Under a morality of sacrifice, the first value you sacrifice is morality; the next is self-esteem. When need is the standard, every man is both victim and parasite. As a victim, he must labor to fill the needs of others, leaving himself in the position of a parasite whose needs must be filled by others. He cannot approach his fellow men except in one of two disgraceful roles: he is both a beggar and a sucker.John Galt (Fictional Character)
Such is the secret core of your creed, the other half of your double standard: it is immoral to live by your own effort, but moral to live by the effort of others - it is immoral to consume your own product, but moral to consume the products of others - it is immoral to earn, but moral to mooch - it is the parasites who are the moral justification for the existence of the producers, but the existence of the parasites is an end in itself - it is evil to profit by achievement, but good to profit by sacrifice - it is evil to create your own happiness, but good to enjoy it at the price of the blood of others.John Galt (Fictional Character)
Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate-do you hear me? no man may start-the use of physical force against other.John Galt (Fictional Character)
Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action.John Galt (Fictional Character)
When one acts on pity against justice, it is the good whom one punishes for the sake of the evil; when one saves the guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one forces to suffer.Hank Rearden (Fictional Character)
Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. Chaos always defeats order because it is better organized.Source: Terry Pratchet, Ly Tin Wheedle in Discworld, 1994
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.Source: Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, Missionaria Protectiva, pg 59, 1987
When someone would rather that you didn’t think too deeply, beware. There’s something wrong somewhere.Source: Anthony Bari (Fictional Criminal Attorney)
Politicians love to talk about how many policemen or school lunches they are paying for, but they never tell you that they first took that money from the nice man who owns the hardware store on the corner. And that now he won’t be able to take his kids to see their aged relatives in India.Source: James Farber, Fictional Investment Banker
To be long gold is, in a grand thematic way, to be short the socialization of riskJames Grant (Mr Market Miscalculates, 2008)
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us: "Make us your slaves, but feed us"Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor (1879-80, The Brothers Karamazov)
Inflation, it has been said, is like a country where nobody speaks the truth.Charles Goyette (2009, The Dollar Meltdown)
When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force my friends is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.Jean Rasczak (1991, Starship Troopers based on a novel by Robert Heinlein published 1959)
My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) — or to "unconstitutional" Monarchy.JRR Tolkien (1943, The Letters…, p. 63. )
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back
'If of ten men nine are recognizable as fools, which is a common calculation,' says our Intermittent Friend, 'how, in the name of wonder, will you ever get a ballotbox to grind you out a wisdom from the votes of these ten men? Never by any conceivable ballotbox, nor by all the machinery in Bromwicham or out of it, will you attain such a result. Not by any method under Heaven, except by suppressing, and in some good way reducing to zero, nine of those votes, can wisdom ever issue from your ten.Thomas Carlyle (Latter-Day Pamphlets, Pg 303, 1855)
If I find a rule tolerable, I obey it. If I find it intolerable, I break it.Professor Bernardo de la Paz
Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig
