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Century Quotes

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Century Quotes

“There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted...and get it without toil, without sweat, without tears. Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.”

Source: Starship Troopers

“I trace the inequality to a particular set of decisions that we took when we lowered the tax rate from 91% down to very low levels at the top, where we stripped away regulations. So the result of that was not a more dynamic economy, but a more unequal society. We tried the experiment of trickle-down. A third of a century later, we can say fairly definitively that it was a failure.”

Decision Levels Results Economy Century Particular Taxes Lows Thirds Rate Experiments Inequality Regulation Low Level Trickle Down

Author:Joseph Stiglitz

“Thus, human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of the kind that could not have happened in the past...Within a few centuries we are returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years.”

Years Humans Kind Past Energy Human Beings Millions Environment Happened Rocks Century Ocean Climate Change Scales Experiments Atmosphere Carbon Large Scale

Author:Roger Revelle

“We tried some experiments in mind reading which were not very successful. Think mind reading contrary to common sense, wise provision of the Bon Dieu that we cannot read each others minds, twould stop civilization and everybody would take to the woods. In fifty or hundred thousand centuries when mankind have become perfect by evolution then perhaps this sense could be developed with safety to the state.”

“The twentieth century was marked by two broad trends: the regulation of capitalism and the deregulation of democracy. Both experiments overreached.”

Two Democracy Century Capitalism Experiments Broads Trends Regulation Twentieth Century Deregulation

Book:The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (Revised Edition)

Source: The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (Revised Edition)

“Part of what it is to be scientifically-literate is how you think about information that's presented in front of you. I think that's the great challenge. You have people who believe they do know how to think about the information, but don't, and they're in the position of power and legislation. You can't base a society on non-objectively verifiable truth. Otherwise, it's a fantasy land and science is the pathway to those emerging truths that are hard-earned and that some have taken decades, if not centuries, to emerge from experiments all around the world.”

“It didn't take elaborate experiments to deduce that an infant would die from want of food. But it took centuries to figure out that infants can and do perish from want of love.”

Want Children Dies Century Figures Experiments Infant Children Love

Book:Lost Children: Separation and Loss Between Children and Parents

Source: Lost Children: Separation and Loss Between Children and Parents

“There is plenty of room left for exact experiment in art, and the gate has been opened for some time. What had been accomplished in music by the end of the eighteenth century has only begun in the fine arts. Mathematics and physics have given us a clue in the form of rules to be strictly observed or departed from, as the case may be. Here salutary discipline is come to grips first of all with the function of forms, and not with form as the final result … in this way we learn how to look beyond the surface and get to the root of things.”

“The most important domestic challenge facing the U.S. at the close of the twentieth century is the re-creation of fatherhood as avital social role for men. At stake is nothing less than the success of the American experiment. For unless we reverse the trend of fatherlessness, no other set of accomplishments--not economic growth or prison construction or welfare reform or better schools--will succeed in arresting the decline of child well-being and the spread of male violence. To tolerate the trend of fatherlessness is to accept the inevitability of continued social recession.”

“Though I admire republican principles in theory, yet I am afraid the practice may be too perfect for human nature. We tried a republic last century, and it failed. Let our enemies try next. I hate political experiments.”

Trying Humans May Lasts Political Hate Next Perfect Enemy Principles Practice Century Human Nature Theory Republican I Hate Experiments Admire Republic

Author:Robert Walpole

“As an innovation... the establishment of Free Schools was the boldest ever promulgated, since the commencement of the Christian era... Time has ratified its soundness. Two centuries proclaim it to be as wise as it was courageous, as beneficient as it was disinterested. It was one of those grand mental and moral experiments... The sincerity of our gratitude must be tested by our efforts to perpetuate and improve what they established. The gratitude of the lips only is an unholy offering.”

“Marriage is an ongoing, centuries-long social experiment that is mostly controlled by the individuals in the relationships who insist on determining what the relationship terms are going to be. And that's why the terms of marriage change with every century and decade. We're shaping it from the inside. Marriage endures because it evolves. Obviously it does. None of us would accept marriage on its 13th century terms, not even the most conservative people...”

People Long Doe Individual Social Term Accepting Century Endure Conservative Decades Experiments Evolve Controlled Ongoing

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“We're entering our third century now, but it's wrong to judge our nation by its years. The calendar can't measure America because we were meant to be an endless experiment in freedom, with no limits to our reaches, no boundaries to what we can do, no end point to our hopes.”

Years Ends America Nations Can Do Century Judging Limits Thirds Boundaries Endless Experiments Meant To Be Entering Calendars Were Meant To Be No Boundaries

Book:Ronald Reagan

Source: Ronald Reagan