It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
~ Frédéric Bastiat
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Author Archives: Seamas Anstruther
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Force can overcome force, but a free society cannot long steel itself to dominate another people by sheer force.
~ Dean Acheson
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A hungry dog believes in nothing but meat.
~ Anton Chekhov
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A philosophy has a practical power: it contributes to the changing of the world.
~ Umberto Eco
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Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.
~ Ernest Hemingway
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In our civilized society I must lead the life of a savage. I must free myself even from governments. My sympathies lies with the people; I must go to them directly. I must draw my wisdom from them, and they must give me life. For that reason I have just embarked on the grand, independent and vagabond life of the bohemian.
~ Gustave Courbet
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Economic theory as derived from Adam Smith assumes first that homo economicus acts with perfect optimality on complete information, and second that when many of the species homo economicus do that, their actions add up to the best possible outcome for everybody. Neither of these assumptions stands up long against the evidence.
~ Donella Meadows
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Both Franz Kafka and the Bible are inexhaustible sources of meaning because they overflow any box we build around them. They exist on a plane of Western consciousness so formative of ours today that they seem to come from everywhere and nowhere.
~ Judith Shulevitz via The Atlantic
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What if we spent less time shouting into the void and being washed over with shouting in return-and more time talking in rooms to those for whom our words are intended?
~ Jenny Odell
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To live effectively is to live with adequate information.
~ Norbert Wiener
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