“Nature, then, has carefully cultivated the seed within the hard core–namely the urge for and the vocation of free thought. And this free thought gradually reacts back on the modes of thought of the people, and men become more and more capable of acting in freedom. At last free thought acts even on the fundamentals of government and the state finds it agreeable to treat man, who is now more than a machine, in accord with his dignity.”
– Immanuel Kant, “What Is Enlightenment?”
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for, to help pull together some wildly disparate thoughts. h/t Eliot Frick
no straight lines 