People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well
Interpretation
This quote suggests that civil society and self-governance require personal virtue and restraint, without which fear will dominate.
Charles Colson emphasizes the importance of virtue in the context of self-governance. He argues that a society composed of individuals lacking in moral restraint and civility cannot sustain itself and will inevitably succumb to authoritarian rule. The phrase highlights a critical truth regarding the relationship between moral character, societal stability, and the propensity for tyrants to exploit fear in the absence of virtue.
In practice
During a civic engagement event discussing the importance of community values.
The life function of [the local church] is to love the God who created it - to care for others out of obedience to Christ, to heal those who hurt, to take away fear, to restore community, to belong to one another, to proclaim the Good News while living it out. The church is the invisible made visible.
Life is a mess. And theology must be lived out in the midst of that mess.
Moral crusaders with zeal but no ethical understanding are likely to give us solutions that are worse than the problems.
Tolerance once meant that we could use our reason to discern good and evil in open debate. Today tolerance has been used to call good evil and evil good.
One of the most wonderful things about being a Christian is that I don't ever get up in the morning and wonder if what I do matters. I live every day to the fullest because I can live it through Christ and I know no matter what I do today, I'm going to do something to advance the Kingdom of God.
I learned one thing in Watergate: I was well-intentioned but rationalized illegal behavior. You cannot live your life other than walking in the truth. Your means are as important as your ends.
If I write a new play, my point of view may be profoundly modified. I may be obliged to contradict myself and I may no longer know whether I still think what I think.
Isolation is a way to know ourselves.
The critics slap labels on you and then expect you to talk inside their terms.
During my three years in Vietnam, I certainly heard plenty of last words by dying American footsoldiers. Not one of them, however, had illusions that he had somehow accomplished something worthwhile in the process of making the Supreme Sacrifice.
With Usura With usura hath no man a house of good stone each block cut smooth and well fitting.
Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality.
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