quotes

"[The greatest orator always studies] his adversary's case with as great, if not still greater, intensity than even his own. ... He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side [then he may not be able to convince himself or another of the truth of the matter.] ... Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated men are in this condition; even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves profess. They do not know those parts of it which explain and justify the remainder; the considerations which show that a fact which seemingly conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought to be preferred. All that part of the truth which turns the scale, and decides the judgment of a completely informed mind, they are strangers to; nor is it ever really known, but to those who have attended equally and impartially to both sides, and endeavoured to see the reasons of both in the strongest light." (Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty

«Et samfundssystem, der i praksis har gjort over halvdelen af vælgerne til enten sine sociale klienter eller sine ansatte, har ikke nødig at finde andre begrundelser for sin eksistens. Fundamentet er cementeret.»

«I tider med bedrag som dagens orden er det en revolusjonær handling å si sannheten.»

«...mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent...»

«The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.»

«Oddly enough, it is the intellectual snobbery and elitism of many of the literati that politically correct egalitarianism appeals to; their partiality to literary Marxism is based not on its economic theory but on its hostility to business and the middle class. The character of this anti-bourgeois sentiment therefore has more in common with its origin in aristocratic disdain for the lower orders than with egalitarianism.»

«The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.»

«The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.»

«The pleasant life is not produced by continual drinking and dancing, nor sexual intercourse, nor rare dishes of sea food and other delicacies of a luxurious table. On the contrary, it is produced by sober reasoning which examines the motives for every choice and avoidance, driving away beliefs which are the source of mental disturbance.»

«De, der siger, at danskerne er racister, er de mænd, som laver foreninger og kritiserer for at få penge og kontorer. Vi skammer os over dem. Danskerne er ikke racister.»

«The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.»

«Multiculturalists, feminists, and a variety of other left-wing bigots have destroyed scholarship and turned education into a campaign against Western civilization. They seduce the minds of the young and fill them with shame of their country. These home grown terrorists in academic garb are a more dangerous enemy than the Taliban and Bin Laden.»

«Power kills; absolute power kills absolutely.»

«Jo flere lover, jo mindre rettferdighet.»

«Individer har rettigheter, og det er ting som ingen person eller gruppe kan gjøre mot dem (uten å krenke deres rettigheter). Så sterke og omfattende er disse rettighetene at de reiser spørsmålet om hva staten og dens tjenestemenn kan foreta seg, hvis de i det hele tatt kan foreta seg noe.»

«The logic of economics is entirely on their side: it is only through private property that society can achieve abundance. Morality is also on their side: if a man is denied exclusive possession and enjoyment of that which he produces he is denied the right to life, and is in effect reduced to something less than a man. With these two arguments in its arsenal, private property should never have been put on the defensive. The collectivistic psychopaths should never have gained ascendancy with the mass-man.»

«Vi er godt på vej til, takket være en intolerant og hysterisk holdning i de helliges samfund, at kriminalisere det store flertal af skikkelige mennesker, som hverken er racister eller fremmedhadere, men som ikke desto mindre må finde sig i at blive tilsvinet med disse skældsord, som nu tankeløst efterplapres af enhver mediepapegøje.»

«No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.»

«An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last.»

«We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.»