No form of liberty is worth a darn [sic] which doesn't give us the right to do wrong now and then.
Interpretation
True liberty includes the freedom to make mistakes.
This quote by H. L. Mencken suggests that genuine freedom should encompass the ability to make choices that may lead to errors or misjudgments. It emphasizes that without the possibility of making mistakes, our freedom becomes superficial and does not truly allow for personal growth or authentic experiences.
In practice
In a debate on the importance of individual rights, this quote can illustrate the need for freedom that includes the possibility of making poor choices.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
If this really is true, then greed really isn't good, after all. It really isn't the way to maximize the best possible outcome. We really do need to come together and act collectively. Government isn't always the problem. It's sometimes the solution. And, so their whole intellectual scaffolding collapses. So, they'd rather deny the science.
To will is human, to will the bad is of fallen nature, but to will the good is of Grace.
This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse.
Maybe I am naive, but I don't think talking about the Holocaust with total and complete cynicism is possible for Israeli politicians. It's inevitable that the Holocaust is part of Israeli politics.
Your goal is not to battle with the mind, but to witness the mind.
Worthless is the nation that does not gladly stake its all on its honor.
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