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I feel that if I only convince people that the other side is a reasonable position to take, even if they themselves don’t take it, then I’ve been a success.

— Aaron Swartz UTI interview (2004)

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More quotes by Aaron Swartz

With enough of us, around the world, we’ll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we’ll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?

The enemies of the freedom to connect have not disappeared.

Freedom to Connect speech (2012)

There is no justice in following unjust laws.

There are those struggling to change this.

There’s a battle going on right now, a battle to define everything that happens on the Internet in terms of traditional things that the law understands.

Freedom to Connect speech (2012)

All Aaron Swartz quotes →

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We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook (1962)

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

Confucius

Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power.

Martin Buber Between Man and Man (1965)

The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Aaron Swartz (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.