We here at The Price of Liberty are far from geniuses. But we know it is possible to learn a lot by reading and listening to people who are geniuses. Here are ideas from thirteen people most of us consider geniuses. Not all geniuses love liberty – but those who do have some very important things to say.
Allan Bloom The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.
Aldous Huxley So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable. Liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of central government.
Albert Einstein Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war. Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it. The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it. Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
Abraham Maslow I can certainly say that descriptively healthy human beings do not like to be controlled. They prefer to feel free and to be free.
Arthur Schopenhauer We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
John Stuart Mill The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it.
Leo Tolstoy The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens… Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.
George Bernard Shaw All government is authoritarian; and the more democratic a government is the more authoritative it is; for with the people behind it, it can push authority further than any Tsar or foreign despot dare do.
Rod Serling The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling.
Richard Feynman Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity – and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.
Simone Weil The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State. Conscience is deceived by the social. Human history is simply the history of the servitude which makes men – oppressed and oppressors alike – the plaything of the instruments of domination they themselves have manufactured, and thus reduces living humanity to being the chattel of inanimate chattels. What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war.
Thomas Jefferson I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
Will Durant Above all, the ruling minority sought more and more to transform its forcible mastery into a body of law which, while consolidating that mastery, would afford a welcome security and order to the people, and would recognize the rights of the “subject” sufficiently to win his acceptance of the law and his adherence to the state.
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.
The Price of Liberty 
A Baker’s Dozen (TM) Quotes of Geniuses on Liberty
But we know it is possible to learn a lot by reading and listening to people who are geniuses. Here are ideas from thirteen people most of us consider geniuses.
Not all geniuses love liberty – but those who do have some very important things to say.
Allan Bloom The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.
Aldous Huxley So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable. Liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of central government.
Albert Einstein Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war. Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it. The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it. Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
Abraham Maslow I can certainly say that descriptively healthy human beings do not like to be controlled. They prefer to feel free and to be free.
Arthur Schopenhauer We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
John Stuart Mill The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it.
Leo Tolstoy The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens… Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.
George Bernard Shaw All government is authoritarian; and the more democratic a government is the more authoritative it is; for with the people behind it, it can push authority further than any Tsar or foreign despot dare do.
Rod Serling The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling.
Richard Feynman Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity – and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.
Simone Weil The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State. Conscience is deceived by the social. Human history is simply the history of the servitude which makes men – oppressed and oppressors alike – the plaything of the instruments of domination they themselves have manufactured, and thus reduces living humanity to being the chattel of inanimate chattels. What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war.
Thomas Jefferson I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
Will Durant Above all, the ruling minority sought more and more to transform its forcible mastery into a body of law which, while consolidating that mastery, would afford a welcome security and order to the people, and would recognize the rights of the “subject” sufficiently to win his acceptance of the law and his adherence to the state.
Think on these things!
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About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.