Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.
Thomas Sowell, “The survival of the left,” Forbes (Sept. 8, 1997), collected in The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011), p. 144.
We can either have a free Parliament or a free people. Personal freedom requires that all authority is restrained by long-run principles which the opinion of the people approves.
Friedrich A. Hayek, “‘Free Enterprise’ and Competitive Order,” from a paper delivered to the Mont Pelerin Society, April 1947, in Individualism and Economic Order (1948).
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
Thomas Sowell, The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011), p. 398.
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.
Nathaniel Lee (1653–1692) was a playwright known for his blank verse works such as The Rival Queens and Caesar Borgia, and for offending King Charles II in 1681 with Lucius Junius Brutus. This statement is his summary of how he got sent to Bedlam in 1683.
Freedom. Freedom is at the core of universal human values. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom in where to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to protest, among others, are the forms that freedom takes. Without freedom, China will always remain far from civilized ideals.
Liu Xiaobo, No Enemies, No Hate: Selected Essays and Poems, Chapter 8.
No one should attempt to describe a utopia unless he’s recently reread, for example, the works of Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Rabelais and Dostoevski to remind himself of how different people are.
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State And Utopia (1974).
All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate.
Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty” (1958).
William John Locke, The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne (1905), p. 50.
Truth is the enfant terrible of the Virtues.
Doesn’t the idea, or ideal, of the minimal state lack luster? Can it thrill the heart or inspire people to struggle or sacrifice? Would anyone man barricades under its banner? It seems pale and feeble in comparison with, to pick the polar extreme, the hopes and dreams of utopian theorists. Whatever its virtues, it appears clear that the minimal state is no utopia.
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State And Utopia (1974).
So much of what we see going on in the world is mirrored in our interactions with each other. We see nations testing other nations, measuring each other’s strengths and weaknesses. For some leaders, the question is always the same: How far can I go with my bullying, before the consequences catch up with me?
Barbara Emrys, co-author with Don Miguel Ruiz, on his website.