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Considered now as a possession, one may define culture as the residuum of a large body of useless knowledge that has been well and truly forgotten.
Albert J. Nock
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Albert J. Nock
Age: 74 †
Born: 1870
Born: October 13
Died: 1945
Died: August 19
Autobiographer
Biographer
Essayist
Journalist
Philosopher
Sociologist
Scranton
Pennsylvania
Large
Truly
Knowledge
Culture
Define
Body
Useless
May
Considered
Wells
Possession
Well
Forgotten
More quotes by Albert J. Nock
The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.
Albert J. Nock
Man tends always to satisfy his needs and desires with the least possible exertion.
Albert J. Nock
It would seem that in Paine's view the code of government should be that of the legendary King Pausole, who prescribed but two laws for his subjects, the first being, Hurt no man, and the second, Then do as you please.
Albert J. Nock
Learning has always been made much of, but forgetting has always been deprecated therefore pedantry has pretty well established itself throughout the modern world at the expense of culture.
Albert J. Nock
The idea that the State originated to serve any kind of social purpose is completely unhistorical. It originated in conquest and confiscation - that is to say, in crime. It originated for the purpose of maintaining the division of society into an owning-and-exploiting class and a propertyless dependent class - that is, for a criminal purpose.
Albert J. Nock
When we speak freely, let us speak plainly, for plain speech is wholesome especially, plain speech about public affairs and public men.
Albert J. Nock
The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists the serious student sees in them only one root-idea of a complete conversion of social power into State power.
Albert J. Nock
As far as I know, I have no pride of opinion.
Albert J. Nock
As Dr. Sigmund Freud has observed, it can not even be said that the State has ever shown any disposition to suppress crime, but only to safeguard its own monopoly of crime.
Albert J. Nock
The simple truth is that our businessmen do not want a government that will let business alone. They want a government they can use.
Albert J. Nock
Personal publicity of every kind is utterly distasteful to me, and I have made greater efforts to escape it than most people make to get it.
Albert J. Nock
As a general principle, I should put it that a man's country is where the things he loves are most respected. Circumstances may have prevented his ever setting foot there, but it remains his country.
Albert J. Nock
Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class.
Albert J. Nock
Organized Christianity has always represented immortality as a sort of common heritage but I never could see why spiritual life should not be conditioned on the same terms as all life, i. e., correspondence with environment.
Albert J. Nock
Perhaps the prevalence of pedantry may be largely accounted for by the common error of thinking that, because useful knowledge should be remembered, any kind of knowledge that is at all worth learning should be remembered too.
Albert J. Nock
Assuming that man has a distinct spiritual nature, a soul, why should it be thought unnatural that under appropriate conditions of maladjustment, his soul might die before his body does or that his soul might die without his knowing it?
Albert J. Nock
There's only one way to improve society. Present it with a single improved unit: yourself.
Albert J. Nock
Someone asked me years ago if it were true that I disliked Jews, and I replied that it was certainly true, not at all because they are Jews, but because they are folks, and I don’t like folks.
Albert J. Nock
When a beggar asks us for a quarter, our instinct is to say that the State has already confiscated our quarter for his benefit, and he should go to the State about it.
Albert J. Nock
The only thing that the psychically-human being can do to improve society is to present society with one improved unit.
Albert J. Nock