488 Quotes About Political-philosophy

The illusion of free will, of freedom, is a useful tool you know. Let people think they are free and present them with a danger to their so-called freedom, a fear. It’s amazing how much you can get them to deal with just as long as you tell them they’re still free.

Science can investigate nature and inquire into the empirical world, but it cannot answer moral questions or disprovefree will. That is because morality and freedom are not empirical concepts.We can’t prove that they exist, but neither can we make sense of our moral lives without presupposing them.

... courage is as contagious as fear.

The 2016 USA presidential election race clarified how an evil Nazi dictator like Adolf Hitler was able to come to power in global politics.

It can be difficult to speak truth to power. Circumstances, however, have made doing so increasingly necessary.

..it happens in all human affairs that we never seek to escape one mischief without falling into another. Prudence therefore consists in knowing how to distinguish degrees of disadvantage, and in accepting a less evil as a good.

The world needs not new governments - the world needs not new parties - the world needs not new dictators masquerading as leaders or entrepreneurs - what the world needs is thought, punned in the flames of reason, courage and humaneness.

On either side of a potentially violent conflict, an opportunity exists to exercise compassion and diminish fear based on recognition of each other's humanity. Without such recognition, fear fueled by uninformed assumptions, cultural prejudice, desperation to meet basic human needs, or the panicked uncertainty of the moment explodes into violence.

Black people are not the descendants of kings. We are—and I say this with big pride—the progeny of slaves. If there’s any majesty in our struggle, it lies not in fairy tales but in those humble origins and the great distance we’ve traveled since. Ditto for the dreams of a separate but noble past. Cosby’s, and much of black America’s, conservative analysis flattens history and smooths over the wrinkles that have characterized black America since its inception.