Category: Thought

If the American people come to recognize that the financial crisis was caused by the housing policies of their own government — rather than insufficient regulation or the inherent instability of the U.S. financial system — Dodd- Frank will be seen as an illegitimate response to the crisis. Only then will it be possible to repeal or substantially modify this repressive law.

Peter Wallison, “The Case for Repealing Dodd-Frank,” Imprimis, November 2013 [Volume 42, Number 11].

Men must stop being jealous of their power and generously allow freedom and responsibility to others. The reward is harmonious families and society.

Socialism is essentially inimical to family life, which it regards as a bourgeois institution — to use its own favorite anathema. Socialism would make motherhood a State business or profession, would pay women for this sexual function, and deprive fathers of all status or recognition.

The progress of science, of good science, depends on novel ideas and on intellectual freedom: science has very often been advanced by outsiders (remember that Bohr and Einstein regarded themselves as outsiders).

“Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.”

—Niels Bohr

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In terra di ciechi chi vi ha un occhio è signore.

In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

Niccolò Machiavelli, The Mandrake, Act III, scene ix.

When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson (July 15, 1817).

“Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein.”

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Bk. II, Ch. 5; source: Die Wahlverwandtschaften, Hamburger Ausgabe, Bd. 6 (Romane und Novellen I), dtv Verlag, München, 1982, p. 397 (II.5)

Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.

Benjamin Franklin in ‘On Freedom of Speech and the Press,’ Pennsylvania Gazette (November 17, 1737).

Fatherland without freedom and merit is a large word with little meaning.

Anders Chydenius, For What Reason do so Many Swedes Emigrate Every Year?, 1765.