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#14170384
A selection which I like that are on 'conscience'.

    "There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right."


    "Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it."


    "In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place."


    "Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it."


    "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."


    "A good conscience is eight parts of courage."


    "Betrayal is common for men with no conscience."


    "You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility."


    "On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' And Vanity comes along and asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But Conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?'... The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge, moments of great crisis and controversy."


    "Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward."


    "Tolstoy said, 'The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed either by a change of life or by a change of conscience.' Many of us have elected to adjust our consciences rather than our lives. Our powers of rationalization are unlimited. They allow us to live in luxury and indifference while others, whom we could help if we chose to, starve and go to hell."


    "A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory."


    "Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends."


    "Conscience doesn't always keep you from doing wrong, but it does keep you from enjoying it."
#14172810
Not so much a quotation but an extract from preface of Omnipotent Government by Ludwig von Mises.

Ludwig von Mises, in the preface to Omnipotent Government, wrote:In dealing with the problems of social and economic policies, the social sciences consider only one question: whether the measures suggested are really suited to bringing about the effects sought by their authors, or whether they result in a state of affairs which—from the viewpoint of their supporters—is even more undesirable than the previous state which it was intended to alter. The economist does not substitute his own judgment about the desirability of ultimate ends for that of his fellow citizens. He merely asks whether the ends sought by nations, governments, political parties, and pressure groups can indeed be attained by the methods actually chosen for their realization.

It is, to be sure, a thankless task. Most people are intolerant of any criticism of their social and economic tenets. They do not understand that the objections raised refer only to unsuitable methods and do not dispute the ultimate ends of their efforts. They are not prepared to admit the possibility that they might attain their ends more easily by following the economists’ advice than by disregarding it. They call an enemy of their nation, race, or group anyone who ventures to criticize their cherished policies.

This stubborn dogmatism is pernicious and one of the root causes of the present state of world affairs. An economist who asserts that minimum wage rates are not the appropriate means of raising the wage earners’ standard of living is neither a “labor baiter” nor an enemy of the workers. On the contrary, in suggesting more suitable methods for the improvement of the wage earners’ material well-being, he contributes as much as he can to a genuine promotion of their prosperity.

To point out the advantages which everybody derives from the working of capitalism is not tantamount to defending the vested interests of the capitalists. An economist who forty or fifty years ago advocated the preservation of the system of private property and free enterprise did not fight for the selfish class interests of the then rich. He wanted a free hand left to those unknown among his penniless contemporaries who had the ingenuity to develop all those new industries which today render the life of the common man more pleasant. Many pioneers of these industrial changes, it is true, became rich. But they acquired their wealth by supplying the public with motor cars, airplanes, radio sets, refrigerators, moving and talking pictures, and a variety of less spectacular but no less useful innovations. These new products were certainly not an achievement of offices and bureaucrats...

Neither is an economist who demonstrates that a nation (let us call it Thule) hurts its own essential interests in its conduct of foreign-trade policies and in its dealing with domestic minority groups, a foe of Thule and its people.
It is futile to call the critics of inappropriate policies names and to cast suspicion upon their motives. That might silence the voice of truth, but it cannot render inappropriate policies appropriate...

The program of economic freedom is not negativistic. It aims positively at the establishment and preservation of the system of market economy based on private ownership of the means of production and free enterprise. It aims at free competition and at the sovereignty of the consumers. As the logical outcome of these demands the true liberals are opposed to all endeavors to substitute government control for the operation of an unhampered market economy. Laissez faire, laissez passer does not mean: let the evils last. On the contrary, it means: do not interfere with the operation of the market because such interference must necessarily restrict output and make people poorer. It means furthermore: do not abolish or cripple the capitalist system which, in spite of all obstacles put in its way by governments and politicians, has raised the standard of living of the masses in an unprecedented way...

At the bottom of all totalitarian doctrines lies the belief that the rulers are wiser and loftier than their subjects and that they therefore know better what benefits those ruled than they themselves...

Those disagreeing with this theocratical justification of dictatorship claim for themselves the right to discuss freely the problems involved. They do not write state with a capital S. They do not shrink from analyzing the metaphysical notions of Hegelianism and Marxism. They reduce all this high-sounding oratory to the simple question: are the means suggested suitable to attain the ends sought? In answering this question, they hope to render a service to the great majority of their fellow men.
#14172846
Was that Cloud Atlas film any good, Goldberk?

It looked appealing when I saw a few of the advertisements on television.
#14172887
I've not seen the film yet, only read the book.

I'm still unsure whether I will go to see it, from what I hear the thrust of the film is different, with more emphasis on spirituality rather than the unchanging human condition and struggle.
#14174048
One quote that has always stuck with me is: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." - H.L. Mencken. Sadly, this may have never been more true than today. The ignorance of the public is really beginning to catch up with us.
#14174629
Some more Liberal quotes I've discovered only recently. All of these are surrounding the idea of Cultural Liberalism, and as a result will anger non-social-liberals - just thought I would warn. It's also interesting to note that half these thinkers wouldn't get along with each other, if they were to meet and chat. Even more interesting, is that I probably wouldn't see eye to eye with all of them either, even whilst posting their quotes as true.

"The hope of a new politics does not lie in formulating a left-wing reply to the right -- it lies in rejecting conventional political categories."
Christopher Lasch


"Politics isn't about left versus right; it's about top versus bottom."
Jim Hightower


"Liberalism is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded on this planet."
Jose Ortega y Gasset


"That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all."
Henry Ward Beecher


"We can no longer tolerate anti-intellectualism. We can no longer tolerate liberal-bashing and we can no longer tolerate the politics of the dumb and the mean."
Janeane Garofolo
#14175449
Alan Wightman wrote:I told the apocryphal tale of a Scottish miner walking home one evening with a brace of pheasants in his pockets. He unexpectedly meets the landowner who informs him that this is his land and he had better hand over the pheasants.

"Your land, eh?" asks the miner.
"Yes," replies the laird, "and my pheasants."
"And who did you get this land from?"
"Well, I inherited it from my father."
"And who did he get it from?" the miner insists.
"His father of course. The land has been in my family for over 400 years," the laird splutters.
"OK, so how did your family come to own this land 400 years ago?" the miner asks.
"Well ... well ... they fought for it!"
"Fine," replies the miner. "Take your jacket off and I'll fight you for it now."
#14176443
"You still believe in something, then?" he said in a voice, which had grown feeble of late. "You believe in flesh and blood, perhaps?"

A full and equable contempt would soon do away with that, too. But since you have attained to it, I advise you to cultivate that form of comtempt which is called pity. It is perhaps the least difficult -- always remembering that you too, if you are anything, are as pitiful as the rest, yet never expecting any pity for yourself.

"What is there to do, then?" sighed the young man, regarding his father, rigid in the high-backed chair.
"Look on -- make no sound," were the last words of a man who had spent his life blowing blast from a terrible trumpet which had filled heaven and earth with ruins, while mankind went on its way unheeding.

from Victory by Joseph Conrad
#14181596
"Our Assembly has been employed chiefly in rectifying the mistakes of the last and committing new ones for emendation at the next." Gen. G. Washington (1788)

"If you choose not to decide; you still have made a choice." Rush (Permanent Waves, 1980)

Thanks to Phred for the P. J. O'Rourke quotes. Probably my favorite political satirist.
#14185840
"Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow and whose ingenuity will make the life of coming generations more agreeable. They want the way left open to further economic improvements. They are the spokesmen of material progress."
#14188366
"For the sake of domestic peace, liberalism aims at democratic government. Democracy is therefore not a revolutionary institution. On the contrary, it is the very means of preventing revolutions. Democracy is a system providing for the peaceful adjustment of government to the will of the majority. When the men in office and their methods no longer please the majority of the nation, they will—in the next election—be eliminated, and replaced by other men and another system. Democracy aims at safeguarding peace within the country and among the citizens."


"The great aim of education is not knowledge but action."
#14198508
"I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike... Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry... what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?"
#14203410
"...it seems needful to remind everybody what Liberalism was in the past, that they may perceive its unlikeness to the so-called Liberalism of the present... They do not remember that, in one or other way, all these truly Liberal changes diminished compulsory cooperation throughout social life and increased voluntary cooperation. They have forgotten that, in one direction or other, they diminished the range of governmental authority, and increased the area within which each citizen may act unchecked. They have lost sight of the truth that in past times Liberalism habitually stood for individual freedom versus State-coercion."



"Gentlemen, it is a disagreeable custom to which one is too easily led by the harshness of the discussions, to assume evil intentions. It is necessary to be gracious as to intentions; one should believe them good, and apparently they are; but we do not have to be gracious at all to inconsistent logic or to absurd reasoning. Bad logicians have committed more involuntary crimes than bad men have done intentionally."



"The whole history of the development of popular institutions is a history of continuous struggle to prevent particular groups from abusing the governmental apparatus for the benefit of the collective interest of these groups."
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