Love consists in leaving the loved one space to be themselves while providing the security within which that self may flourish.
Tony JudtRead
If active or concerned citizens forfeit politics, they thereby abandon their society to its most mediocre and venal public servants
Interpretation
Citizens must engage in politics to prevent unqualified leaders from taking control of society.
This quote by Tony Judt emphasizes the responsibility of citizens to participate in political processes. When individuals who care about their community disengage from politics, they inadvertently allow less capable and corrupt officials to dominate the system, ultimately leading to a decline in societal quality and integrity.
In practice
In a speech about civic duty, one might say, 'As Tony Judt wisely pointed out, if active citizens forfeit politics, they give way to mediocre leaders.'
Love consists in leaving the loved one space to be themselves while providing the security within which that self may flourish.
Obviously a primary liberal conviction is that we should be tolerant of other peoples' convictions. But if we believe in something, we had better find ways to say so convincingly.
Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past.
What I am against is false optimism: the notion either that things have to go well, or else that they tend to, or else that the default condition of historical trajectories is characteristically beneficial in the long-run.
I'm not sure I've learned anything new about life; but I've had to think harder about death and what comes after for other people.
We are not merely historians but also and always citizens.
Men who sincerely abhorred the word Communism in the pursuit of common ends found that they were unable to distinguish Communists from themselves…. For men who could not see that what they firmly believed was liberalism added up to socialism could scarcely be expected to see what added up to Communism. Any charge of Communism enraged them precisely because they could not grasp the differences between themselves and those against whom it was made.
A government, the constitution of which renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers which a free people ought to delegate to any government, would be an unsafe and improper depositary of the NATIONAL INTERESTS.
Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of the U.S. in the Arab world, because of the perception on the Arab street that it supported harsh and oppressive regimes to take their oil.
Even the alternative weekly newspapers, traditionally a bastion of progressive thought and analysis, have been bought by a monopoly franchise and made a predictable shift to the right in their coverage of local news.
Mr. President, you’re entitled as a president to your own airplane, and to your own house, but not to your own facts.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.
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