Donald W. Livingston Quotes & Sayings

But further, Hobbesian individualism required that traditional independent social authorities be eliminated or suppressed. Benjamin Constant, who was a keen observer of the French Revolution, explained why: "The interests and memories which spring from local customs contain a germ of resistance which is so distasteful to authority that it hastens to uproot it. Authority finds private individuals easier game: its enormous weight can flatten them out effortlessly as if they were so much sand. — Donald W. Livingston