Category: Thought

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

Leo Tolstoy, Christianity and Patriotism (1898).

The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependants and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society.

The Greek writer, Aristotle, quoted some centuries before Christ from “the African,” probably some Carthaginian writer on agriculture, the now familiar saying, “the best manure for the land is the foot of the owner.” This homely word long attributed to Dr. Franklin, who stole it for his “Poor Richard’s Almanack” more than a century ago, is based on the sound principle, that personal supervision to be most effective must be limited in its sphere, and that the best agricultural skill becomes weak when it attempts to exhibit itself on too broad a surface. Because a man can cultivate 100 acres better than any of his neighbors, it does not prove that he will cultivate 50 acres additional to them better than a neighbor of inferior skill, who is the owner of these 50 and no more.

Arthur Latham Perry, Principles of Political Economy (1891).

Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.

Aristotle, Politics, Book One.

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

Master Kong, The Analects, fourth chapter.

An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: ‘There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important.’ This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter.

William James, “The Importance of Individuals” in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.

Those animals which are incapable of making binding agreements with one another not to inflict nor suffer harm are without either justice or injustice; and likewise for those peoples who either could not or would not form binding agreements not to inflict nor suffer harm.

The monopolist . . . never has unlimited control; he merely has the choice within the laws of price of different ‘economically possible’ price levels. He can select that price at which the combination of profit for each article, and the number of articles to be sold at that price, are likely to promise the greatest total profit, but he cannot exert his ‘power’ in any other way than in conformity with the laws of price, for it is his behavior that establishes the ‘price law,’ namely the conditions of the amount offered at a given price level, but never can he counteract the laws of price.

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, “Control or Economic Law,” Zeitschrift für Volkswirtshaft, Sozialpolitik und Verwaltung, Volume XXIII (1914): 205–71; John Richard Mez, Ph.D., translator.

The just person enjoys the greatest peace of mind, while the unjust is full of the utmost disquietude.

Epicurus, Principal Doctrines, 17