PhilosophyQuotes for March 14, 2001:

"...the generic features of the human race, when rightly understood, do not restrict man's freedom, and should not artificially be made to do so. A man develops qualities and activities of his own, and the basis for these we can seek only in the man himself. What is generic in him serves only as a medium in which to express his own individual being."

"Anyone who judges people according to generic characters gets only as far as the frontier where people begin to be beings whose activity is based on free self-determination."

"...every man gradually emancipates a greater or lesser sphere of his being, both from the generic characteristics of animal life and from domination by the decrees of human authorities."

-Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), A Philosophy of Freedom (1894)

Steiner's A Philosophy of Freedom is available online at Amazon.com.