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"The politics of surprise leads through the Gates of Astonishment into the Kingdom of Hope."
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"The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. Many politicians promise green, green grass by blending niceties with delusion and by using alluring confidence tricks. They voice attractive tales and tell things, people like to hear. But the post-factual grassland often appears to be parched and barren. ['The grass was greener over there']"
"The most courageous act in politics is to try to understand your opponent."
"A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts."
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
"Very few USA citizens realize that the USA corporate military is regarded by many to be both a domestic and international terrorist organization."
"A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor."
"Both political parties have moved to the right during the neoliberal period. Today's New Democrats are pretty much what used to be called "moderate Republicans. The "political revolution that Bernie Sanders called for, rightly, would not have greatly surprised Dwight Eisenhower.The fate of the minimum wage illustrates what has been happening. Through the periods of high and egalitarian growth in the '50s and '60s, the minimum wage-which sets a floor for other wages-tracked productivity. That ended with the onset of neoliberal doctrine. Since then, the minimum wage has stagnated (in real value). Had it continued as before, it would probably be close to $20 per hour. Today, it is considered a political revolution to raise it to $15."
"I think maybe the classic formulation was by David Hume in "Of the First Principles of Government," where he pointed out that "Force is always on the side of the governed." Whether it's a military society, a partially free society, or what we - not he - would call a totalitarian state, it's the governed who have the power. And the rulers have to find ways to keep them from using their power. Force has its limits, so they have to use persuasion. They have to somehow find ways to convince people to accept authority. If they aren't able to do that, the whole thing is going to collapse."
Explore more quotes by Max Lerner
"The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea."
"A politician wouldn't dream of being allowed to call a columnist the things a columnist is allowed to call a politician."
"The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations of the victors. History is written by the survivors."
"When evil acts in the world it always manages to find instruments who believe that what they do is not evil but honorable."
"The tourist who moves about to see and hear and open himself to all the influences of the places which condense centuries of human greatness is only a man in search of excellence."
"You may call for peace as loudly as you wish, but where there is no brotherhood there can in the end be no peace."
"The best thing about lying in bed late is that you learn to distinguish between first things and trivia, for whatever presses on you has to prove its importance before it makes you move."
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