Men Quotes - Page 34

• I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Believe, Yield

  "Why Liberty?". Chicago Tribune, January 30, 1927.

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• When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites-to be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance-there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.

  Carlos Castaneda

  Respect, Courage, Regret

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• There is about wisdom a nobility and magnificence in the fact that she doesn't just fall to a person's lot, that each man owes her to his own efforts, that one doesn't go to anyone other than oneself to find her.

  Seneca the Younger

  Wisdom, Courage, Fall

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• I teach you the Overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? ... The time has come for man to set himself a goal. The time has come to plant the seed to his highest hope.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Hope, Courage, Time

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• Washington was a man of exceptional, almost excessive self-command, rarely permitting himself any show of discouragement or despair.

  David McCullough

  Courage, Self, Despair

  David McCullough (2011). “David McCullough American History E-book Box Set: John Adams, 1776, Truman, The Course of Human Events”, p.515, Simon and Schuster

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• Philosophy takes as her aim the state of happiness...she shows us what are real and what are only apparent evils. She strips men's minds of empty thinking, bestows a greatness that is solid and administers a check to greatness where it is puffed up and all an empty show; she sees that we are left no doubt about the difference between what is great and what is bloated.

  Seneca the Younger

  Happiness, Philosophy, Real

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• We cannot doubt that self-interest is the mainspring of human nature. It must be clearly understood that this word is used here to designate a universal, incontestable fact, resulting from the nature of man, and not an adverse judgment, as would be the word selfishness.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Self, Doubt, Liberty

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• He who acts under an emotional impulse also acts. What distinguishes an emotional action from other actions is the valuation of input and output. Emotions disarrange valuations. Inflamed with passion, man sees the goal as more desirable and the price he has to pay for it as less burdensome than he would in cool deliberation.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Passion, Emotional, Goal

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Human Action”, p.23, Lulu Press, Inc

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• The common man is the sovereign consumer whose buying or abstention from buying ultimately determines what should be produced and in what quantity and quality.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Liberty, Quality, Buying

  Ludwig Von Mises (1978). “Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, The”, p.1, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• The greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regard as the public good.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Powerful, Liberty, Experts

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part III: "Freedom in the Welfare State". Chapter 17: "The Decline of Socialism and The Rise of the Welfare State", 1960.

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• The government's only proper job is to protect individual rights against violence by force or fraud ... to protect men from foreign invaders ... to settle disputes among men according to objective laws ... The greatness of the Founding Fathers was how well they understood this issue and how close some of them came to understanding it perfectly.

  Ayn Rand

  Jobs, Father, Greatness

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• The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world

  Ayn Rand

  Believe, Responsibility, Blood

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.319, Penguin

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• The diversity of mankind is a basic postulate of our knowledge of human beings. But if mankind is diverse and individuated, then how can anyone propose equality as an ideal? Every year, scholars hold Conferences on Equality and call for greater equality, and no one challenges the basic tenet. But what justification can equality find in the nature of man? If each individual is unique, how else can he be made 'equal' to others than by destroying most of what is human in him and reducing human society to the mindless uniformity of the ant heap?

  Murray Rothbard

  Unique, Years, Diversity

  Murray N. Rothbard (2009). “Man, Economy, and State, Scholar's Edition”, p.1309, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• The power to determine the quantity of money... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank.

  Milton Friedman

  Trust, Mistake, Independent

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• Government machinery has been described as a marvelous labor saving device which enables ten men to do the work of one.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Liberty, Saving, Politics

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• How you make it in this world, for the most part, depends more on what you do as opposed to whether people like or dislike you. In order to produce a successful life, one must find ways to please his fellow man. That is, find out what goods and services his fellow man values, and is willing to pay for, and then acquire the necessary skills and education to provide it.

  Walter E. Williams

  Successful, Order, Skills

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• [A]ll popular and well-mixed governments [republics] . . . are ever established by wise and good men, and can never be upheld otherwise than by virtue: The worst men always conspiring against them, they must fall, if the best have not power to preserve them. . . . [and] unless they be preserved in a great measure free from vices . . . .

  Algernon Sidney

  Wise, Fall, Good Man

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• It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss of the object , than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.

  Edmund Burke

  Loss, Political, Leaving

  Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.433, Penguin

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• Let men be good, and the Government cannot be bad.

  William Penn

  Liberty, Virtue, Be Good

  "Memoirs of the private and public life of William Penn: who settled the state of Pennsylvania, and founded the city of Philadelphia".

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• Somehow strangely the vice of men gets well represented and protected but their virtue has none to plead its cause - nor any charter of immunities and rights.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Get Well, Rights, Liberty

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.30, David M Gross

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• At every crossroad on the way that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past.

  Maurice Maeterlinck

  Inspirational, Life, Fear

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• The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Rights, Liberty

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.203, Penguin

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• Faced with the pain of freedom, man begs for his shackles.

  Gerry Spence

  Pain, Liberty, Libertarian

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• Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Believe, Libertarian Party, Liberty

  Michel de Montaigne, William Hazlitt, Orlando Williams Wight (1866). “Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising his essays, journey into Italy, and letters”, p.357

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• Men who have greatness within them don't go in for politics.

  Albert Camus

  Greatness, Liberty, Libertarian

  Carnets, 1935-42 (Notebooks, 1962) p. 99

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