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Full Idea
It is not good to be too free.
Gist of Idea
It is not good to be too free
Source
Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 57 (379))
Book Ref
Pascal,Blaise: 'Pensées', ed/tr. Krailsheimer,A.J. [Penguin 1966], p.45
A Reaction
All Americans, please take note. I agree with this, because I agree with Aristotle that man is essentially a social animal (Idea 5133), and living in a community is a matter of compromise. Extreme libertarianism contradicts our natures, and causes misery.
Related Idea
Idea 5133 Man is by nature a social being [Aristotle]
| 6677 | Imagination creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the supreme good [Pascal] |
| 6678 | We live for the past or future, and so are never happy in the present [Pascal] |
| 6679 | It is not good to be too free [Pascal] |
| 6680 | It is a funny sort of justice whose limits are marked by a river [Pascal] |
| 6681 | We only want to know things so that we can talk about them [Pascal] |
| 6682 | Majority opinion is visible and authoritative, although not very clever [Pascal] |
| 22011 | The first principles of truth are not rational, but are known by the heart [Pascal] |
| 6676 | Painting makes us admire things of which we do not admire the originals [Pascal] |
| 7455 | Pascal knows you can't force belief, but you can make it much more probable [Pascal, by Hacking] |
| 7457 | Pascal is right, but relies on the unsupported claim of a half as the chance of God's existence [Hacking on Pascal] |
| 7456 | The libertine would lose a life of enjoyable sin if he chose the cloisters [Hacking on Pascal] |
| 6684 | If you win the wager on God's existence you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing [Pascal] |
| 6675 | The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing [Pascal] |
| 20732 | If man considers himself as lost and imprisoned in the universe, he will be terrified [Pascal] |