Ioannis Williams

“The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction.... The excess of liberty, whether in states or individuals, seems only to pass into slavery... and the most aggravated form of tyranny arises out of the most extreme form of liberty. When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near. The rich, afraid that democracy will bleed them, conspire to overthrow it; or some enterprising individual seizes power, promises everything to the poor, surrounds himself with a personal army, kills first his enemies and then his friends "until he has made a purgation of the state," and establishes a dictatorship. In such a conflict of extremes the philosopher who preaches moderation and mutual understanding is like "a man fallen among wild beasts"; if he is wise he will "retire under the shelter of a wall while the hurrying wind and the storm go by.”
― Will Durant, The Life of Greece

“Most, like Voltaire, expected the monarchs and ruling elites of Europe to reform themselves for the good of humanity. Out of the dictates of logic, out of self-interest, things could not continue as they were. This strikes me as being fundamentally naïve. Ruling elites almost never give up privilege or short-term economic advantage for altruistic reasons or the dictates of logic or long-term interest even when they face catastrophe. Case in point, surely everyone in America understands what a good idea it would be politically, economically, environmentally to develop replenishable sources of fuel, and yet as of this taping, well anyway, so it was in the 18th century. As we have seen, reform from the top was slow in coming. Ancient monarchs were only interested in those reforms that enhanced their powers. Church leaders and nobles generally opposed them outright. In the end, the top of the Great Chain of Being just had too much to lose. But recall that some thinkers, Rousseau in particular, had called for a clean sweep of the Ancien Régime. While revolution is too strong a word to project onto Rousseau, that is what it would take. That step was taken within his lifetime, but not in Europe. In this lecture, we address arguably the most significant and long-lasting result of the Enlightenment, the American Revolution.”
― Robert Bucholz

“Every growing civilization is a scene of multiplying inequalities; the natural differences of human endowment unite with differences of opportunity to produce artificial differences of wealth and power; and where no laws or despots suppress these artificial inequalities they reach at last a bursting point where the poor have nothing to lose by violence, and the chaos of revolution levels men again into a community of destitution. ... Then the race for wealth, goods and power begins again, and the pyramid of ability takes form once more; under whatever laws may be enacted the abler man manages somehow to get the richer soil, the better place, the lion’s share; soon he is strong enough to dominate the state and rewrite or interpret the laws; and in time the inequality is as great as before.”
― Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

“In the vast profusion of good things upon this earth I should seek what I like best, and what I can best appropriate to myself.
To this end, the first use I should make of my wealth would be to purchase leisure and freedom, to which I would add health, if it were to be purchased; but health can only be bought by temperance, and as there is no real pleasure without health, I should be temperate from sensual motives.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education