开卷有益

In the previous post, I said: "READ".

Read what, you may ask?

Here's some recommendation - how about the life, work and words of the following people?

"There is a kind of dictatorship that can come about through a creeping paralysis of thought, readiness to accept paternalistic measures by government, and along with those measures comes a surrender of our own responsibilities and therefore a surrender of our own thought over our own lives and our own right to exercise the vote. The free system gives the right to every citizen to do something for himself. Because he has the right, the opportunity is always there" - General Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th US president, Supreme Allied Commander in WW II, Europe.


"We cannot possibly reconcile the principle of democracy, which means cooperation, with the principle of governmental omniscience under which everyone waits for an order before doing anything. That way lies loss of freedom, and dictatorship" - Lewis H. Brown


"A free market includes the free exchange of views, the ability to read what people write, regardless of what their views are, the whole area of freedom of speech, of religion, of discussion, of the press, is really an aspect of a free market. It is an area in which individuals should be free to cooperate with one another, to exchange views, to say what they believe."- Milton Friedman, 1912-2006.


"The history of mankind is a history of the subjugation and exploitation of a great majority of people by an elite few by what has been appropriately termed the 'ruling class'. The ruling class has many manifestations. It can take the form of a religious orthodoxy, a monarchy, a dictatorship of the proletariat, outright fascism, or, in the case of the United States, corporate statism. In each instance the ruling class relies on academics, scholars and 'experts' to legitimize and provide moral authority for its hegemony over the masses". - Ed Crane


"It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own" - Herbert Clark Hoover (1874 - 1964)


You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on." - Harry Truman

"The best test of a civilised society
is the way in which
it treats its most vulnerable and weakest members."
-Mahatma Gandhi

What the people really want to hear is the truth.
It is the exciting thing - to speak the truth."
- Winston Churchill

Don't say I bias hor. Here's a quote from LKY for comparision:

"I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters - who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think." - Lee Kuan Yew, 1987


How is he, compared to the rest?

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - CS Lewis

When you have an efficient government,
you have a dictatorship".
- Harry S. Truman, 33rd US president:

"When dictatorship is a fact,
revolution becomes a right".
- Victor Hugo

And I reserve the best for the last:

"You can't get rich in politics,
unless you're a crook."
- Harry S Truman

Human Battery: 开卷有益!