Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes.
Henry GeorgeRead
It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.
Interpretation
Governments should only exist to protect individuals' rights and not to control personal virtue or folly.
In this quote, Henry George argues that the role of government is fundamentally to ensure the liberty and equal rights of individuals, protecting them from aggression while refraining from overreach into personal morality or actions. He emphasizes that excessive government intervention can lead to the opposite of its intended purpose, undermining individual rights and freedoms.
In practice
In a discussion about government policies and personal freedoms.
Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes.
The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt.
Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over.
The protection of the masses has in all times been the pretense of tyranny - the plea of monarchy, of aristocracy, of special privilege of every kind. The slave owners justified slavery as protecting the slaves.
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.
Compare society to a boat. Her progress through the water will not depend upon the exertion of her crew, but upon the exertion devoted to propelling her. This will be lessened by any expenditure of force in fighting among themselves, or in pulling in different directions.
Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who doth not kill sin in this way takes no steps toward his journey's end.
It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.
The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world.
It is only in solitude that I ever find my own core.
Menstruation not only carries with it the connotation of a productive system that has failed to produce; it also carries the idea of production gone awry, making products of no use, not to specification, unsalable, wasted, scrap.
To escape the cycle of tragedy, we (searchers) have to be tough on the ideas of the planners, even while we salute their goodwill.
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