Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.
Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Ch. XXXI: Preparations for a voyage of discovery.
John Milton, Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England (1644).
Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?
Liberty may be maimed, but not killed; reason may be bent, but not broken.
George Santayana, Egotism in German Philosophy, 1915.
I have heard a socialist ask, “Will collectivism change the soil and the sunshine of Medoc?” No, but wine does not come into existence of its own accord, the vine-stocks and the conditions of soil and of climate do not produce fine harvests spontaneously, but need to be properly utilised, and require an annual expenditure upon the cost of cultivation; and subordinate officials without a direct interest are not the men to apply the required attention to this kind of production.
Yves Guyot, Socialistic Fallacies (1910), Book VII, “Collectivist Organization.”
Yves Guyot, The Comedy of Protection, 1906, vii.
The dupe is the more ridiculous that if he only opened his eyes he must see how crude and flimsy are the artifices by which he has been swindled.
The aim of the Protectionist in every country is to reduce imports and encourage exports. Since there can be no selling without buying, if he attained his end international trade would cease and each nation be self-sufficing.
If the clause of the Constitution under which the Post Office establishment exists were struck from the instrument to-morrow, is any one weak enough to suppose that the activity of commerce would not soon supply a system of its own?
We must not confound liberty with anarchy. Liberty is the reciprocal respect for personal rights, according to certain fixed rules known by the name of law. Anarchy is the privilege of some and the spoliation of others, according to the caprices and arbitrary will of the cunning and the violent, and the feebleness and lack of energy of the timorous.
Sincere enthusiasm is the only orator who always persuades. It is like an art the rules of which never fail; the simplest man with enthusiasm persuades better than the most eloquent with none.
La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales, (1665, 1678), eighth maxim.
Internally, the [ancient Greek] polis was implacable towards any individual who ceased to be totally absorbed in it. . . . The polis was completely inescapable. . . . The absence of individual freedom went hand in hand with the omnipotence of the State in every context. Religion, the sacral calendar, the myths — all these were nationalized, so that the State was at the same time a church, empowered to try charges of impiety, and against this dual power the individual was totally helpless. . . . In short, there could be no guarantees of life or property which could run counter to the polis and its interests.
Jacob Burckhardt, The Greeks and Greek Civilization, 1999, p. 57-8.
Although this enslavement of the individual to the State existed under all constitutions, it must have been at its most oppressive under democracy, where the most villainous men, ridden by ambition, identified themselves with the polis and its interests and could therefore interpret in their own way the maxim salus reipublicae suprema lex esto (‘let the safety of the Republic be the highest law’).
There is no doubt in my mind that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor.
Professor Michael Levitt, as quoted in “Nobel prize-winning scientist: the Covid-19 epidemic was never exponential,” by Freddie Sayers, May 2, 2020. Levitt is Professor of Structural Biology at the Stanford School of Medicine and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Levitt also said that “I think the policy of herd immunity is the right policy. I think Britain was on exactly the right track before they were fed wrong numbers. And they made a huge mistake.”