“If men will permit themselves to think, as rational beings ought to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expence of building navies, filling them with men, and then hauling them into the ocean, to try which can sink each other fastester. Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infintely more advantage than any victory with all its expence. But this, though it best answers the purpose of Nations, does not that of Court Governments, whose habited policy is pretence for taxation, places, and offices.”
― Rights of Man
― Rights of Man
“It is easier to conquer than to administer. With enough leverage, a finger could overturn the world; but to support the world, one must have the shoulders of Hercules.”
― The Social Contract
― The Social Contract
“إذا أردتم أن تمنحوا الدولة ثباتاً فقربوا بين الطرفيين الأقصيين ما استطعتم، ولا تحتملوا وجود أناس أغنياء وفقراء، فهذان الحالان اللذان لا يمكن فصل أحدهما عن الآخر بحكم الطبيعة هما كذلك شؤم على الخير العام، فمن أحدهما يظهر أعوان الطغيان، ومن الآخر يظهر الطغاة، وبينهما تقع معاملة الحرية العامة، فأحدهما يشترى والآخر يبيع”
― العقد الإجتماعي أو مبادئ الحقوق السياسية
― العقد الإجتماعي أو مبادئ الحقوق السياسية
“أُفضِّل الحرية مع الخطر على السلم مع العبودية”
― العقد الإجتماعي أو مبادئ الحقوق السياسية
― العقد الإجتماعي أو مبادئ الحقوق السياسية
“For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have the right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.”
― Common Sense
― Common Sense
Robert’s 2024 Year in Books
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