Category: Thought

“Knowledge is the conformity of the object and the intellect.”

“The seventeenth century is everywhere a time in which the state’s power over everything individual increases, whether that power be in absolutist hands or may be considered the result of a contract, etc. People begin to dispute the sacred right of the individual ruler or authority without being aware that at the same time they are playing into the hands of a colossal state power.”

Jacob Burckhardt, Reflections on History

“Nothing in the world is better suited to laziness than orthodoxy. If you gag your mouth, stop up your ears and put a blinder over your eyes, you can sleep peacefully.”

Jacob Burckhardt was a teacher and reserved, cautious mentor to Friedrich Nietzsche.

“There are people who are known to be very liberal, yet they never give without scolding or pride or even insolence.”

John Calvin, De Vita Hominis Christiani, 1550.

“There are people who think the natives of Dahomey very barbarous, because, on the accession of a king, they believe it well to sail a little vessel in human blood in order to tell the fortunes of the new monarch. Now the blood of a thousand slaves is enough for the purpose, whilst in our so-called civilized countries, the great powers, for prestige, or power, or revenge, will shed the blood, not of a thousand, but of 10,000, of 500,000, of millions of persons, enough to make bloody the mightiest river of Europe or America. And yet we dare to treat as barbarians the people of Dahomey.”

Frédéric Passy, from a speech promoted widely in its day (late 19th century) by The Peace and Arbitration Society.

“The entire able-bodied population are preparing to massacre one another; though no one, it is true, wants to attack, and everybody protests his love of peace and determination to maintain it, yet the whole world feels that it only requires some unforeseen incident, some unpreventable accident, for the spark to fall in a flash . . . and blow all Europe sky-high.”

Frédéric Passy, February 4, 1895

“It should be up to each bar owner and patron to decide if they want to smoke or not.”

Drew Carey served as initial video host of ReasonTV, helping debut the online freedom-oriented service in 2007.

“If there are still men behind the times whose ideal is force, men like Moltke, who think that war is good in itself as a useful stimulant, without which the world would become sickly, — these men see their numbers decreasing, and are no longer in a majority.”

Frédéric Passy, from a speech promoted widely in its day (late 19th century) by The Peace and Arbitration Society. “Moltke” likely refers to Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, German Field Marshall (1800 – 1891) who, for thirty years, served as chief of staff of the Prussian Army.

“Oh eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears;
Oh life, no life, but lively form of death;
Oh world, no world, but mass of public wrongs,
Confused and filled with murder and misdeeds.”

Thomas Kyd, “The Spanish Tragedy” (1592)

“One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.”

P. J. O’Rourke,
Rolling Stone (November 30, 1989)

Shared ideas matter. Please pass this along to friends.

Get a high-resolution screensaver of this image. Click on the thumbnail picture below to open a large version that you can download.