renewed for all its members.
The easy way to tell which side is wrong: . . . it’s the side that shoots its dissidents. If they do that, you can pretty much count on the fact that they are wrong.
Professor Jonathan Haidt, in conversation with PhilosophyInsights, “What is Going on with Diversity Training (DEI)?” (August 15, 2015).
Why do tourists gape so eagerly at this sort of thing? Most people, I believe, aspire to what these agents and sycophants of the state achieved: ease without work, services for themselves by edict, power and position by wishing plus, of course, a little intrigue.
Leonard Read’s Journals, August 16, 1950, referring to the Château de Fontainebleau, one of the largest of France’s royal châteaux.
Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d’autrui.
We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678).
Belief is involuntary; nothing involuntary is meritorious or reprehensible. A man ought not to be considered worse or better for his belief.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, from Article 23 of Declaration of Rights (1812).