Samizdata

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an in tolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer!
-Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

Every age has a language of its own; and the difference in the words is often far greater than in the thoughts. The main employment of authors, in their collective capacity, is to translate the thoughts of other ages into the language of their own.
– Augustus Hare, Guesses at Truth (1827)

The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority.
– Henrik Ibsen, in An Enemy of the People

Because in the end, even Germaine Greer calls the cops, not Simone de Beauvoir, when she’s personally, physically threatened in the real world.
– Jack Robertson

Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign
– John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

To understand one woman is not necessarily to understand any other woman
– John Stuart Mill