Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
There is only one basic human right: the right to do as you please, without causing others harm. With it comes our only basic human duty: the duty to accept the consequences of our actions.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes individual freedom coupled with personal responsibility.
P. J. O'Rourke's quote highlights the fundamental human right to act freely, provided that these actions do not harm others. It suggests that while we have the liberty to make our own choices, we also bear the responsibility for the outcomes of those choices, emphasizing a balance between freedom and accountability in human behavior.
Themes
FreedomResponsibilityConsequencesRightsDuty
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion on personal freedoms at a community meeting.
More from P. J. O'Rourke
All quotes →Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
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Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
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I spend my days kneeling in the muck of language, feeling around for gooey verbs, nouns, and modifiers that I can squash together to make a blob of a sentence that bears some likeness to reason and sense.
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Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
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The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.
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