Leo T on the wisdom of crowds and priorities

"The majority of the people of that time paid no attention to the broad trend of the nation's affairs, and were only influenced by their private concerns. And it was these very people who played the most useful part in the history of their day.

"Those who were striving to understand the general course of events, and trying by self-sacrifice and heroism to take a hand in it, were the most useless members of society; they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the common good proved to be futile and absurd..."

(I'm trying to figure this out in our current context.)

Comments

[bi]

Who exactly wrote that, and where exactly did he write that?

I hope it's not another of those "let's attribute this fake quote to some famous luminary" things. ( http://www.tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote2.html )

-- bi, http://zompower.tk/

RESPONSE: It's Leo Tolstoy, in War and Peace, about three quarters of the way in. /craig

[Carlos]

Check on Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" for a deep exploration on the relation between the common good and the wealthfare of society.

[bi]

Um, I think I'll prefer to read Leo Tolstoy instead.