There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.
When there is state there can be no freedom, but when there is freedom there will be no state.
We have to recognize that the freedom of the individual has to be protected not only from the power of the state, but even more so from economic and societal power.
Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.
There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.
A man is truly free, even here in this embodied state, if he knows that God is the true agent and he by himself is powerless to do anything.
While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.