These are the latest additions to my commonplace book.
The other important change which my opinions at this time underwent, was that I, for the first time, gave its proper place, among the prime necessities of human well-being, to the internal culture of the individual. I ceased to attach almost exclusive importance to the ordering of outward circumstances, and the training of the human being for speculation and for action.
John Stuart Mill, 1873 from the book Autobiography of John Stuart Mill
What is observed in the human population is that intensification of production to feed and increase the population invariably leads to a still greater increase in population.
Daniel Quinn, 1996 from the novel The Story of B
We deny the right of any portion of the species to decide for another portion, or any individual for another individual, what is and what is not their “proper sphere.” The proper sphere for all human beings is the largest and highest which they are able to attain to. What this is, cannot be ascertained, without complete liberty of choice.
Harriet Taylor, 1851
I shall first consider women in the grand light of human creatures who, in common with men, are placed on this earth to unfold their faculties.
Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792 from the essay “Vindication of the Rights of Women”
The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument hitherto unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1852 from the essay “The Limits of State Action”
Moreover, I would argue that three important concepts that are especially poorly captured by standard economic numbers underlie people’s perceptions of affordability: economic inclusion, security, and fairness. By economic inclusion I mean the ability to purchase the goods and services that allow someone to feel like a member in full standing of American society. By security I mean a feeling based not just on current real income, but also an assurance that severe hardship isn’t just a stretch of bad luck away. Lastly I would also argue that perceptions of affordability are often intertwined with perceptions of fairness: people are especially upset about high prices when they feel that they are being taken advantage of.
Paul Krugman, 2025-11-30 from the blog post “Paul Krugman on Affordability, Part I”
© 2025-11-30 Paul Krugman
There is wide agreement on the basics of the [trust] framework. And what makes it work.
What [Frances] Frei calls “authenticity” could also be called honesty, integrity, or character. When people judge your authenticity, they’re looking at three things! What do you think? What do you say? How do you act? … If I think you are authentic, and you promise to do something, I trust you will do your best to keep your promise. Because that’s what authentic people do.
If “authenticity” is about you, “empathy” is about how you feel about others. Do you care about them? Do you want them to succeed and thrive? Do you really listen to them? If the answer is yes, you are even more trustworthy. Empathy could also be called “benevolence” or “caring.”
The third element, “logic,” is your ability to deliver. It’s one thing to be honest and caring, but delivering on your promises requires more than good intentions. You need whatever it takes — plans, skills, training, experience, whatever — for you to get the job done. “Logic” could also be called “competence” or “capability.”
Jimmy Wales from the book The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last
© Jimmy Wales
People love connecting with other people. We get together, we talk, we imagine. We cooperate and build new things. We form communities. Those communities become part of our individual identities. And none of that requires top-down control and direction. It is simply human nature. It is how our species rolls.
Jimmy Wales, 2025 from the book The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last
© 2025 Jimmy Wales
Conflict of interests and beliefs was, to the liberal mind, inescapable. If tamed and turned to competition in a stable political order, conflict could nevertheless bear fruit as argument, experiment and exchange. … When liberals took conflict for inevitable and competition, its peaceable form, for desirable, they excluded or demoted social virtues that their political rivals favored. To liberals, competition in the town square, laboratory or market place encouraged bargaining, creativity, and initiative, whereas social harmony stifled or silenced them. Conservatives, who saw harmony in tradition, and socialists, who saw harmony in fraternity, were each quick to insist that liberal ideals grossly distorted the true picture of society.
Edmund Fawcett, 2018 from the book Liberalism: The Life of an Idea, 2nd ed.
© 2018 Edmund Fawcett
The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
George Orwell, 1946-03-22 from the essay “In Front of Your Nose”
© 1946-03-22 The Orwell Estate
But what would be the full fruitage of instruction if every child should be schooled till at least his twentieth year, and should find free access to the universities, libraries, and museums that harbor and offer the intellectual and artistic treasures of the race? Consider education not as the painful accumulation of facts and dates and reigns, nor merely the necessary preparation of the individual to earn his keep in the world, but as the transmission of our mental, moral, technical, and aesthetic heritage as fully as possible to as many as possible, for the enlargement of man’s understanding, control, embellishment, and enjoyment of life.
Will Durant, 1968 from the book The Lessons of History
We have defined civilization as “social order promoting cultural creation.” It is political order secured through custom, morals, and law, and economic order secured through a continuity of production and exchange; it is cultural creation through freedom and facilities for the origination, expression, testing, and fruition of ideas, letters, manners, and arts. It is an intricate and precarious web of human relationships, laboriously built and readily destroyed.
Will Durant, 1968 from the book The Lessons of History
All deductions having been made, democracy has done less harm, and more good, than any other form of government. It gave to human existence a zest and camaraderie that outweighed its pitfalls and defects. It gave to thought and science and enterprise the freedom essential to their operation and growth. It broke down the walls of privilege and class, and in each generation it raised up ability from every rank and place.
Will Durant, 1968 from the book The Lessons of History
Since men love freedom, and the freedom of individuals in society requires some regulation of conduct, the first condition of freedom is its limitation; make it absolute and it dies in chaos. So the prime task of government is to establish order; organized central force is the sole alternative to incalculable and disruptive force in private hands.
Will Durant, 1968 from the book The Lessons of History
The experience of the past leaves little doubt that every economic system must sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity. Substitutes like slavery, police supervision, or ideological enthusiasm prove too unproductive, too expensive, or too transient. Normally and generally men are judged by their ability to produce — except in war, when they are ranked according to their ability to destroy.
Will Durant, 1968 from the book The Lessons of History
Morals are the rules by which a society exhorts (as laws are the rules by which it seeks to compel) its members and associations to behavior consistent with its order, security, and growth. A little knowledge of history stresses the variability of moral codes, and concludes that they are negligible because they differ in time and place, and sometimes contradict each other. A larger knowledge stresses the universality of moral codes, and concludes to their necessity. Moral codes differ because they adjust themselves to historical and environmental conditions.
Will Durant, 1968 from the book The Lessons of History
Evolution in man during recorded time has been social rather than biological: it has proceeded not by heritable variations in the species, but mostly by economic, political, intellectual, and moral innovation transmitted to individuals and generations by imitation, custom, or education. Custom and tradition within a group correspond to type and heredity in the species, and to instincts in the individual; they are ready adjustments to typical and frequently repeated situations. New situations, however, do arise, requiring novel, unstereotyped responses; hence development, in the higher organisms, requires a capacity for experiment and innovation — the social correlates of variation and mutation. Social evolution is an interplay of custom with origination.
Will Durant, 1968 from the book The Lessons of History
“Racial” antipathies have some roots in ethnic origin, but they are also generated, perhaps predominantly, by differences of acquired culture — of language, dress, habits, morals, or religion. There is no cure for such antipathies except a broadened education. A knowledge of history may teach us that civilization is a cooperative product, that nearly all peoples have contributed to it; it is our common heritage and debt; and the civilized soul will reveal itself in treating every man or woman, however lowly, as a representative of one of these creative and contributory groups.
Will Durant, 1968 from the book The Lessons of History
So the first biological lesson of history is that life is competition. Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life — peaceful when food abounds, violent when the mouths outrun the food. Animals eat one another without qualm; civilized men consume one another by due process of law. Cooperation is real, and increases with social development, but mostly because it is a tool and form of competition; we co-operate in our group — our family, community, club, church, party, “race,” or nation — in order to strengthen our group in its competition with other groups. Competing groups have the qualities of competing individuals: acquisitiveness, pugnacity, partisanship, pride.
Will Durant, 1968 from the book The Lessons of History