January 2012
“A standing army, for instance, is incompatible with freedom; because subordination and rigour are the very sinews of military discipline; and despotism is necessary to give vigour to enterprises that one will directs. A spirit inspired by romantic notions of honour, a kind of morality founded on the fashion of the age, can only be felt by a few officers, whilst the main body must be moved by command, like the waves of the sea; for the strong wind of authority pushes the crowd of subalterns forward, they scarcely know or care why, with headlong fury.”
—Mary Wollstonecraft
“You are a slave. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind…That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers,carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”
—Morpheus
“I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.”
—Charlie Chaplin
“Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?”
—Blaise Pascal
