Category: Thought

“It is not the astronomer’s business to consider whether it would be better if the sun were nearer or farther from the earth, or if he turned round her, instead of turning round him. Nor is it the chemist’s business to consider whether carbonic acid and carbonic oxide are noxious gases that ought not to exist. It has never been thought desirable to make Newton responsible for tiles falling on the people’s heads.

“Economists, however, are held answerable for the laws which they discover.”

Yves Guyot, The Principles of Social Economy (1892).

I renounce the idea sometimes advanced that the state governments ever were or continue to be, sovereign or unlimited. If the people are sovereign, their governments cannot also be sovereign.

John Taylor of Caroline, as quoted in Walter E. Volkomer, ed., The Liberal Tradition in American Thought (G. P. Putnam Sons, 1969)

Slavery is disheartening; but Nature is not so helpless but it can rid itself of every last wrong. But the spasms of nature are centuries and ages and will tax the faith of shortlived men. Slowly, slowly the Avenger comes, but comes surely. The proverbs of the nations affirm these delays, but affirm the arrival. They say, ‘God may consent, but not forever.’ The delay of the Divine Justice — this was the meaning and soul of the Greek Tragedy, — this was the soul of their religion.

It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.

Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects.

Jack McDevitt, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 5.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul.

Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.