Opinion

The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject. 

Source: Marcus Aurelius (Unsourced)
Taken From: International Man, Readers Respond 2011/12/05

Majoritarianism

Why should either two men live at the discretion of three, or three at the discretion of two. Both propositions are absurd from a reasonable point of view. If being a slave and owning a slave are both wrong relations, what different does it make whether there are a million slave owners and one slave, or one slave owner and a million slaves? Do robbery and murder cease to be what they are if done by ninety-nine percent of the population?

Source: Auberon Herbert, Unsourced
Taken From: Mises.org, Nov  16, 2011

Thanksgiving

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. 

Source: Cicero, Pro Plancio 54 B.C.
Taken From: Early to Rise Newsletter, 11/24/2011

Totalitarianism

You know, I know something about totalitarianism.  I have been a totalitarian ruler.  And I hate to admit, it was a great job while it lasted.

Source: Eduard Shevardnadze, Former Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union and former President of the Republic of Georgia
Taken from: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008

On Population Control

In 1969 Robert McNamara, then president of the World Bank, said he was reluctant to finance health care "unless it was very strictly related to population control, because usually health facilities contributed to the decline of the death rate, and thereby to the population explosion."

Source: Review, Horrid History. The Economist: May 24, 2008

Taken From: New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship: The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part3

On the US President

In our system it is hard to overstate the centrality of the president.  Others advise.  The Congress can block.  But he is the initiator and he key decision maker.  I've seen presidents who didn't fully realize this even as they were entering office.  And often when I read commentaries about what is happening in our government, they underplay the responsibility the president has either through his actions or through his decisions not to intervene.

Source:  Colin Powell, Former Secretary of State (USA)
Taken From: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008, pg 146

Slavery to Freedom

... knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.

Source: Frederick Douglass, see Wikipedia entry for source
Taken From: LewRockwell.com, Blog post by Charles Burris, 2011/09/11

Absoulte power is kind of neat

Power corrupts.  Absolute power is kind of neat. 

Source:  John Lehman, former US Secretary of the Navy
Taken From: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008

On Working for the Lord and for Others

Much of the effort of modern politicians is devoted to convincing us that men serve best when they are serving one another.  But the one consideration which would make this true is left out; service to others is the best service when the effort of all is subsumed under a transcendental conception.  Material gratification does not provide this, and here one has the reason why a secularized state finally breeds an intense hatred of politicians, who are trying to get men to accept one another as taskmasters.  Work is not to be performed "as ever in my great Taskmaster's eye," but for my neighbor, whom I despise.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948 

Political Finance

The real truth ... is, as you know and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since he days of Andrew Jackson - and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W.W. [Woodrow Wilson]

Source: Franklin Roosevelt in a letter to one of Woodrow Wilson's top advisors
Taken From: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008, pg 152

Life's Racecourse

Life's racecourse is fixed ... Nature has only a single path and that path is run but once

Source: Cicero, Unsourced
Taken From: Strauss and Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997

Organization

The politicians and the businessmen are not interested in saving souls, but they are interested in preserving a minimum of organization, for upon that depend their posts and their incomes.

 Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948 

Starvation

In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation.

Source: Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Ch11 1936
Taken From: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

More On DDT

A Ugandan Health Minister said in 2002 that, “Our people’s lives are of primary importance. The West is concerned about the environment because we share it with them. But it is not concerned about malaria because it is not a problem there. In Europe, they used DDT to kill anopheles mosquitoes that cause malaria. Why can’t we use DDT to kill the enemy in our camp?”

Source: Paul Driessen, Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death. (Merril Press: 2004), page 73
Taken From: New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship: The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part3

Realism, War and Justice

There is an unforgettable scene in Lincoln Steffens' Autobiography which tells of a proposal made by Clemenceau at the Versailles Peace Conference.  The astute Frenchman, having listened to much talk that this was a war to end war forever, asked Wilson, Lloyd George, and Orlando whether they were taking the idea seriously.  After obtaining assent from each of the somewhat nonplussed heads of state, Clemenceau proceeded to add up before them the cost.  The British would have to give up their colonial system; the Americans would have to get out of the Philippines, to keep their hands off Mexico; and on and on it went.  Clemenceau's colleagues soon made it plain that this was not at all what they had in mind, whereupon the French realist bluntly told them that they wanted not peace but war.  Such is the position of all who urge justice but really want, and actually choose, other things.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

How to Convert the World

The Count of Oropesa, more than four centuries ago, had a passion to reform the world. A Spanish saint, San Pedro of Alcantara, gave him this kind of counsel.

May your Lordship not torment yourself: there is a remedy for this deluge of crimes. Let us be, you and me, that which we should be. There will be two less souls to convert. Let each person behave thus: it is the most efficacious of reforms. The trouble is, that no one wants to correct himself and everyone meddles at correcting others: thus everything stays as is.

Source: Unsourced
Taken From:  Leonard Read, How to Advance Liberty, March 10, 1965

AAA Rating

Peter Barnes: “Is there a risk that the United States could lose its AAA credit rating? Yes or no?”
Geithner: “No risk of that.”
“No risk?” Barnes asked.
“No risk,” Geithner said.

Source:  Tim Geithner, April 2011 (4-5 Months before the US loses it's AAA Rating)
Taken From: ZeroHedge.com, 8/5/2011

We are here to Help

Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, "See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk."

Source: Harry Browne, "A solution for the Middle East," WorldNetDaily (April 11, 2002)
Taken From: LRC Blog 7/31/2011 and Wikiquote

Homicidal Gamble

A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.

Source:  H.G. Wells, The Salvaging of Civilization, 1921
Taken From: Wikquote

Control

To put it bluntly: in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.

Source: Zbigniew Brzezinski, In a Speech to Chatham House, London 2009
Taken From: Revolution and Repression in America: The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part 2