Category: Thought

Nature has provided, by means as simple as they are infallible, that there should be dispersion, diffusion, coordination, simultaneous progress, all constituting a state of things that your restrictive laws paralyze as much as they can; for the tendency of such laws is, by isolating communities, to render the diversity of condition much more marked, to prevent equalization, hinder integration, neutralize countervailing circumstances, and segregate nations, whether in their superiority or in their inferiority of condition.

Frédéric Bastiat, from Economic Sophisms, “To Equalize the Conditions of Production” — the “such laws” mentioned are protectionist measures, and protectionism was the chief target of Bastiat’s famous book.

[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.”

“The state can put its taxes to either a good or a bad use. It puts them to a good use when it performs services for the public equivalent to the value it receives from the public. It puts them to a bad use when it squanders its revenues without giving the public anything in return.”

Frédéric Bastiat, from Economic Sophisms (included in the Laissez Faire Books ebook edition, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen, 2014)

To maintain that human labor will ever come to want employment, would be to maintain that the human race will cease to encounter obstacles. In that case labor would not only be impossible; it would be superfluous.

Frédéric Bastiat, first essay, Economic Sophisms (included in the Laissez Faire Books ebook edition, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen, 2014)

The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.

George Orwell, letter to Malcolm Muggeridge, December 4, 1948.

Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Indian Opinion, October 1, 1903.

“Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilization means ‘good conduct.’”

Mohandas K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 1908

“That State is the best governed which is governed the least.”

Mohandas K. Gandhi, August 15, 1940

“In the democracy which I have envisaged, a democracy established by non-violence, there will be equal freedom for all. Everybody will be his own master. It is to join a struggle for such democracy that I invite you today.”

Mohandas K. Gandhi, August 8, 1942

“There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.”

Barbara Jordan, 1976 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address