Coates, Ta-Nehisi -- The Message, ch. 3 “Bearing the Burning Cross” (2024)

Dave — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 15:47:26 +0000

I don’t really worry about the young, whose excesses are confined to lecture halls and quadrangles, so much as I fear the old, whose tyrannies are legislative.

Ta-Nehisi Coates (b. 1975) American writer, journalist, educator
The Message, ch. 3 “Bearing the Burning Cross” (2024)

Jacobs, Jane -- “No Virtue in Meek Conformity” (1952)

Dave — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 19:47:13 +0000

The other threat to the security of our tradition, I believe, lies at home. It is the current fear of radical ideas and of people who propound them. I do not agree with extremists of either the left or the right, but I think they should be allowed to speak and to publish, both because they themselves have, and ought to have, rights, and once their rights are gone, the rights of the rest of us are hardly safe.

Jane Jacobs (1916–2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
“No Virtue in Meek Conformity” (1952)

Foreword to her response to a State Department Loyalty Security Board interrogatory (1952-03-25). Reprinted in Vital Little Plans (2016).

WIST Quotations

Coates, Ta-Nehisi -- The Message, ch. 3 “Bearing the Burning Cross” (2024)

Jacobs, Jane -- “No Virtue in Meek Conformity” (1952)