Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.
Category: external authority
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.
Government is not the solution
Some people seem to think that the answer to all of life’s imperfections is to create a government agency to correct them. If that is your approach, then go straight to totalitarianism. Do not pass “Go.” Do not collect $200.
Resisting depotism
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
It’s good to be the government
It is so easy to be wrong — and to persist in being wrong — when the costs of being wrong are paid by others.
Beware the technocracy
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.