Quote #12

Love of liberty is laudable and logically the chief political end of man, so long as it is hitched to responsibleness. Eighteenth century man, politically educated and understanding the major implications of what was going on in his environment, made a fairly responsible voter. Today, common man insists on his right to vote and insists, equally, on the right not to have to know what he is voting about. This folly is pitching all common men rapidly toward the rocks. The current war is a mere reef we are now grating over. What lies beyond may be the greater disaster.

More from Philip Wylie

  1. Both constructs of the aphorism hold true. But, because it is an American convention to adore common people without restriction, I elect he…
  2. There is no liberty for a man under any discipline except that which is self-imposed. The imposition of disciplines by the state is called …
  3. 'God,' the saying might also read, 'must hate the common people because he made them so common.'
  4. American liberty has been tentatively saved for the last few decades not by the self-discipline of its citizens but by their instincts, whi…
  5. 'Why worry about race? In a century, we'll all be tea-colored!' Tallahssee, Florida Unitarian Church 1958 (Church was burned a week later.)
  6. Our Protestant churches, and, even more especially, the Catholic Church, devote an incredible portion of their political energy-perhaps mos…
  7. The blame for Armageddon lies on man. And the millennium will come only when the average man exhibits a scientific integrity about all he i…
  8. Never pet a burning dog.

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