Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
VoltaireRead
Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
Interpretation
Serving one's country is more valuable than relying on one's lineage.
This quote by Voltaire emphasizes the importance of personal contribution to society over heritage or ancestry. It suggests that the actions and service one provides for their country hold more significance and value than the legacy left by previous generations, highlighting a meritocratic view of honor and legacy.
In practice
During a graduation speech to inspire students to serve their nation.
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.
Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman β how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle.
The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.
We are passing into a social phase in which unless a heroic effort is made for human dignity and freedom, gold will be the sole method of government and therefore the sole standard of manners.
If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits
The present urgency is to begin thinking within the context of the whole planet, the integral earth community with all its human and other-than-human components.
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