Principiis obsta et respice finem — ‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’

Thank you for sending me down this path of little research

They Thought They Were Free, by Milton Mayer (written in 1955)

As Mayer’s Nazi friend noted, “I do not see, even now [how we could have stopped it]. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice - ‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men?”

Some notes taken from this blog - https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2005/11/they-thought-they-were-free

Milton Mayer - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Mayer

They Thought They Were Free - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Thought_They_Were_Free

August Heckscher, the chief writer of editorials of the New York Herald Tribune, wrote that the book “suggests how easy it is for human beings in any society to fall prey to a dynamic political movement, provided their lives are sufficiently insecure, frustrated or empty.”[1] He stated that the book is simultaneously a discussion on ethics, on “how political tyranny is established”, and on issues in Germany and the “German mentality”.

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Thanks for sharing this little tidbit … Now I have to go a read the book for myself