Читать книгу Common Sense Nation - Robert Curry - Страница 6

“The Foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined than at any former period; the researches of the human mind after social happiness have been carried to a great extent, the treasures of knowledge . . . are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the establishment of our forms of government.”

—GEORGE WASHINGTON ON AMERICA’S FOUNDING

“The sacred rights of mankind are . . . written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

—ALEXANDER HAMILTON

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

—THOMAS JEFFERSON

“Common Sense Realism was virtually the official creed of the American Republic . . . So what was it? . . . The power of common judgment belongs to everyone, rich or poor, educated or uneducated; indeed, we exercise it every day in hundreds of ways. Of course, ordinary people make mistakes—but so do philosophers . . . On some things, however, like the existence of the real world and basic moral truths, they know they don’t have to prove it. These things are . . . self-evident, meaning they are ‘no sooner understood than they are believed’ because they ‘carry the light of truth itself.’”

—ARTHUR HERMAN