“We need a laissez faire that will hold fast to the ends of autonomy and freedom of choice; one that will begin not with the imaginary, abstract individual but with the personalities of human beings as they are actually given… — 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 ineradicable characteristics of individuals qualities that were in fact inseparable from social groups. As a policy it failed because its atomistic propositions were inevitably unavailing against the reality of enlarging masses of insecure individuals. Far from… — 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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“Culture does not exist autonomously; it is set always in the context of social relationships.” — Robert A. Nisbet Copy Share Image
