Category Archives: Quotations Freedom

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it …

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again. Thomas Paine
Age of Reason. Part ii. note. (Probably this is the original of Napoleon’s celebrated mot, ‘Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas’ (From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step).) 1737-1809.

Money is preferable to politics. It is the difference between being free …

Money is preferable to politics. It is the difference between being free to be anybody you want and to vote for anybody you want. And money is more effective than politics both in solving problems and in providing individual independence. To rid ourselves of all the trouble in the world, we need to make money. And to make money, we need to be free. P. J. O’Rourke

Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character …

Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil. It is obvious who profits and who loses by such a precept. It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men’s virtues and from condemning men’s vices. When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you – whom do you betray and whom do you encourage? Ayn Rand
VOS, (1905-1982)