Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.
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Category: Thought
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Henry George
I am firmly convinced, as I have already said, that to effect any great social improvement, it is sympathy rather than self-interest, the sense of duty rather than the desire for self-advancement, that must be appealed to. Envy is akin to admiration, and it is the admiration that the rich and powerful excite which secures the perpetuation of aristocracies.
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Yves Guyot
The Law of Supply and demand was not promulgated in any code. Its power comes from elsewhere. It imposes itself upon mankind in as implacable a way as hunger and thirst. We furnish fresh demonstrations of its truth, whether willingly or not, even while we imagine ourselves to be violating it. If the Socialist excommunicates and abuses the economist, who formulates this law, he should also hold Newton responsible for all the tiles that fall on the heads of passers-by, and should declare that if some poor wretch, in throwing himself from a window, kills himself, it is the fault of those physicists who have discovered and taught the law of gravitation.
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Henry George
To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within their control as may be.
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John Locke
Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain.
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John Locke
The only defense against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
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Benjamin Constant
Where there are no rights, there are no duties.
It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?
He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.