“It's an ideal existence. Out in the open. Berating the president of he United States... I'm free to thwart and torment the authorities - that is to say, I can get out my hostilities - because I'm protected in my conscience by the knowledge that what I'm doing is morally right. I've never been so relaxed. I've never been so happy.” MenI CanStatesPresidentUnitedExistenceUnited StatesAuthorityConscienceIdealsActivismProtectedTormentRelaxedHostilityBerating Author:Benjamin Spock
“If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their character by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of them.” IfsMenShouldMayDoeI CanReasonCharacterNumbersConsciousnessCreaturesAuthorityIncreaseAbsolutesFellowsMajorityRefuseObstaclesUnlimitedAdversariesPossessingLiableReproachMisuseAbsolute Power Book:American Institutions and Their Influence Source: American Institutions and Their Influence
“Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some others.” MenGivingHas BeensMadeI CanFactsTogetherRememberReligiousVirtueHappenedTeachingStupidExampleEvolutionAuthorityIntelligentPraiseEducatedMinistersIllegalOne WordIdentificationOwingEducated ManReligious Education Book:Education and the Social Order Source: Education and the Social Order
“I can look back . . . at two distinct periods of opinion whose foundations I have successively come to distrust - a period before 1919 or so, when the weight of classic authority unduly influenced me, and another period from 1919 to about 1925, when I placed too high a value on the elements of revolt, florid colour, and emotional extravagance or intensity.” LooksI CanTwoValuesOpinionEmotionalPeriodsAuthorityElementsWeightFoundationClassicColourIntensityDistrustRevoltExtravagance Author:H. P. Lovecraft