也是一只自由泳的小鸟
«The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the “liberty of the press” as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear.»
看到 “the time is gone by when any defence would be necessary”,“no argument can now be needed”我大为震撼，这是 1859 的书啊。
#读书 #OnLiberty #论自由
“The people ought to be masters, but they are masters who must employ servants more skillful than themselves”. A main task of democracy becomes therefore the education of the people for the performance of that choice.
«But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.»
«We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.»