If we assume the best in people, we can radically redesign our democracy and welfare states.
Rutger BregmanRead
Believing in the good of humanity is a revolutionary act - it means that we don't need all those managers and CEO's, kings and generals. That we can trust people to govern themselves and make their own decisions.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Believing in humanity's goodness can empower individuals and reduce the need for hierarchical authority.
Rutger Bregman's quote emphasizes the revolutionary idea that trust in the inherent goodness of people can lead to a more egalitarian and self-governed society. By believing that individuals are capable of making their own decisions, we challenge the need for authoritarian figures such as managers, CEOs, and political leaders, promoting a vision of collective autonomy and mutual respect.
Themes
HumanityTrustAutonomySocietyGoodness
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about community leadership, one might quote Bregman to inspire trust among citizens.
More from Rutger Bregman
All quotes →Since long workdays lead to more errors, shorter workdays could reduce accidents. Overtime is deadly. Tired surgeons have been found to be more prone to slip'ups, and soldiers who get too little shuteye are more prone to miss targets.
Rutger BregmanRead
My hope is that the corona crisis will help bring us into a new age of cooperation and solidarity and a realization that we're in this together.
Rutger BregmanRead
This is what a crisis does: It makes you question the status quo. That doesn't mean that after a crisis we move into some kind of utopia. But it is an opportunity for political change.
Rutger BregmanRead
While it won't solve all the world's ills - and ideas such as a rent cap and more social housing are necessary in places where housing is scarce - a basic income would work like venture capital for the people.
Rutger BregmanRead
We so often tend to think our democracies are ruled by procedures and laws, but they are also governed by implicit rules and assumptions and one of them is the ability to feel shame - that you can be shamed.
Rutger BregmanRead
Similar quotes
We say that a girl with her doll anticipates the mother. It is more true, perhaps, that most mothers are still but children with playthings.
F. H. BradleyRead
The whole art of meditation is, how to leave the personality easily, move to the center, and be not a person. Just to be and not be a person is the whole art of meditation, the whole art of inner ecstasy.
RajneeshRead
We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman.
Daniel J. BoorstinRead
There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it's almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed. ... These things are so ancient within us that they're ground into each separate cell of our bodies... It's as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking.
Frank HerbertRead
Think of giving not only as a duty but as a privilege.
John D. RockefellerRead
If we steal a man's purse we are thieves. If we steal twelve hundred islands we are patriots. If you steal a man's money you will be sent to the penitentiary. If you steal his liberty you will be sent to the White House.
William Jennings BryanRead