I was reading the book Boomerang by Michael Lewis where he talks about the crazy financial decisions that were made in countries like Iceland, Greece and Ireland, when I read this quote and thought I should share it:
Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality and anarchy as progress.
- Isocrates (436-338 BC)
Kind of true....right?
See: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isocrates
ReplyDeleteA falsified quote invented during the 2010 financial crisis. [1] Isocrates' actual, more nuanced, quote runs as follows:
Those who directed the state in the time of Solon and Cleisthenes did not establish a polity which ... trained the citizens in such fashion that they looked upon insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality, and licence to do what they pleased as happiness, but rather a polity which detested and punished such men and by so doing made all the citizens better and wiser.
Areopagiticus, 7.20 (Norlin)
Thanks for the info!
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