I just caught the beginning of this thread (was it yesterday already?) Computer's going out, got the box to send it back in.
I REALLY like that statement: (Is the source noted? I'll check back up the thread to find out.)
"Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self."
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites--in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity;--in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption;--in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite is placed somewhere: and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds can not be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
-- Edmund Burke
Wonderful reminder. Very fitting here. Thanks.
I added both of those quotes to my FReeper page. Thanks for the Burke addition, lj.
Shalom.