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Principles-and I Have In Mind Such Principles As States' Rights Or National Sovereignty Or The Free Market Or Pacifism-have A Way Of Drying Up While The Sap Of Life Goes Flowing In Another Direction.

-Max Lerner

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Principles-and I Have In

Max Lerner

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Principles-and I Have In Mind Such Principles As States' Rights Or National Sovereignty Or The Free Market Or Pacifism-have A Way Of Drying Up While The Sap Of Life Goes Flowing In Another Direction.

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Some Of The More Fatuous Flag-waving Americans Are In Danger Of Forgetting That You Can't Extract Gratitude As You Would Extract A Tooth; That Unless Friendship Is Freely Given, It Means Nothing And Less Than Nothing.

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It Is Not The Armed Forces Which Can Protect Our Democracy. It Is The Moral Strength Of Democracy Which Alone Can Give Any Meaning To The Efforts At Military Security.

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In Societies Like The American And West European Where The Dynamics Of Energy Come From Freedom And Where The Climate And The Whole Ethos Are Those Of Freedom, Censorship Is Bound To Be At Worst, Stupid; At Best, Futile; And Always, To Some Degree, Inconsonant With The Character Of The Society As A Whole.

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Power Politics Existed Before Machiavelli Was Ever Heard Of; It Will Exist Long After His Name Is Only A Faint Memory. What He Did, Like Harvey, Was To Recognize Its Existence And Subject It To Scientific Study.

The Crime Of Book Purging Is That It Involves A Rejection Of The Word. For The Word Is Never Absolute Truth, But Only Man's Frail And Human Effort To Approach The Truth. To Reject The Word Is To Reject The Human Search.

When Evil Acts In The World It Always Manages To Find Instruments Who Believe That What They Do Is Not Evil But Honorable.

The So-called Lessons Of History Are For The Most Part The Rationalizations Of The Victors. History Is Written By The Survivors.

In Our Rich Consumers' Civilization We Spin Cocoons Around Ourselves And Get Possessed By Our Possessions.

A World Technology Means Either A World Government Or World Suicide.

Every Mob, In Its Ignorance And Blindness And Bewilderment, Is A League Of Frightened Men That Seeks Reassurance In Collective Action.

Of The Many Things We Have Done To Democracy In The Past, The Worst Has Been The Indignity Of Taking It For Granted.

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American Capitalism Has Been Both Overpraised And Overindicted. It Is Neither The Plumed Knight Nor The Monstrous Robber Baron.

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There Is No Crime In The Cynical American Calendar More Humiliating Than To Be A Sucker.

In Our Culture We Make Heroes Of The Men Who Sit On Top Of A Heap Of Money, And We Pay Attention Not Only To What They Say In Their Field Of Competence, But To Their Wisdom On Every Other Question In The World.

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Principles-and I Have In Mind Such Principles As States' Rights Or National Sovereignty Or The Free Market Or Pacifism-have A Way Of Drying Up While The Sap Of Life Goes Flowing In Another Direction.

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Do Not Confuse Your Vested Interests With Ethics. Do Not Identify The Enemies Of Your Privilege With The Enemies Of Humanity.

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It Is Almost As Easy To Be Enervated By Triumph As By Defeat.

The Problem Of Freedom In America Is That Of Maintaining A Competition Of Ideas, And You Do Not Achieve That By Silencing One Brand Of Idea.

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