“The United States cannot reshape other countries in its own image and that, with a few exceptions, its efforts to police the world are neither in its interests nor within the scope of its resources. This whole tendency to see ourselves as the center of political enlightenment and as teachers to a great part of the rest of the world strikes me as unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable.” WorldCountryStatesWholeAmericaPoliticalInterestUnitedEffortUnited StatesTeacherEnlightenmentResourcesPoliceStrikesTendenciesExceptionOther CountriesScopeUndesirable Author:George F. Kennan
“They have done this through sexual repression, economic repression, political repression, social repression, ideological repression and spiritual repression.” DoneSpiritualPoliticalSocialWomenEconomicEnlightenmentRepressionIdeological Author:Frederick Lenz
“The social repression and ideological repression of women began with depriving them of education, political decisiveness, mobility and essentially creating sexual slavery.” PoliticalSocialWomenCreatingEnlightenmentSlaveryRepressionIdeologicalMobilityDeprivingDecisiveness Author:Frederick Lenz
“Enlightenment is not about being political. It is not a social club. Ashrams often turn into that, I know. Societies of enlightenment often just become cliques.” KnowsPoliticalTurnsSocialBuddhismEnlightenmentClubsClique Author:Frederick Lenz
“The liberals of the eighteenth century, guided by the ideas of natural law and of the Enlightenment, demanded for everyone equality of political and civil rights... Nothing, however, is as ill-founded as the assertion of the alleged equality of all members of the human race.” HumansIdeasLawPoliticalNaturalRaceRightsCenturyMembersEnlightenmentIllCivil RightsHuman RaceAssertionNatural Law Book:Liberalism: The Classical Tradition: The Economist Source: Liberalism: The Classical Tradition: The Economist
“The liberal tradition has its roots in the Enlightenment, that period in the eighteenth-century Europe when intellectuals and political leaders had a powerful sense that reason could be employed to make the world a better place.” WorldReasonPoliticalPowerfulLeaderCenturyPeriodsEnlightenmentEuropeTraditionRootsEmployedBetter PlacePolitical Leaders Book:The Tragedy of Great Power Politics Source: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics
“I sometimes call my new system 'Italian pagan Catholicism,' but it could more accurately be called 'pragmatic liberalism,' with roots in Enlightenment political philosophy. It is a synthesis of the enduring dual elements in our culture, pagan and Judeo-Christian, Romantic and Classic.” SometimesPhilosophyChristianPoliticalCultureElementsEnlightenmentRootsEndureClassicLiberalismCatholicismItalianPolitical PhilosophyPaganPragmaticSynthesis Author:Camille Paglia