Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.
Interpretation
Freedom in society inherently brings conflict and disagreement, which are signs of a vibrant, free existence.
In free societies, the dynamic nature of individual expression and differing opinions creates a lively environment filled with tension and dissent. This friction is not a negative aspect; rather, it indicates the presence of freedom and the ability of individuals to express themselves, which is fundamental to a healthy and functioning society. The 'sparks' generated by these interactions highlight the existence of freedom and its impact on societal progress.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of free expression in democratic societies.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or the existence of, God?
I do not bring forgiveness with me, nor forgetfulness. The only ones who can forgive are dead; the living have no right to forget.
Time takes life away_x000D_ and gives us memory, gold with flame,_x000D_ black with embers.
Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.
Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials.
Maybe if I didn't pick up that one person, I wouldn't have picked up forty-two thousand.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.