Daily Quotes

[Tamrin]

Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a
living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity
and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark


In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion
or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes


There is no reason why in a free society government should not assure to all, protection against
severe deprivation in the form of an assured minimum income, or a floor below which nobody
need descend. To enter into such an insurance against extreme misfortune may well be in the
interest of all; or it may be felt to be a clear moral duty of all to assist, within the organised com-
munity, those who cannot help themselves. So long as such a uniform minimum income is pro-
vided outside the market to all those who, for any reason, are unable to earn in the market an ade-
quate maintenance, this need not lead to a restriction of freedom, or conflict with the Rule of Law


'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded


Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those com-
mon hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate
provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calam-
ities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of
assistance — where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks — the case for the state's
helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.... Wherever com-
munal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself
nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken


Any kind of discrimination — be it on grounds of religion, political opinion, race,
or whatever it is — seems to be incompatible with the idea of freedom under
the law. Experience has shown that separate never is equal and cannot be equal


I confess that I prefer true but imperfect knowledge, even if it leaves much indeter-
mined and unpredictable, to a pretence of exact knowledge that is likely to be false


Friedrich Hayek
Austrian Nobel laureate in Economics (Austrian School)
(Died this day 1992)



Probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence
of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all the principle of laissez faire

[Tamrin]

[Tamrin]

Monday’s Quotes:

What is humility but truthfulness? There is no real difference


One who loves God retains this humility at all times,
not with weariness and struggle, but with pleasure and gladness


There are many who are hypocrites although they think they are not,
and there are many who are afraid of being hypocrites although they certainly
are not. Which is the one and which is the other God knows, and none but He


Some people understand the charity of our Lord and are saved by it;
others, relying on this mercy and kindness, continue in their sins, thinking
that it may be theirs whenever they wish. But this is not so, for then they are
too late and are taken in their sins before they expect it, and so damn themselves


The purpose of prayer is not to inform our Lord what you desire, for He knows all your
needs. It is to render you able and ready to receive the grace which our Lord will freely
give you. This grace cannot be experienced until you have been refined and purified by
the fire of desire in devout prayer. For although prayer is not the cause for which our Lord
gives grace, it is nevertheless the means by which grace, freely given, comes to the soul


I desire the love of God not because I am worthy, but because I am unworth


Regard yourself all the more as a sinner because you cannot feel yourself to be what you are


Walter Hilton
English, Augustinian mystic
(Scala Perfectionis “The Ladder of Perfection”)
(Died this day 1396)



We therefore need to know the gifts given us by God,
so that we may use them, for by these we shall be saved

[Tamrin]

To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to
them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it


I have the heart of a man, not a woman, and I am not afraid of anything


I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married


Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested


Monarchs ought to put to death the authors and instigators
of war, as their sworn enemies and as dangers to their states


Must! Is must a word to be addressed to princes? Little man, little man!
Thy father, if he had been alive, durst not have used that word


The past cannot be cured


Elizabeth I
(Died this day 1603)



I pray to God that I shall not live one hour after I have thought of using deception

[Tamrin]

One centred system, one all-ruling soul live thro the parts and regulate the whole


Hail the mild morning, where the dawn began, the full fruition of the hopes of man.
Where sage Experience seals the sacred cause, and that rare union, Liberty and Laws,
Speaks to the reas'ning race “to freedom rise, like them be equal, and like them be wise"


Freedom at last, with Reason in her train, extends o'er earth her everlasting reign


'Tis Reason's choice, 'tis Wisdom's final plan, to drop the monarch and assume the man


Indignant Man resumes the shaft he gave, disarms the tyrant, and unbinds the slave,
Displays the unclad skeleton of kings, spectres of power, and serpents without stings


The hour is come, the world's unclosing eyes discern with rapture where its wisdom lies;
from western heav'ns th' inverted Orient springs, the morn of man, the dreadful night of kings


Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song the force, the charm that to thy voice belong;
Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way, to nerve my country with the patriot lay,
to teach all men where all their interest lies, how rulers may be just and nations wise:
Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee, invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee


Joel Barlow
American poet and diplomat (The Conspiracy of Kings)
(Born this day 1754)



The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion

[Tamrin]

Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your
watch, in a private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one


The characteristic of a well-bred man is, to converse with his inferiors
without insolence, and with his superiors with respect and with ease


Patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications: with address enough
to refuse, without offending; or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation: dexterity
enough to conceal a truth, without telling a lie: sagacity enough to read other people’s count-
enances: and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by yours; a seeming frankness,
with a real reserve. These are the rudiments of a politician; the world must be your grammar


Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in a mixed company


I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying.
It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses
of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later


Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often,
what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance


In short, let it be your maxim through life, to know all you can know,
yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the informations of others


Bro. Philip Stanhope
4th Earl of Chesterfield, British statesman and man of letters
(Died this day 1773)



A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men;
mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones

[Tamrin]

I do not want art for a few any more than
education for a few, or freedom for a few


A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is
working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul
as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works


A good way to rid one's self of a sense of discomfort is to do something.
That uneasy, dissatisfied feeling is actual force vibrating out of order; it may be
turned to practical account by giving proper expression to its creative character


History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they
destroyed; art has remembered the people, because they created


I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that
they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to
be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name


If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it:
Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful


If you cannot learn to love real art at least learn to hate sham art


William Morris
England, designer, craftsman, poet and socialist
(Born this day 1834)



Give me love and work — these two only

[Tamrin]

Perhaps the old monks were right when they tried to root love out;
perhaps the poets are right when they try to water it. It is a blood-red flower,
with the color of sin; but there is always the scent of a god about it


A little weeping, a little wheedling, a little self-degradation, a little careful use
of our advantages, and then some man will say ''.Come, be my wife!''
With good looks and youth marriage is easy to attain. There are men enough;
but a woman who has sold herself, even for a ring and a new name,
need hold her skirt aside for no creature in the street. They both earn their bread
in one way. Marriage for love is the most beautiful external symbol of the union
of souls; marriage without it is the least clean traffic that defiles the world


Men are like the earth and we are the moon; we turn always one side to them,
and they think there is no other, because they don't see it — but there is


We all enter the world little plastic beings, with so much natural force, perhaps, but for
the rest — blank; and the world tells us what we are to be, and shapes us by the ends
it sets before us. To you it says — Work; and to us it says — Seem! To you it says —
As you approximate to man's highest ideal of God, as your arm is strong and your
knowledge great, and the power to labor is with you, so you shall gain all that human
heart desires. To us it says — Strength shall not help you, nor knowledge, nor labor.
You shall gain what men gain, but by other means. And so the world makes men and women


We were equals once when we lay new-born babes on our nurse's knees.
We will be equal again when they tie up our jaws for the last sleep


From our earliest hour we have been taught that the thought of the heart,
the shaping of the rain-cloud, the amount of wool that grows on a sheep's back,
the length of a drought, and the growing of the corn, depend on nothing that
moves immutable, at the heart of all things; but on the changeable will of a
changeable being, whom our prayers can alter. To us, from the beginning,
Nature has been but a poor plastic thing, to be toyed with this way or that,
as man happens to please his deity or not; to go to church or not; to say his
prayers right or not; to travel on a Sunday or not. Was it possible for us in an
instant to see Nature as she is the flowing vestment of an unchanging reality?”


Power! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls should have power or not?
It is born in them. You may dam up the fountain of water, and make it a stagnant marsh,
or you may let it run free and do its work; but you cannot say whether it shall be there;
it is there. And it will act, if not openly for good, then covertly for evil; but it will act


Olive Schreiner
South African writer (Portrait of a South African Woman)
(Born this day 1855)



Everything has two sides — the outside that is ridiculous, and the inside that is solemn

[Tamrin]

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and
institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards


A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that
the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it


The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that
most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it


Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to
make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell


It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be
truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations


The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be


We must not let daylight in upon the magic


Walter Bagehot
English political economist, critic and banker
(Died this day 1877)



No real English gentleman, in his secret soul,
was ever sorry for the death of a political economist

[Tamrin]

In this world a man must either be anvil or hammer


People demand freedom only when they have no power


Like a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure
when with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are


The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in
dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service


However things may seem,
no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure


A single conversation across the table with a wise man
is better than ten years mere study of books


Build today, then strong and sure, with a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure. shall tomorrow find its place


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
American poet (Song of Hiawatha)
(Died this day 1882)



All things must change to something new, to something strange