Mortimer Adler Quotes
The basic natural right that a just society of government should try to secure - and aid or abet -- for every individual is not, and cannot be, the right to happiness, but is rather the right to its pursuit.
Mortimer Adler, 1902-2001, Philosopher, Educator, & Editor, The Time of Our Lives, 1996
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Jefferson had deliberately modified John Locke’s phrase “life, liberty and property.
Cochrane became the Admiral in Chief of 2 Different South American Nations—Peru and Brazil—fighting for their independence. Incredibly enough, he was able to form idealistic freedom fighters with no naval experience into navies which defeated both the Spanish and Portuguese fleets at a time when those countries had world class navies. His achievements on behalf of the South Americans are often regarded as the most remarkable naval achievements in history.
This quotation has been used by gay rights advocates. Opponents argue that a gay lifestyle is not “innocent” in that it is Biblically prohibited. This brings the issue of separation of church and state into the argument.
Hayward claimed that Wilson was the first American President who ever criticized the American Constitution. Many do not agree as Madison and Jefferson in part, along with most other Americans, found the Constitution so wanting that it was ratified only on condition of the passage of the Bill of Rights. Jackson, was distressed by the limitations on the President and many others had their objections, but Wilson, before he became a politician was a prominent academic political scientist and wrote voluminously and had an intellectual following so his criticism was not considered so “political” as others.
Rights belong to the individual according to Rawls, not to the community of subgroups. Justice demands that the rights of the individual may not be sacrificed for the supposed benefit of the community or entire society. Not all agree with this, but it tends to differentiate Western cultural values from most others in the world where group, community or national benefit
She herself was an advocate for monogamy, but was opposed to the state or society interfering with anyone who chose differently. There was no position she advocated that was opposed and ridiculed more than this one. And her tying the Constitution to sexual freedom was itself considered not only whacky, but obscene and an insult to the Constitution and nation itself. The advocacy of the right of interracial marriage was as shocking as anything could be in those days. What would have surprised all those who derided her the most was that her sexual demands in toto became the law of the land and today, any government action to the contrary would shock and alarm most Americans.
It was drafted by John Adams. 9 Years later the French in their Revolution used the first clause in their Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen—See Quotation 602404 For an opposite point of view see Quotation 635927.
Although written in 1770, it was not formally published and available until 1774
Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, encyclopedist, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for long stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California. He taught at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, served as chairman of the Encyclopædia Britannica Board of Editors, and founded his own Institute for Philosophical Research.
