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The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained QUOTES

The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained QUOTES

1 " Thomas Aquinas put forward the basis of modern just war theory, suggesting that war cannot be fought for personal gain and must be waged by a legitimate body, and that the overriding motive must be to secure peace. "

― , The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

2 " US linguist and political philosopher Noam Chomsky’s view is that in most countries a wealthy minority controls the key social and political institutions, such as the mass media and the financial system, ensuring that the functioning of modern society favors a powerful elite. In turn, this means that dissent and meaningful change are nearly impossible, because the dominant institutional structures in society—from newspapers to banks—focus on maintaining their positions to their mutual benefit. "

― , The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

3 " Human beings must understand that they only inhabit, rather than own, the Earth, and that only resources that satisfy vital means must be used. "

― , The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

4 " The revolutions in France and North America near the end of the 18th century were founded on liberal ideas. In fact, Thomas Jefferson, one of the architects of the American Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, revered Locke, and used many of his phrases in the founding documents. The emphasis on protection of “life, liberty, or property” found in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, and the inalienable rights to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” in the Declaration can all be traced directly back to John Locke’s philosophy a century earlier. "

― , The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

5 " Part of the problem of poverty, he felt, lay in stereotyping the poor as idle. He suggested that prevailing attitudes had meant that “economic status was considered the measure of the individual’s abilities and talents” and that “the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fibre. "

― , The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

6 " Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity, according to its very notion, that causes peace." Thomas Aquinas "

― , The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

7 " You are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the Earth belong to us all, and the Earth itself to nobody." Jean-Jacques Rousseau "

― , The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

8 " Rousseau’s autobiographical Confessions, published after his death, reveal that it was during his time in the Italian island-port of Venice—while working as an underpaid ambassadorial secretary—that he decided “everything depends entirely on politics.” People were not inherently evil, but could become so under evil governments. The virtues he saw in Geneva, and the vices in Venice—in particular, the sad decline of the city-state from its glorious past—could be traced not to human character, but to human institutions. "

― , The Politics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained