“If all human beings in a population either are declared equal in their native strengths and rights, or else are persuaded to believe this, then the eventual realization of the hard truth of the matter that no amount of redistribution… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share Image
“The old laissez faire failed because it was based on erroneous premises regarding human behavior. As a theory it failed because it mistook for… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“I believe it was Napoleon who first sensed the ease with which, in modern society, the illusion of freedom can be created by strategic… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“Not the free individual but the lost individual; not Independence but isolation; not self-discovery but self-obsession; not the conquer but to be conquered; these… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“In a highly popular statement, we are told that the family has progressed from institution to companionship. But, as Ortega y Gasset has written,… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“A sense of the past is far more basic to the maintenance of freedom than hope for the future. The former is concrete and… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“The greatest intellectual and moral offense the modern intellectual can be found guilty of is that of seeming to think or act outside what… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“The historical emphasis upon the individual has been at the expense of the associative and symbolic relationship that must in fact uphold the individual’s… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“Other and more powerful forms of association have existed, but the major moral and psychological influences on the individual’s life have emanated from the… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“Marxism, like all other totalitarian movements in our century, must be seen as kind of secular pattern of redemption , designed to bring hope… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“We need a laissez faire that will hold fast to the ends of autonomy and freedom of choice; one that will begin not with… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“Genuine freedom is not based upon the negative psychology of release. Its roots are in positive acts of dedication to ends and values. Freedom… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“Culture does not exist autonomously; it is set always in the context of social relationships.” — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“We may regard totalitarianism as a process of the annihilation of individuality, but, in more fundamental terms, it is the annihilation, first, of those… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“If all human beings in a population either are declared equal in their native strengths and rights, or else are persuaded to believe this,… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
“The idea of decline is no more, no less, correct than the idea of progress. History is neither progress nor decline alone. It is… — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share
