Man himself is exalted, and paradoxical though it may seem to be, this means the crushing of man. Man's enslavement is the reverse side of the glory, value, and importance that are ascribed to him. The more a society magnifies human greatness, the more one will see men alienated, enslaved, imprisoned, and tortured, in it. Humanism prepares the ground for the anti-human. We do not say that this is an intellectual paradox. All one need do is read history. Men have never been so oppressed as in societies which set man at the pinnacle of values and exalt his greatness or make him the measure of all things. For in such societies freedom is detached from its purpose, which is, we affirm, the glory of God.
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p. 251Jacques Ellul
» Jacques Ellul - all quotes »
Amazon society, as mythology, history, and universal male nightmare, represents a culture in which women reign culturally supreme because of their gender. Amazon societies are also important because women were trained to be warriors—military and, presumably, in other ways as well.... [¶] In Amazon societies, women were mothers and their society's only warriors; mothers and their society's only hunters; mothers and their society's only political and religious leaders. No division of labor based on sex seems to have existed in such societies. Although Amazon leaders existed and queens were elected, the societies seem to have been ... ones in which any woman could aspire to and achieve full human expression. [¶] In Amazon society, only men, when they were allowed to remain, were, in widely differing degrees, powerless and oppressed.
Phyllis Chesler
History meant nothing, because the only continuity was human stupidity. Oh, there were moments of greatness, of bright deeds, but how long did the light of such glory last? From one breath to the next, aye, and no more than that. No more than that. As for the rest, kick through the bones and wreckage for they are what remain, what lasts until all turn to dust.
Steven Erikson
What does greatness in the presidency mean? It means waging war, crushing liberties, imposing socialism, issuing dictates, browbeating and ignoring Congress, appointing despotic judges, expanding the domestic and global empire, and generally trying his best to be an all-round enemy of freedom. It means saying with Lincoln, 'I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy.'
Lew Rockwell
What do I mean by the Generation of Greatness?
I mean that in this age, in this country, there is an opportunity for the development of man's intellectual, cultural, and spiritual potentialities that has never existed before in the history of our species. I mean not simply an opportunity for greatness for a few, but an opportunity for greatness for the many.Edwin H. Land
That evening he talked about Leonardo and Michelangelo. It is impossible to place them in the human world, he said. It is impossible to comprehend how anything that attests to greatness has survived; it is obviously a result of innumerable chance events and of human incomprehension, he said. If people had understood the greatness of those works, they would have destroyed them long ago. Fortunately, people have lost their flair for greatness and only their flair for murder has persisted, though undoubtedly they have refined the latter, their flair for murder, to an art, almost to point of greatness, he said.
Imre Kertesz‎
Ellul, Jacques
Elst, Koenraad
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