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The bottom line is that the values we think are timeless and absolute are really in constant historical flux relative to who has power and how it gets used.

— Daniel Martin Klein Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar – Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes (2007)

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More quotes by Daniel Martin Klein

One criterion to bear in mind when choosing a religion is where its particular afterlife is being held.

Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates – Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterl (2009)

A perennial favorite hidden assumption is that something is morally right because it is “natural,” the way Mother Nature intended it.

Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington – Understanding Political Doublespeak through Philosophy and Jokes (2008)

A fundamental problem with arguments from analogy is the assumption that, because some aspects of A are similar to B, other aspects of A are similar to B. It ain’t necessarily so.

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar – Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes (2007)

Another problem with following Divine Law is interpretation. What exactly qualifies as honoring thy father and mother?

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar – Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes (2007)

It is often said that all of life is high school—over and over again. But we beg to differ, at least when it comes to political rhetoric, where a good part of life is grade school.

Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington – Understanding Political Doublespeak through Philosophy and Jokes (2008)

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The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.

Martin Buber What is Man? (1938)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Attribution

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