There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.
Category: external authority
Think for yourself
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
No right to arbitrary power
The Legislative has no Right to absolute arbitrary Power over the Lives and Fortunes of the People: Nor can Mortals assume a Prerogative not only too high for Men but for Angels, and therefore reserv’d for the Exercise of the Deity alone.
Root of tyranny
The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness … This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs, when he first appears he is a protector.
God or tyrants
Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.
Blind belief in authority
Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
Fanatical hatred
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
Us vs. them
There have existed, in every age and every country, two distinct orders of men — the lovers of freedom and the devoted advocates of power.
Take nothing for granted
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.
Don’t let them take you alive
Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink, and wear.