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About this quote

What does it mean?
Lenin says liberty is so valuable it must be limited or rationed.
In plain terms
Liberty is precious and should be rationed.
What can you take from it?
Freedom may need constraints to be sustainable.

Where it applies

  • legal theory
  • civil rights debates

Putting it to work

  • set limits on freedoms
  • balance rights with collective needs

Questions to consider

  • What criteria decide when liberty is rationed?
  • Who decides the limits?

Another view

Rationing liberty can justify authoritarian measures.

More from Vladimir Lenin

  1. When we say 'the state,' the state is we, it is we, it is the proletariat, it is the advanced guard of the working class.

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  2. 'Am sure that the crushing of the Kazan Czechs and whiteguards, as well as of the kulak extortioners supporting them, will be exemplarily ruthless.'

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  3. I am not fond of the Germans by any means but at the present time it is more advantageous to use them than to challenge them. An independent Poland is very dan…

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