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No theory is too false, no fable too absurd, no superstition too degrading for acceptance when it has become embedded in common belief. Men will submit themselves to torture and to death, mothers will immolate [burn] their children at the bidding of beliefs they thus accept.

Henry George

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Henry George
Age: 58 †
Born: 1839
Born: September 2
Died: 1897
Died: October 29
Economist
Editor
Journalist
Philosopher
Politician
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Belief
Beliefs
Fables
Common
Absurd
Embedded
Faith
Acceptance
Superstition
Death
False
Superstitions
Mother
Thus
Submit
Become
Accept
Mothers
Fable
Children
Accepting
Burn
Bidding
Men
Theory
Torture
Degrading

More quotes by Henry George

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The ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion to his contribution to the general stock.
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What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.
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Unless there be correct thought, there cannot be any action, and when there is correct thought, right action will follow.
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As man is so constituted that it is utterly impossible for him to attain happiness save by seeking the happiness of others, so does it seem to be of the nature of things that individuals and classes can obtain their own just rights only by struggling for the rights of others.
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How many men are there who fairly earn a million dollars?
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There is danger in reckless change, but greater danger in blind conservatism.
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Blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading protective tariffs are a means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading. What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.
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That which is unjust can really profit no one that which is just can really harm no one.
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It is but a truism that labor is most productive where its wages are largest. Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over.
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The value of a thing is the amount of laboring or work that its possession will save the possessor.
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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.
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The tolerance of wrong dulls our sense of its injustice. Men may become accustomed to theft, murder, even to slavery - that sum of all villainies - so they see no injustice in it, yet that which is unjust is unjust still.
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My primary object is to defend and advance a principle in which I see the only possible relief from much that enthralls and degrades and distorts, turning light to darkness and good to evil, rather than to gage a philosopher or weigh a philosophy. Yet the examination I propose must lead to a decisive judgment upon both.
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What would happen to the individual if all the functions of the body were placed under the control of the consciousness is what would happen to a nation in which all individual activities were directed by government.
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Social progress makes the well-being of all more and more the business of each.
Henry George
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It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly.
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There can be to the ownership of anything no rightful title which is not derived from the title of the producer and does not rest upon the natural right of the man to himself.
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Property in land is as indefensible as property in man.
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Charity is false, futile, and poisonous when offered as a substitute for justice.
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Passing into higher forms of desire, that which slumbered in the plant, and fitfully stirred in the beast, awakes in the man.
Henry George