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Thought

Herbert Spencer

Instead of civilization being artificial, it is a part of nature; all of a piece with the development of the embryo or the unfolding of a flower. The modifications mankind have undergone, and are still undergoing, result from a law underlying the whole organic creation; and provided the human race continues, and the constitution of things remains the same, those modifications must end in completeness.

Herbert Spencer, Social Statics: or, The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed (London: John Chapman, 1851), Chapter 1, § 4.

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Thought

Robert A. Heinlein

censorship, n,

The whole principle is wrong. It’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can’t have steak.

Robert A. Heinlein, The Man Who Sold the Moon (1951), p. 188.

This quotation is reminiscent of one often misattributed to Mark Twain:

Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.

(Unknown)
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Thought

Viktor Frankl

Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (1956), p. 209-210.
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Thought

T.H. White

Yes, that is the equality of man. Slaughter anybody who is better than you are, and then we shall be equal soon enough. All equally dead

T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn (1977).
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Thought

Avicenna

Those who deny the first principle should be flogged or burned until they admit that it is not the same thing to be burned and not burned, or whipped and not whipped.

Avicenna, Metaphysics: Book I.
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Thought

Avicenna

The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.

Avicenna, “On Medicine” (c. 1020).