"The day can hardly come when conflicts and rivalries among different religions and parties will end. [...] Even granting that such a world could be realized, it does not seem to us a desirable sort of world. So far in history, freedom to think, to observe, to judge men and things serenely and dispassionately, has been possible—always be it understood, for a few individuals—only in those societies in which numbers of different religious and political currents have been struggling for dominion. That same condition [...] is almost indispensable for the attainment of what is commonly called “political liberty’” — in other words, the highest possible degree of justice in the relations between governors and governed that is compatible with our imperfect human nature. In fact, in societies where choice among a number of religious and political currents has ceased to be possible because one such current has succeeded in gaining exclusive control, the isolated and original thinker has to be silent, and moral and intellectual monopoly is infallibly associated with political monopoly, to the advantage of a caste or of a very few social forces."
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Politicians from ItalyPhilosophers from ItalyJournalists from ItalySociologists from ItalyJurists from Italy
Original Language: English
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gaetano_Mosca
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Gaetano Mosca
1858 – 1941
Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) was an Italian political scientist, journalist and public servant.
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