Absolutism Quotes - Page 3

• For now, decisions are upon us and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Names, Decision

  Second Presidential Inaugural Address, delivered 21 January 2013, Washington, D.C.

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• We learned long ago that liberty could be preserved only by limiting in some way the freedom of action of individuals; that otherwise liberty would necessarily yield to absolutism; and in the same way we have learned that unless there be regulation of competition, its excesses will lead to the destruction of competition, and monopoly will take its place.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Yield, Long Ago, Competition

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• The uniting of Orthodoxy with state absolutism came about on the soil of a non-belief in the Divineness of the earth, in the earthly future of mankind; Orthodoxy gave away the earth into the hands of the state because of its own non-belief in man and mankind, because of its nihilistic attitude towards the world. Orthodoxy does not believe in the religious ordering of human life upon the earth, and it compensates for its own hopeless pessimism by a call for the forceful ordering of it by state authority.

  Nikolai Berdyaev

  Religious, Attitude, Believe

  "Nihilism On A Religious Soil". Short story by Nikolai Berdyaev, May 6, 1907.

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• We had principles in mathematics that were granted to be absolute in mathematics for over 800 years, but new science has gotten rid of those absolutism, gotten forward other different logics of looking at mathematics, and sort of turned the way we look at it as a science altogether after 800 years.

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

  Years, Way, Principles

  "President Ahmadinejad Delivers Remarks at Columbia University". www.washingtonpost.com. September 24, 2007.

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• For centuries it was never discovered that education was a function of the State, and the State never attempted to educate. But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power....When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion.

  Lord Acton

  Children, Government, Opposites

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• The man of authentic self-confidence is the man who relies on the judgment of his own mind. Such a man is not malleable; he may be mistaken, he may be fooled in a given instance, but he is inflexible in regard to the absolutism of reality, i.e., in seeking and demanding truth.

  Ayn Rand

  Confidence, Self Esteem, Men

  AYN RAND “THE NEW LEFT: THE ANTI-INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION”

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• Not only was one cartoonist gunned down, but riots erupted around the world, resulting in the deaths of scores. No one could say toward what positive social end, yet free-speech absolutists were unchastened.

  Garry Trudeau

  World, Speech, Social

  Garry Trudeau's George Polk Awards Speech, www.washingtonpost.com. April 14, 2015.

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• Moral relativism says morality is relative, not absolute, I want to show moral relativism, in its popular form, is logically incoherent.

  Peter Kreeft

  Want, Morality, Form

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• As liberals, men like Richter viewed socialism as the great modern counter-revolution, and believed that the achievement of the socialist goal would lead both to appalling poverty and state absolutism. There was nothing in the socialist doctrine of the time that would suggest otherwise.

  Ralph Raico

  Philosophy, Men, Goal

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• If we move in the direction of biblial absolutism how can we escape turning the New Testament into a Christian Torah and the gospel into a new law? Once we do that, religious fascism with all its sectarian ugliness cannot be far away. Far better a mistaken Christian (a heretic) who has somehow caught the Spirit of Christ, than an orthodox Protestant who thinks that the Spirit is mediated to him through the letter of correct theology.

  Robert D. Brinsmead

  Bible, Christian, Religious

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