Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 20 of the 1993 Liberty Fund reissue of the 1969 Cambridge University Press edition of the 1854 translation of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s great 1792 work, The Limits of State Action:

[T]he evil results of a too extensive solicitude on the part of the State are still more strikingly shown in the suppression of all active energy, and the necessary deterioration of the moral character. This scarcely needs any further argument. The man who is often led easily becomes disposed willingly to sacrifice what remains of his capacity for spontaneous action. He fancies himself released from an anxiety which he sees transferred to other hands, and seems to himself to do enough when he looks to their leadership and follows it. Thus, his notions of merit and guild become unsettled. The idea of the first no longer inspires him; and the painful consciousness of the last assails him less frequently and forcibly, since he can more easily ascribe his shortcomings to his peculiar position, and leave them to the responsibility of those who have made it what it is.