“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.”
— Thomas Paine·Common Sense·1776
Ideas
The thesis from every book — verbatim, as the author wrote it.
Liberty & Political Philosophy
“The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion.”
— John Stuart Mill·On Liberty·1859
“POLITICAL POWER, then, I take to be a RIGHT of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.”
— John Locke·Second Treatise of Government·1690
“The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man.”
— Lysander Spooner·No Treason·1870
“But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions.”
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau·The Social Contract
“That government is best which governs not at all”
— Henry David Thoreau·Civil Disobedience·1849
“Law is organised Justice.”
— Frédéric Bastiat·The Law
Money & Economics
“Law is organised Justice.”
— Frédéric Bastiat·The Law
“Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference--the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen and also of those which it is necessary to foresee.”
— Frédéric Bastiat·That Which Is Seen
“I cry out against it because its function in society is not understood, and very difficult to explain. I cry out against it, because it jumbles all ideas, causes the means to be taken for the end, the obstacle for the cause, the alpha for the omega; because its presence in the world, though in itself beneficial, has, nevertheless, introduced a fatal notion, a perversion of principles, a contradictory theory, which, in a multitude of forms, has impoverished mankind and deluged the earth with blood.”
— Frédéric Bastiat·What Is Money?
“Such, briefly sketched in its leading features, is the history of the most skillful, vigorous and persistent attempt ever made to substitute for natural laws in finance the ability of legislative bodies, and, for a standard of value recognized throughout the world, a national standard devised by theorists and manipulated by schemers.”
— Andrew Dickson White·Fiat Money Inflation in France
Freedom & Abolition
Self-Reliance & Stoicism
“Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the conducing means I made use of, which with the blessing of God so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.”
— Benjamin Franklin·The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
— Henry David Thoreau·Walden·1854