Again, it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves.
Maximilien RobespierreRead
The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Education is the key to freedom, while ignorance breeds oppression.
This quote from Maximilien Robespierre emphasizes the critical role of education in achieving personal and societal freedom. It suggests that an informed populace is essential for maintaining liberty, whereas a lack of knowledge and understanding allows tyranny to flourish, as it prevents individuals from recognizing and challenging oppression.
Themes
EducationFreedomIgnoranceTyrannySociety
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of education at a community event.
More from Maximilien Robespierre
All quotes βTerror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.
Maximilien RobespierreRead
Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil.
Maximilien RobespierreRead
Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all.
Maximilien RobespierreRead
The revolution is the war of liberty against its enemies. The constitution is the rule of liberty against its enemies. The constitution is the rule of liberty when victorious and peaceable.
Maximilien RobespierreRead
Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts.
Maximilien RobespierreRead
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Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.
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From the very beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery.
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The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you'd never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools.
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Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the 'naturals,' the ones who somehow know how to teach.
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