But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you — and why?
Walter E. Williams, All It Takes Is Guts (1987).
Demand and supply are terms related in a peculiar manner. A commodity which is supplied, is always, at the same time, a commodity which is the instrument of demand. A commodity which is the instrument of demand, is always, at the same time, a commodity added to the stock of supply. Every commodity is always, at one and the same time, matter of demand, and matter of supply. Of two men who perform an exchange, the one does not come with only a supply, the other with only a demand; each of them comes with both a demand and a supply. The supply, which he brings, is the instrument of his demand; and his demand and supply are of course exactly equal to one another.
James Mill, Elements of Political Economy (1821; 1844), Chapter 4, “Consumption” Section III, “That Consumption Is Co-Extensive With Production.”
I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it.
Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice (1797).
When it is useful to them, men can believe a theory of which they know nothing more than its name.
Vilfredo Pareto, Manual of Political Economy (1927-1927), p. 94.
The distinction, between what is done by labour, and what is done by nature, is not always observed.
James Mill, Elements of Political Economy (1821; 1844), Chapter 1, “Production.”
Labour produces its effects only by conspiring with the laws of nature.
It is found that the agency of man can be traced to very simple elements. He does nothing but produce motion. He can move things towards one another, and he can separate them from one another. The properties of matter perform the rest.
For those of you who still think that we’ve gotten little green men underground somewhere, one of the things you learn as president is the government is terrible at keeping secrets. This idea of conspiracy theories — if there were aliens or alien spaceships or anything under the control of the United States government that we knew about, seen, photographs, what have you . . . I promise you some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with one of the aliens and sent it to his girlfriend to impress her. There would be leaks.
Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States, in conversation with Stephen Colbert, CBS (May 5, 2026).
Science is all about taking a look at the consensus and poking a hole in it and testing it and going, “I’m not quite sure of that.”
Ron Johnson, M.D., in an April 23, 2026, interview in The Epoch Times.
The constant fluttering around the single flame of vanity is so much the rule and the law that almost nothing is more incomprehensible than how an honest and pure urge for truth could make its appearance among men.
Friedrich W. Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense” (German: 1873; 1896), in The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings (1999), translated by Ronald Speirs.
Non è mai alcuna cosa sì disperata, che non
vi sia qualche via da poterne sperare.
No circumstance is ever so desperate that one cannot nurture some spark of hope.
Niccolò Machiavelli, from The Mandrake (A.D. 1524), Act I, scene 1
There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.
Polybius, The Histories, Book XVIII, Chapter 43.