John Ralston Saul Quotes - Page 3

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• Humanism: an exaltation of freedom, but one limited by our need to exercise it as an integral part of nature and society.

  John Ralston Saul

  Exercise, Humanity, Exaltation

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.165, Simon and Schuster

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• If allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is after all not a natural state.

  John Ralston Saul

  Running, Democracy, Natural

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• Moral crusade: Public activity undertaken by middle-aged men who are cheating on their wives or diddling little boys. Moral crusades are particularly popular among those seeking power for their own personal pleasure, politicians who can't think of anything useful to do with their mandates, and religious professionals suffering from a personal inability to communicate with their god.

  John Ralston Saul

  Cheating, Religious, Boys

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.

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• Love: A term which has no meaning if defined.

  John Ralston Saul

  Term, Defined, Ifs

  John Ralston Saul (2002). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.194, Simon and Schuster

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• Rights are a protection from society. But only by fulfilling their obligations to society can the individual give meaning to that protection.
  (V - From Ideology Towards Equilibrium)

  John Ralston Saul

  Rights, Giving, Protection

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• Venereal: From Venus, the goddess of love, this word refers to the reality of desire. With the rise of Protestantism and science, the word disease was tacked on in a revealing combination of categorization and moralizing. Which disease? The disease of love.

  John Ralston Saul

  Reality, Desire, Disease

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.303, Simon and Schuster

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• They (the novelists) became the voice of the citizen against the ubiquitous raison d'état, which reappeared endlessly to justify everything from unjust laws and the use of child labour to incompetent generalship and inhuman conditions on warships.
  The themes they popularized have gradually turned into the laws which, for all their flaws, have improved the state of man.

  John Ralston Saul

  Children, Men, Voice

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• McDonald's is the ultimate symbol of passive conformity.

  John Ralston Saul

  Mcdonalds, Conformity, Passive

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• Content is an obstacle to the exercise of power.

  John Ralston Saul

  Exercise, Obstacles

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul. Chapter "Triumph of the Will", 1994.

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• The most powerful force possessed by the individual citizen is her own government. ... Government is the only organized mechanism that makes possible that level of shared disinterest known as the public good.

  John Ralston Saul

  Powerful, Government, Individuality

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.74, Simon and Schuster

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• In the humanist ideal, the mainstream is where interesting debate, the generating of new ideas and creativity take place. In rational society this mainstream is considered uncontrollable and is therefore made marginal. The centre ground is occupied instead by structures and courtiers.

  John Ralston Saul

  Creativity, Ideas, Interesting

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.

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• Only when God was said to have died did various leaders, professions and sectors risk pushing themselves forward as successors.

  John Ralston Saul

  Leader, Risk, Pushing

  John Ralston Saul (2005). “The collapse of globalism: and the reinvention of the world”

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• Canada is either an idea or it does not exist. It is either an intellectual undertaking or it is little more than a resource-rich vacuum lying in the buffer zone just north of a great empire.

  John Ralston Saul

  Lying, Ideas, Intellectual

  "Reflections of a Siamese Twin". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1997.

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• Myrmecophaga jubata: The anteater. The existence of this predator demonstrates that thinking 71 percent of the time, as ants do, won't prevent you from being eaten. Thinking less than that, as humans do, will almost guarantee it.

  John Ralston Saul

  Thinking, Guarantees, Predator

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.

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• Faith: The opposite of dogmatism.

  John Ralston Saul

  Opposites, Dogmatism

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.

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• Bankers - pillars of society who are going to hell if there is a God and He has been accurately quoted.

  John Ralston Saul

  If There Is A God, Political, Bankers

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

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• In general, democracy and individualism have advanced in spite of and often against specific economic interest. Both democracy and individualism have been based upon financial sacrifice, not gain. Even in Athens, a large part of the 7,000 citizens who participated regularly in assemblies were farmers who had to give up several days' work to go into town to talk and listen.

  John Ralston Saul

  Giving Up, Sacrifice, Democracy

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• Freedom - an occupied space which must be reoccupied every day.

  John Ralston Saul

  Space

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.139, Simon and Schuster

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• Obviously we don't have 300 million people. We haven't got a big army. We don't have Hollywood. We're a medium small-sized country. We have to do what medium small-sized countries do, which-even though we're not smarter than other people-is to make ourselves seem to be smarter. We have to work harder and know more than other people.

  John Ralston Saul

  Country, Hard Work, Army

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• A commercial civilization is money-oriented, profit-oriented. Commercial values always tend to wrench a society free of tradition.Economics from education to public service is being reorganized on the self-destructive basis of self-interest.

  John Ralston Saul

  Self, Civilization, Tradition

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• The Unconscious Civilisation There is a certain terrifying dignity to the big ideologies. With the stroke of an intellectual argument the planet is put in its place. Only the bravest or the most foolish of individuals would not become passive before such awe inspiring destinies.

  John Ralston Saul

  Destiny, Political, Intellectual

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• A foreigner is an individual who is considered either comic or sinister. When the victim of a disaster - preferably natural but sometimes political -the foreigner may also be pitied from a distance for a short period of time.

  John Ralston Saul

  Distance, Political, May

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• Freud, Sigmund: A man so dissatisfied with his own mother and father that he devoted his life to convincing everyone who would listen — or better still, talk — that their parents were just as bad.

  John Ralston Saul

  Mother, Father, Men

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.

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• Dictionary: Opinion presented as truth in alphabetical order.

  John Ralston Saul

  Teacher, Teaching, Order

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.105, Simon and Schuster

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• It is the considered opinion of most members of our rational élites that, in any given difference of opinion with reality, reality is wrong.

  John Ralston Saul

  Reality, Differences, Opinion

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.249, Simon and Schuster

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