[I]f two countries are placed under unequal conditions of production, it is that one of the two that is least favored by nature that has most to gain by free trade.
Frédéric Bastiat, from Economic Sophisms, “To Equalize the Conditions of Production.”
If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Injury and Insult (1861).
It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.
Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book I.
Money is not an invention of the state. It is not the product of a legislative act. Even the sanction of political authority is not necessary for its existence. Certain commodities came to be money quite naturally, as the result of economic relationships that were independent of the power of the state.
Carl Menger, “The Nature and Origin of Money” (1892).
There are conditions of blindness so voluntary that they become complicity.
Paul Bourget, Cosmopolis (1892), Chapter 5 “Countess Steno.”
Saki, The Unbearable Bassington, ch. 13 (1912).
We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other wedded couples they sometimes live apart.
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The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-trust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciples. A noble artist, he has visions of excellence and revelations of beauty which he has neither impersonated in character nor embodied in words. His life and teachings are but studies for yet nobler ideals.
Amos Bronson Alcott, Orphic Sayings, quoted in A. Bronson Alcott: His Life and Philosophy (1893), by Franklin Benjamin Sanborn and William Torrey Harris, p. 592.
The forests have taught man liberty.
Paul Bourget, Cosmopolis 1892), Chapter 2 “The Beginning of a Drama.”
The true way to abolish corruption is to suppress the opportunity for corruption. But the more government and municipal undertakings increase in number and importance, the more these opportunities will multiply.
Yves Guyot, Where and Why Public Ownership Has Failed (1914).
The economists observe man, the laws of his organization, and the social relations that result from those laws. The socialists conjure up an imaginary society, and then create a human heart to suit that society.
Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, preface: “Letter to the Youth of France.”