Nonsense has taken up residence in the heart of public debate and also in the academy. This nonsense is part of the huge fund of unreason on which the plans and schemes of optimists draw for their vitality. Nonsense confiscates meaning. It thereby puts truth and falsehood, reason and unreason, light and darkness on an equal footing. It is a blow cast in defence of intellectual freedom, as the optimists construe it, namely the freedom to believe anything at all, provided you feel better for it.

~ Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton Academy Believe Darkness Debate Equal Falsehood Feel Feeling Freedom Heart Light Meaning Nonsense Optimism Optimists Plan Plans Public Reason Scheme Schemes Truth Unreason Vitality

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley.An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'

~ Robert Burns

Robert Burns Circumstance Fate Men Mice Planning Plans Schemes

Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for. The world is full of so- called economists who in turn are full of schemes for getting something for nothing. They tell us that the government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that it can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off, because we owe it to ourselves.

~ Henry Hazlitt

Henry Hazlitt Debt Economics Free Krugman Schemes