“The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority; type people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power.”
― On Liberty
― On Liberty
“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
― On Liberty
― On Liberty
“Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.”
― On Liberty
― On Liberty
“In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.”
― On Liberty
― On Liberty
“It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.”
― On Liberty
― On Liberty
Its Time for a Challenge! (Set your own reading goal!)
— 37 members
— last activity Dec 28, 2014 07:56PM
Its time to get that super-reader on! Set a goal for reading and try to get to the enemy's gate (down)! Hurry up and let's get a read on it! ...more
A’s 2025 Year in Books
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