18 quotes
The reality of this world is necessity. The part of man which is in this world is the part which is in bondage to necessity and subject to the misery of need.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
If anyone possesses this faculty, then his attention is in reality directed beyond the world, whether he is aware of it or not.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
The human soul has need of consented obedience and of liberty.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
The needs of the soul can for the most part be listed in pairs of opposites which balance and complete one another.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
This reintegration with the good is what punishment is. Every man who is innocent, or who has finally expiated guilt, needs to be recognized as honourable to the same extent as anyone else.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Any government whose members commit this crime, or authorize it in their subordinates, has betrayed its function.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
If a man has willfully refused to consent, then it is in itself a criminal activity for him to exercise any function, major or minor, public or private, which gives him control over people's lives.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
No combination of circumstances ever cancels this obligation. If there are circumstances which seem to cancel it as regards a certain man or category of men, they impose it in fact all the more imperatively.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
The proportions of good and evil in any society depend partly upon the proportion of consent to that of refusal and partly upon the distribution of power between those who consent and those who refuse.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
It is the aim of public life to arrange that all forms of power are entrusted, so far as possible, to men who effectively consent to be bound by the obligation towards all human beings which lies upon everyone, and who understand the obligation.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Men are unequal in all their relations with the things of this world, without exception. The only thing that is identical in all men is the presence of a link with the reality outside the world.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
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.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
In order to be exercised, the intelligence requires to be free to express itself without control by any authority. There must therefore be a domain of pure intellectual research, separate but accessible to all, where no authority intervenes.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
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.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)