Behavior is imitated, then abstracted into play, formalized into drama and story, crystallized into myth and codified into religion — and only then criticized in philosophy, and provided, post-hoc, with rational underpinnings.
Jordan Peterson, Maps of Meaning (1999), p. 78.
There are two parts to good government: one is the actual obedience of citizens to the laws, the other part is the goodness of the laws which they obey.
Aristotle, Politics, 4.8, Benjamin Jowett, trans. (1885).
Ideal: An excuse for murder, tyranny or self-aggrandizement. Any theory that justifies our secret itch.
Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary Concocted by Ali Baba and the Bunch on Rainy Days (1914), p. 73.
No government can stand which is not founded upon justice.
Aristotle, Politics, 7.14, Benjamin Jowett, trans. (1885).
The truth is something that burns — it burns off deadwood, and people don’t like having their deadwood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent deadwood.
Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan Experience #958 (May 2017).
The good historian, then, must be thus described: he must be fearless, uncorrupted, free, the friend of truth and of liberty; one who, to use the words of the comic poet, calls a fig a fig, and a skiff a skiff, neither giving nor withholding from any, from favour or from enmity, not influenced by pity, by shame, or by remorse; a just judge, so far benevolent to all as never to give more than is due to any in his work; a stranger to all, of no country, bound only by his own laws, acknowledging no sovereign, never considering what this or that man may say of him, but relating faithfully everything as it happened.
Lucian, “How to Write History.” Thomas Francklin, D.D. (trans.).
I am sick and tired of flying all the time with these white pilots landing safely and on time. Boring!
Punchline to comedian Rob Schneider’s bit about United Airlines’ new DEI hiring practices.
Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges.
Argentinian President Javier Milei, at the recent World Economic Forum at Davos, as quoted by Tom Woods on X, January 17, 2024.
I would like to leave a message for all businesspeople here and for those who are not here in person but are following from around the world. Do not be intimidated, either by the political caste or by parasites who live off the state. Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges.
You are social benefactors. You are heroes. You’re the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we’ve ever seen. Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money, it’s because you offer a better product at a better price, thereby contributing to general well-being.
Do not surrender to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself.
Argentinian President Javier Milei, at the recent World Economic Forum at Davos, as quoted by Tom Woods on X, January 17, 2024.
In adopting a republican form of government, I not only took it as a man does his wife, for better or for worse, but what a few men do with their wives, I took it knowing all of its bad qualities. Neither ingratitude, therefore, nor slander can disappoint expectation nor excite surprise. If, in arduous circumstances, the voice of my country should call for my services, and I have the well founded belief, that they can be useful, they shall certainly be rendered; but I hope that no such circumstances will arise and in the mean time, ‘pleas’d let me trifle away.
Gouverneur Morris to John Dickinson (May 23, 1803).