Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Winning and Losing

Everyone is a loser. Winners are just losers with more patience
Source: Unknown
Taken From: Unknown

Monday, May 30, 2011

Justice

Every man loves justice at another man’s expense.
Source: Anonymous

Sunday, May 29, 2011

On Struggle

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Source: Frederick Douglass
Taken From: Wikquote, An address on West India Emancipation (1857-08-04)

Saturday, May 28, 2011

On Ennobling

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.
Source: Albert Einstein, 1937

Taken From: Wikiquote; "Moral Decay" (1937)

Friday, May 27, 2011

Necessity of Tyrants

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Source: William Pitt, Nov. 18, 1783
Taken From: Wikiquote, Speech in the House of Commons (November 18, 1783)

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Gardening

Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.
Source:  Henry David Thoreau
Taken From: PoemHunter.com; A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 1, p. 55, Houghton Mifflin (1906)

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Responsibility

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.
Source: Herbert Spencer, State-Tamperings with Money and Banks, 1891
Taken From: Wikiquote, Herbert Spencer

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Last Hope

Religion now seems to me one of the last best hopes for society, as it is one of the main institutions still competing valiantly with an excessive and overblown government.
Source: Walter Block, Libertarianism and Libertinism
Taken From: Journal of Libertarian Studies, Fall 1994

Monday, May 23, 2011

Tradition

... I came to realize that traditions which are disruptive and harmful tend to disappear, whether through voluntary change, or more tragically, by the disappearance of  societies that act in accordance with them. Presumably, then, if a tradition has survived, it has some positive value, even if we cannot see it. It is a "fatal conceit" to call into question everything for which good and sufficient reason cannot be immediately given. How else can we justify the "blindly obedient" practice of wearing ties and collars, for example?
Source: Walter Block, Libertarianism and Libertinism
Taken From: Journal of Libertarian Studies, Fall 1994

Sunday, May 22, 2011

On Prostitution

It would be a far, far better world if no one engaged in prostitution, not because there were legal sanctions imposed against it, but because people did not wish to so debase themselves.
Source: Walter Block, Libertarianism and Libertinism
Taken From: Journal of Libertarian Studies, Fall 1994

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Knowledge and Conciet

... it is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he has a conceit that he already knows
Source:  Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Taken From: The Art of Manliness Blog, Random Library of Man Knowledge

Friday, May 20, 2011

Negotiation

In life, you rarely get anything you don’t ask for. If you want something, you’d better do your part to get it. If you ask nicely, and you ask fairly, most people will go a long way to meet you in the middle.
Source: Tyler Tervooren, Guest Post on The Art of Manliness Blog, How To Haggle Like Your Old Man, 5/11/2011

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Moral Blindness

The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
Source:  Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776, p. 128
Taken From: Casey Research, Conversations with Casey, 12/22/2010, My Favorite Quotes

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Liberty

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
Source: H. L. Mencken, Letters of H.L. Mencken, pg 281, 1961
Taken From:  Antiwar.com Quotes

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

On Civil Disobedience

Historically, the most terrible things—war, genocide, and slavery—have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.
Source:  Howard Zinn, 1990, Declarations Of Independence Cross-Examining American Ideology, pg 104
Taken From: AntiWar.com Quotes

Monday, May 16, 2011

World of Giants and Infants

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Power Personalities

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.
Source: Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, Missionaria Protectiva, pg 59, 1987
Taken From: AntiWar.com Quotes

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Trade and War

If soldiers are not to cross international boundaries, goods must do so. Unless shackles can be dropped from trade, bombs will be dropped from the sky. (Emphasis in the original.)
Source:  Otto T. Mallery, "Economic Union and Enduring Peace", July 1941
Taken From:  Antiwar.com "Quotes", attributed to Fredric Bastiat
Thanks to the Anti-Dismal Blog for researching the original quotation source.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Revenge on a Liar

The best revenge on a liar is to convince him that you believe what he said.
Source:  Nassim Taleb’s latest book, called The Bed of Procrustes:
Taken From:  Sovereign Man Confidential, April 2011

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Draft and Totalitarianism

[A] compulsory draft is ... far more typical of totalitarian nations than of democratic nations. The theory behind it leads directly to totalitarianism. It is absolutely opposed to the principles of individual liberty which have always been considered a part of American democracy.
Source: Robert A. Taft (August 14, 1940 Congressional Record, unconfirmed)
Taken From:  Ron Paul, 2011 Liberty Defined, pg 55

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Revenge

The best revenge on a liar is to convince him that you believe what he said.
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms, Nassim Taleb, 2010
Taken From:  Sovereign Man Confidential, April 2011 Newsletter

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Currency Depreciation

In essence the depreciation of the U.S. dollar adopted by the U.S. government indicates that its solvency is on the brink of collapse, therefore it wants to cut its debt through the act of devaluation with the national will; such a move has severely harmed the interests of creditors.
Source: Dagon Credit, Surveillance Report for Sovereign Credit Rating (PDF), November 2010
Taken From: Sovereign Man, The Worst Advice I've Seen In Years, 4/18/2011

Monday, May 9, 2011

Force

When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket.
Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia (Fictional Character)
Taken From:  Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957)

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Honesty

An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.
Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia (Fictional Character)
Taken From:  Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957)

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Compromise

In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.
Source:  John Galt (Fictional Character)
Taken From:  Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957)

Friday, May 6, 2011

Freedom

... when asked by his supporters what they should do for the cause, he replies,
I don’t know what you should do. That’s what freedom is all about.
Source: Ron Paul
Taken From: LRC Blog, 4/12/2011

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Reverse Psychology


More than any other factor, inflation discredits the authority of the older generation and turns power over to youth. It is not simply a matter of the old losing their economic advantage over the young. In an inflationary environment, all the normal virtues of the old suddenly start to work against them, while all the normal vices of the young suddenly seem to look like wisdom.
Source: Paul A Cantor, Hyperinflation and Hyperreality, 1994
Taken From: See Source

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Hushed Upheavals

One may say that, apart from wars and revolutions, there is nothing in our modern civilizations which compares in importance to [inflation]. The upheavals caused by inflations [sic] are so profound that people prefer to hush them up and conceal them.
Source: Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, 1984
Taken From:  Paul A Cantor, Hyperinflation and Hyperreality, 1994

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Success in an Inflationary Environment

In an inflationary environment, one must dream of becoming an overnight success because the slow steady way of amassing a fortune by working hard simply will not work.
Source: Paul A Cantor, Hyperinflation and Hyperreality, 1994
Taken From:  See Source

Monday, May 2, 2011

Inflationary Side Effect

Conservatism and a sense of tradition make it impossible to respond to rapidly changing economic conditions, while the profligacy of youth becomes paradoxically a kind of prudence in an inflationary environment.

Source: Paul A Cantor, Hyperinflation and Hyperreality, 1994
Taken From:  See Source

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Financial Standard Stability

Money is one of the primary measures of value in any society, ... As such, money is a central source of stability, continuity, and coherence in any community. Hence to tamper with the basic money supply is to tamper with a community's sense of value.

Source: Paul A Cantor, Hyperinflation and Hyperreality, 1994
Taken From:  The Fed Obliterates the Savings Ethic, Mises.org