Category: Thought

It is with government, as with medicine. They have both but a choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty: And I repeat that government has but a choice of evils: In making this choice, what ought to be the object of the legislator? He ought to assure himself of two things; 1st, that in every case, the incidents which he tries to prevent are really evils; and 2ndly, that if evils, they are greater than those which he employs to prevent them.

Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Legislation (1830), Ch. X : “Analysis of Political Good and Evil; How they are spread in society.”

I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear. Nothing lately has unsettled my party and raised my fears so much as your editorial, on Thanksgiving Day, suggesting that employees should be required to state their beliefs in order to hold their jobs. The idea is inconsistent with our constitutional theory and has been stubbornly opposed by watchful men since the early days of the Republic.

E.B. White, letter to the New York Herald Tribune (November 29, 1947).

If evil people hate you, well, you might be doing something right.

Elon Musk, in conversation with Dr. Jordan Peterson, as shared on X.

The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.

James A. Garfield, in a letter to H. N. Eldridge (December 12, 1869) as quoted in Garfield (1978) by Allen Peskin, Ch. 13.

A realm of intimate, personal power is developing — power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.

Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalog (1968).

I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not be a fool, which, if I may judge by the exhibitions around me, is a matter of no small difficulty.

James A. Garfield, in a letter to Burke Aaron Hinsdale (January 1, 1867); quoted in The Life of Gen. James A. Garfield (1880) by Jonas Mills Bundy, p. 77.

In the ideal socialist state, power will not attract power freaks. People who make decisions will show no slightest bias towards their own interests. There will be no way for a clever man to bend the institutions to serve his own ends. And the rivers will run uphill.

David Director Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom (1973), p. 108.

Science is the only news. When you scan through a newspaper or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same sorry cyclic dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness, and even the technology is predictable if you know the science. Human nature doesn’t change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly.

Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Discipline (2009), p. 216.

I am receiving what I suppose to be the usual number of threatening letters on the subject. Assassination can be no more guarded against than death by lightning; it is best not to worry about either.

James A. Garfield, as quoted in Garfield of Ohio: The Available Man (1970) by John M. Tyler. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was shot on July 2, 1881, and died of the wound and iatrogenic interventions on September 19 of that year.

I would rather be beaten in Right than succeed in Wrong.

President James A. Garfield, Maxims of James Abram Garfield (1880), compiled by William Ralston Balch, p. 1.