Ludwig Edler von Mises, Nation, State and Economy (1919; 1983, Leland B. Yeager, trans.), p. 252.
Bourgeois civilization has built railroads and electric power plants, has invented explosives and airplanes, in order to create wealth. Imperialism has placed the tools of peace in the service of destruction. With modern means it would be easy to wipe out humanity at one blow.
The rulers wanted to fool people, since they saw that people have a kinship with what is truly good. They took the names of the good and assigned them to what is not good, to fool people with names and link the names to what is not good. So, as if they were doing people a favor, they took names from what is not good and transferred them to the good, in their own way of thinking. For they wished to take free people and enslave them forever.
Excerpt from The Gospel of Philip as translated by M. Meyer, in The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (2007), p. 163
Human existence begins when the lack of fixation of action by instincts exceeds a certain point; when the adaptation to nature loses its coercive character, when the way to act is no longer fixed by heredtiarily given mechanisms. In other works, human existence and freedom are from the beginning inseparable.
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (1941), Chapter Two: “The Emergence of the Individual and the Ambiguity of Freedom.”
War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings.
Ludwig Edler von Mises, Nation, State and Economy (1919; 1983, Leland B. Yeager, trans.), p. 186.
We fear those in power who think and act least like us and therefore scrutinize their every decision.
Brion McClanahan, Nine Presidents Who Screwed Up America and Four Who Tried to Save Her (2016), introduction. Image from a recent podcast video.
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748).
Patronage is the sword and cannon by which war may be made on the liberty of the human race.
John Tyler, speech in Congress (February 24, 1834) against the policies of President Andrew Jackson. Seven and a half years later, as president of the United States, Tyler would veto a revival of the national bank, opposition to which was one of Jackson’s most memorable policies.
The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.
Alfred Elton van Vogt, “The Weapon Shop,” in Astounding Science Fiction (December 1942).
The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.
William Gibson, repeatedly said on radio in 1993.
Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the savings of frugality.
President John Tyler (1841–1845), first annual message to Congress (June 1, 1841).