Quotes About Absolutism

If, after all, there is no truth, how could it be true that there is no truth? If there is no absolute morality, how can you condemn the morality of considering my culture better than another? Relativism made no sense, as Shakespeare clearly saw.

The principle of evil in Europe is the enervating spirit of Russian absolutism.

Ivan showed that in his time and place the only antidote to chaos was absolutism.

Mournier defined his own position as one of 'tragic optimism--' a Christian attitude of absolute engagement in the struggles of history, despite the fact that the Absolute cannot be contained in history.

Nazism in politics was a form of statism. In principle, it did not represent a new approach to government; it was a continuation of the political absolutism—the absolute monarchies, the oligarchies, the theocracies, the random tyrannies—which has characterized most of human history.

Qua dogmatist, the Nazi holds faith to be superior to logic. Qua activist, he dismisses logic in favor of action. Qua pragmatist, he is free to endorse contradictions, provided they "work." Qua relativist, he rejects the absolutism of the Law of Identity. And, qua subjectivist, the Nazi simply wipes out logic by giving its name to his random, "Aryan" feelings.

I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's, but behind all of them, there's only one truth and that is that there's no truth

Philosophically, I believe that libertarianism - and the wider creed of sound individualism of which libertarianism is a part - must rest on absolutism and deny relativism.

Every individual, however original he may be, is still a child of God, of his age, of his nation, of his family and friends. Only thus is he truly himself. If in all this relativity he tries to be the absolute, then he becomes ridiculous.

Unnerved by Miss Salma R's temporal absolutism, the clocks gave up arguing and stopped trying to run the hours in the normal fashion, so that when people looked in their direction to see what the time was, the clocks showed them whatever time they wanted it to be, and in spite of the chronometric havoc that was created by this abdication they still permitted everyone to get home on time.

Je hais, pour ma part, ces systèmes absolus, qui font dépendre tous les événements de l'histoire de quelques causes premières se liant les unes aux autres par une chaîne fatale, et qui suppriment, pour ainsi dire, les hommes de l'histoire du genre humain. Je les trouve étroits dans leur prétendue grandeur, et faux sous leurs airs de vérités mathématiques.

Quand on compare ces vaines apparences de la liberté avec l'impuissance réelle qui y était jointe, on y découvre déjà en petit comment le gouvernement le plus absolu peut se combiner avec quelques-unes des formes de la plus extrême démocraties, de telle sorte qu'à l'oppression vienne encore s'ajouter le ridicule de n'avoir pas l'air de la voir

We humans, through old habits, and because of the inherent structure of human knowledge have a tendency to make static, definite, and, in a way, absolutistic one-valued statements. But when we fight absolutism, we quite often establish, instead, some other dogma equally silly and harmful. For instance, an active atheist is psycho-logically as unsound as a rabid theist.

I had been struck by the analogy between neurosis and romanticism. Romanticism was truly a parallel to neurosis. It demanded of reality an illusory world, love, an absolute which it could never obtain, and thus destroyed itself by the dream.

I have shown you how Machiavelli supplied the immoral theory needful for the consummation of royal absolutism; the absolute oligarchy of Venice required the same assurance against the revolt of conscience. It was provided by a writer as able as Machiavelli, who analyzed the wants and resources of aristocracy, and made known that its best security is poison.

The average citizen is the world's most efficient censor. His own mind is the greatest barrier between him and the facts. His own "logic-proof compartments," his own absolutism are the obstacles which prevent him from seeing in terms of experience and thought rather than in terms of group reaction.

Il faut beaucoup de scepticisme pour se satisfaire de ce qui est. Les amants de l'absolu ne rejettent ce qui est que par une croyance éperdue en ce qui n'est peut-être pas

She takes after Laura in that respect: the same tendency towards absolutism, the same refusal to compromise, the same scorn for the grosser human failings. To get away with that, you have to be beautiful. Otherwise it seems mere peevishness.

Democracy, then, in the centralizing, pattern-making, absolutist shape which we have given to it is, it is clear, the time of tyranny's incubation.

The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water

Any love is enveloping and potentially dangerous; after all, you are putting your heart into someone else's hands and with that an incredible power to cause pain of various kinds (and vice versa). That's a given. But there is an additional absolutism about first love, when you have nothing to compare it with. You don't know anything, yet you feel you know everything -- this can be calamitous.

A second appeal of relativism comes from the way it is presented. Frequently relativism is presented as though it and its opposite, absolutism, are the only two valid alternatives.

George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism.

Rome was not simply the thuggish younger sibling of classical Greece, committed to engineering, military efficiency and absolutism, whereas the Greeks preferred intellectual inquiry, theatre and democracy.