“We have forgotten that the prosperity, safety, life expectancy, stability and freedoms we enjoy did not just fall out of the sky. They were built, over centuries, on philosophical and moral foundations that have withstood the test of time. They were defended over and over again by our ancestors who bled to defend them. They were refined in the crucible of fierce political and ideological debates.”
― An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West
― An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West
“We must live in stories. It must be a path we walk, part of the glue that holds us together. Individuals must unite themselves to a body well-formed in love so that we grow up into the logos himself, who is the head. Without that extra step, we will ultimately be dispersed like smoke like wax before the fire.”
―
―
“Public opinion! I don’t know how sociologists define it, but it seems obvious to me that it can only consist of interacting individual opinions, freely expressed and independent of government or party opinion. So long as there is no independent public opinion in our country, there is no guarantee that the extermination of millions and millions for no good reason will not happen again, that it will not begin any night – perhaps this very night.”
― The Gulag Archipelago
― The Gulag Archipelago
“The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
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―
“Freedom, human rights, tolerance, peace and prosperity are like the eternal flame that must be guarded, nurtured and never, ever taken for granted.”
― An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West
― An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West
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