Tag: Quotes

Ida B. Wells On Gun Ownership

Occasionally, I see pro-gun folks share a truncated version of an Ida B. Wells quote. The full quote is interesting, but something I doubt the current incarnation of the National Rifle Association will be heralding anytime soon.

Of the many inhuman outrages of this present year, the only case where the proposed lynching did not occur, was where the men armed themselves in Jacksonville, Fla., and Paducah, Ky, and prevented it. The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.

The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.

-Ida B. Wells, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, 1892

What Is The Use of Living . . .

What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.

-Winston Churchill, Speech at Kinnaird Hall, Dundee, Scotland, October 10, 1908

Bertrand Russell On The Difference Between Liberalism And Illiberalism

The fundamental difference between the liberal and the illiberal outlook is that the former regards all questions as open to discussion and all opinions as open to a greater or lesser measure of doubt, while the latter holds in advance that certain opinions are absolutely unquestionable, and that no argument against them must be allowed be heard. What is curious about this position is the belief that if impartial investigation were permitted it would lead men to the wrong conclusion, and that ignorance is, therefore, the only safeguard against error. This point of view cannot be accepted by any man who wishes reason rather than prejudice to govern human action.

-Bertrand Russell, “Freedom and the Colleges,” The American Mercury, May 1940, pp. 24-33.