Robert A. Nisbet

“The old laissez faire failed because it was based on erroneous premises regarding human behavior. As a theory it failed because it…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“I believe it was Napoleon who first sensed the ease with which, in modern society, the illusion of freedom can be created…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“Not the free individual but the lost individual; not Independence but isolation; not self-discovery but self-obsession; not the conquer but to be…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“In a highly popular statement, we are told that the family has progressed from institution to companionship. But, as Ortega y Gasset…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“A sense of the past is far more basic to the maintenance of freedom than hope for the future. The former is…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“The greatest intellectual and moral offense the modern intellectual can be found guilty of is that of seeming to think or act…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“The historical emphasis upon the individual has been at the expense of the associative and symbolic relationship that must in fact uphold…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“Other and more powerful forms of association have existed, but the major moral and psychological influences on the individual’s life have emanated…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“Marxism, like all other totalitarian movements in our century, must be seen as kind of secular pattern of redemption , designed to…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“We need a laissez faire that will hold fast to the ends of autonomy and freedom of choice; one that will begin…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“Genuine freedom is not based upon the negative psychology of release. Its roots are in positive acts of dedication to ends and…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“Culture does not exist autonomously; it is set always in the context of social relationships.”

— Robert A. Nisbet

“We may regard totalitarianism as a process of the annihilation of individuality, but, in more fundamental terms, it is the annihilation, first,…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“If all human beings in a population either are declared equal in their native strengths and rights, or else are persuaded to…

— Robert A. Nisbet

“The idea of decline is no more, no less, correct than the idea of progress. History is neither progress nor decline alone.…

— Robert A. Nisbet