Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943), Statement Of Obligations
Kontext: The human soul has need of consented obedience and of liberty.
Consented obedience is what one concedes to an authority because one judges it to be legitimate. It is not possible in relation to a political power established by conquest or coup d'etat nor to an economic power based upon money.
Liberty is the power of choice within the latitude left between the direct constraint of natural forces and the authority accepted as legitimate. The latitude should be sufficiently wide for liberty to be more than a fiction, but it should include only what is innocent and should never be wide enough to permit certain kinds of crime.
„Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery.“
— William Penn English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania 1644 - 1718
As quoted in Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn : Who Settled the State of Pennsylvania, and Founded the City of Philadelphia (1827) by S. C. Stevens, p. 117
„The human soul has need of truth and of freedom of expression.“
— Simone Weil French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist 1909 - 1943
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943), Statement Of Obligations
Kontext: The human soul has need of truth and of freedom of expression.
The need for truth requires that intellectual culture should be universally accessible, and that it should be able to be acquired in an environment neither physically remote nor psychologically alien.
— Simone Weil French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist 1909 - 1943
Quelle: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Needs of the Soul (1949), p. 97
„Religion is a need of the human soul.“
— Hazrat Inayat Khan Indian Sufi 1882 - 1927
Vol. IX - The Unity of Religious Ideals, Part I : Seeking for the Ideal http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/IX/IX_5.htm.
The Spiritual Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Kontext: Religion is a need of the human soul. In all periods and at every stage of the evolution of humanity there has been a religion which people followed, for at every period the need for religion has been felt. The reason is that the soul of man has several deep desires, and these desires are answered by religion.
The first desire is the search for the ideal. There comes a time when man seeks for a more complete justice than he finds among men, and when he seeks for someone on whom he can rely more surely than he can on his friends in the world. There comes a time when man feels a desire to open his heart to a Being who is above human beings and who can understand his heart.
— Henri Barbusse French novelist 1873 - 1935
Light (1919), Ch. XX The Cult
Kontext: If, from the idea of motherland, you take away covetousness, hatred, envy and vainglory; if you take away from it the desire for predominance by violence, what is there left of it?
It is not an individual unity of laws; for just laws have no colors. It is not a solidarity of interests, for there are no material national interests — or they are not honest. It is not a unity of race; for the map of the countries is not the map of the races. What is there left?
There is left a restricted communion, deep and delightful; the affectionate and affecting attraction in the charm of a language — there is hardly more in the universe besides its languages which are foreigners — there is left a personal and delicate preference for certain forms of landscape, of monuments, of talent. And even this radiance has its limits. The cult of the masterpieces of art and thought is the only impulse of the soul which, by general consent, has always soared above patriotic littlenesses.
— Simone Weil French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist 1909 - 1943
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943), Statement Of Obligations
Kontext: The human soul has need of disciplined participation in a common task of public value, and it has need of personal initiative within this participation.
The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other extreme evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul.
— John Adams 2nd President of the United States 1735 - 1826
No. 7
1770s, Novanglus essays (1774–1775)
— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. United States Supreme Court justice 1841 - 1935
Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U.S. 22, 31 (1922).
1920s
„The human soul needs beauty more than bread.“
— D.H. Lawrence English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter 1885 - 1930
— Harry V. Jaffa American historian and collegiate professor 1918 - 2015
2000s, The Central Idea (2006)
Kontext: The equality of mankind is best understood in light of a two-fold inequality. The first is the inequality of mankind and of the subhuman classes of living beings that comprise the order of nature. Dogs and horses, for example, are naturally subservient to human beings. But no human being is naturally subservient to another human being. No human being has a right to rule another without the other's consent. The second is the inequality of man and God. As God's creatures, we owe unconditional obedience to His will. By that very fact however we do not owe such obedience to anyone else. Legitimate political authority—the right of one human being to require obedience of another human being—arises only from consent. The fundamental act of consent is, as the 1780 Massachusetts Bill of Rights states, "a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole people that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good." The "certain laws for the common good" have no other purpose but to preserve and protect the rights that each citizen possesses prior to government, rights with which he or she has been "endowed by their Creator." The rights that governments exist to secure are not the gift of government. They originate in God.
„To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.“
— Simone Weil French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist 1909 - 1943
„Humanity has gained its suit; Liberty will nevermore be without an asylum.“
— Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette French general and politician 1757 - 1834
Letter to friends (1780), published in Memoirs de La Fayette Vol. II, p. 50, quoted in Martin's History of France : The Decline of the French Monarchy (1866) by Henri Martin, Vol. II, p. 418
Variant translations:
Humanity has gained its suit : Liberty will never more be without an asylum.
As quoted in Oration on the Hundredth Anniversary of the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis to the Combined Forces of America and France: At Yorktown, Virginia, 19th October, 1781: Delivered at Yorktown, 19th October, 1881 (1881), by Robert Charles Winthrop, p. 53
Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.
As quoted in French Contributions to America (1945) by Edward Fecteau
Humanity has won its suit and liberty will never more want an asylum.
As quoted in Journal of Proceedings and Addresses (1891) by National Educational Association, p. 107
— John of St. Samson 1571 - 1636
From, Light on Carmel: An Anthology from the Works of Brother John of Saint Samson, O.Carm.
— Sören Kierkegaard Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism 1813 - 1855
(20 November 1847)
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s
Kontext: What the age needs is not a genius — it has had geniuses enough, but a martyr, who in order to teach men to obey would himself be obedient unto death. What the age needs is awakening. And therefore someday, not only my writings but my whole life, all the intriguing mystery of the machine will be studied and studied. I never forget how God helps me and it is therefore my last wish that everything may be to his honour.
— Samuel Adams American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher 1722 - 1803
The Rights of the Colonists (1772)
„The human body as an obedient coolie, to be fed and hosed down“
— J. G. Ballard, buch Super-Cannes
"Dr. Wilder Penrose"
Super-Cannes (2000)
Kontext: The human body as an obedient coolie, to be fed and hosed down, and given just enough sexual freedom to sedate itself.
„The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.“
— William Hazlitt English writer 1778 - 1830
"On Going on a Journey"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)
— John Allen Fraser Canadian politician 1931
Quelle: The House Of Commons At Work (1993), Chapter 1, The System of Government, p. 4
