34 quotes found
“[F]reedom isn't free. It shouldn't be a bragging point that "Oh, I don't get involved in politics," as if that makes you somehow cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars an...”
“The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write their plays and books, to paint their p...”
“The work of an intellectual is not to form the political will of others; it is, through the analyses he does in his own domains, to bring assumptions and things taken for granted again into questio...”
“A man should construct meaningful ideas at his own will if he wants to take citizenship responsibilty by helping others pursue their happiness.”
“A champion, he said, wins a World Series or an Olympic and is hoisted on the shoulders of teammates and fans. A hero carries the people on his shoulders. Champions live for the moment- heroes, like...”
“Practical utility, however, is not the ultimate purpose of a liberal arts education. Its ultimate purpose is to help you learn to reflect in the widest and deepest sense, beyond the requirements of...”
“Everything can be explained to the people, on the single condition that you want them to understand.”
“It is particularly important to note that, in a democracy, education has never been concerned only with supplying the needs of the economy or ensuring effective socialisation; it also has strong tr...”
“It is a mistake to tell students that their classroom is a democracy- it cannot and never will be. But children need to learn how to participate in a community and to prepare themselves for democra...”
“Achievement was worthy of praise and honor, but excessive achievement was pernicious and a threat to the state. However great a citizen might become, however great he might wish to become, the true...”
“It's a civic virtue to be exposed to things that appear to be outside your interest. In a complex world, almost everything affects you that closes the loop on pecuniary self-interest. Customers ar...”
“In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance”
“Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other mans nose begins.”
“In his book The Soul of Black Folks, W.E.B. DuBois writes about always feeling "his twoness-- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; to warring ideals in one dar...”
“We are forever lured by the sirens of the dogmatic mind, with its haughty complacency, which determines that ones relationship to others is only meaningful when one tries to convince them of ones s...”
“Participation in the collective life of the polis both restrains the extraordinary individual and enlarges the ordinary individual, allowing him to participate in the extraordinary. An individual c...”
“Governments represent their citizens in the same way as parasites represent their hosts.”
“It may sound reactionary, I know. But we can all feel it. We've changed the way we think of ourselves as citizens. We don't think of ourselves as citizens in the old sense of being small parts of s...”
“This revolutionary idea of Western citizenshipreplete with ever more rights and responsibilitieswould provide superb manpower for growing legions and a legal framework that would guarantee that the...”
“As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.”
