The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. Alexander McCall Smith
About This Quote

The above quote is attributed to the philosopher Marquis de Condorcet who was a French mathematician and social philosopher. He also founded the first school of statistics, and was a revolutionary in many ways. Condorcet’s ideas about mathematics led him to write a major work entitled Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrèses de l'esprit humain (Essay on the Progress of the Human Mind). In this work, he argued that people should be encouraged to think for themselves and that this would lead to the general improvement of society.

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Some Similar Quotes
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  2. The point of modernity is to live a life without illusions while not becoming disillusioned - Antonio Gramsci

  3. A man must not be without shame, for the shame of being without shame is shamelessness indeed. - Mencius

  4. Dove la moralità è troppo forte l'intelletto perisce. - Friedrich Nietzsche

  5. My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing, ' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be. - Frank Herbert

More Quotes By Alexander McCall Smith
  1. Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our private world we use...

  2. It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought...

  3. Mma Ramotswe had listened to a World Service broadcast on her radio one day which had simply taken her breath away. It was about philosophers who called themselves existentialists and who, as far as Mma Ramotswe could ascertain, lived in France. These French people said...

  4. There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one.

  5. She had argued for a broad interpretation, which imposed a duty to answer questions truthfully, and not to hide facts which could give a different complexion to a matter, but on subsequent thought she had revised her position. Although she still believed that one should...

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