John Ralston Saul
Author
1947-06-19
Quotes by John Ralston Saul
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Nothing is absolute, with the debatable exceptions of this statement and death.
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People who believe in freedom of expression have spent several centuries fighting against censorship, in whatever form. We have to be certain the 'Net' doesn't become the site for technological book burning.
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The wild open-market theory that died in 1929 had a run of just over thirty years. Communism, a complete melding of religious, economic, and global theories, stretched to seventy years in Russia and forty-five years in central Europe, thanks precisely to the intensive use of military and police force.
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If you live in a democracy, it's very tiring to be always surrounded by great and high abstract generalisations which are, in fact, the most banal and naive cliches dug out of second-rate movements of the late 19th century.
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For about 125 years, give or take, the Canadian government has acted extremely badly - even in a way which should be called evil - breaking treaties, breaking agreements.
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In the Arctic, the Inuit are saying water and land are the same; they're an unbroken unity. In the winter, you travel on the ice because it's the linkage and the easiest way, and in the summer, you move around on the water.
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If allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is after all not a natural state.
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People are always saying it's the end of the Gutenberg era. More to the point, it's a return to an oral era. The Gutenberg galaxy was about the written word. At its best, the digital era is part of the rediscovery of the oral. At its worst, it's a Kafkaesque victory of the bureaucratic over the imagination.
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Whenever governments adopt a moral tone as opposed to an ethical one you know something is wrong.
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Happy Hour: a depressing comment on the rest of the day and a victory for the most limited Dionysian view of human nature.
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If economists were doctors, they would today be mired in malpractice suits.
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A foreigner is an individual who is considered either comic or sinister. When the victim of a disaster - preferably natural but sometimes political -the foreigner may also be pitied from a distance for a short period of time.
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Born in elevators and supermarkets, Muzak has spread to restaurants, hotels, airplanes, telephone hold services, and waiting rooms. The public-relations experts believe that human beings fear silence - that is, the absence of constantly imposed direction. It is further believed that if we can be relieved of our fears, we will gain enough self-confidence to buy, eat, vote, fly, or simply go on living.
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Ten geographers who think the world is flat will tend to reinforce each other's errors ... Only a sailor can set them straight.
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