33 books
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Matthew Lowery
https://www.goodreads.com/matthewlowery
‘Let no man live uncurbed by law, nor curbed by tyranny.’ That was written in the fifth century BC. But the message is timeless and universal. Law is not just an instrument of corrective or distributive justice. It is an expression of
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“Individualism and statism advance together, always mutually supportive, and always at the expense of lived and vital relations that stand in contrast to both the starkness of the autonomous individual and the abstraction of our membership in the state.”
― Why Liberalism Failed
― Why Liberalism Failed
“People can be persuaded to desire almost anything, for a time, if they are constantly told that it is something to which they are entitled and which is unjustly withheld from them.”
― Notes Towards the Definition of Culture
― Notes Towards the Definition of Culture
“One of the main goals of the expansion of commerce is the liberation of embedded individuals from their traditional ties and relationships. The liberal state serves not only the reactive function of umpire and protector of individual liberty; it also takes on an active role 'liberating' individuals who, in the view of the state, are prevented from making wholly free choices as liberal agents.”
― Why Liberalism Failed
― Why Liberalism Failed
“As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increases who, although they are neither rich enough nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellow-creatures, have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands. Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants, and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.”
― Democracy in America: Volume 2
― Democracy in America: Volume 2
“In religion, Liberalism may be characterised as a progressive discarding of elements in historical Christianity which appear superfluous or obsolete, confounded with practices and abuses which are legitimate objects of attack. But as its movement is controlled rather by its origin than by any goal, it loses force after a series of rejections, and with nothing to destroy is left with nothing to uphold and with nowhere to go.”
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