 Impartial observers from other planets would consider ours an utterly bizarre enclave if it were populated by birds, defined as flying animals, that nevertheless rarely or never actually flew. They would also be perplexed if they encountered in our seas, lakes, rivers, and ponds, creatures defined as swimmers that never did any swimming. But they would be even more surprised to encounter a species defined as a thinking animal if, in fact, the creature very rarely indulged in actual thinking. 
Steve Allen
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When Nature forces lengths of thread unending/ In careless whirling on the spindle round,/ When all Life's inharmonic throngs unblending/ In sullen, harsh confusion sound,/ Who parts the changeless series of creation,/ That each, enlivened, moves in rhythmic time?/ Who summons each to join the general ordination,/ In consecrated, noble harmonies to chime?/ Who bids the storm with raging passion lower?/ The sunset with a solemn meaning glow?/ Who scatters Springtime's every lovely flower/ Along the pathway where his love may go?/ Who twines the verdant leaves, unmeaning, slighted,/ Into a wreath of honor, meed of every field?/ Who makes Olympus sure, the gods united?/ The power of Man the Poet has revealed!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Faust
What would I do with his money if I have to give up my mind in order to get it?
Ayn Rand
Refusing the offer of millions of dollars from an oilman to introduce a religious element to Objectivism.
With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Jean Luc Picard quoting Judge Aaron Satie
I think that in trying to understand the socialists, you have confused yourself, which I don't wonder. The truth is that they do not understand themselves. As for Karl Marx, he is the prince of muddleheads
Henry George
Quark: "It's good to want things." Odo: "Even things you can't have?" Quark: "Especially things you can't have."
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
By no means! For this earthly sphere / Affords a place for great deeds ever. / Astounding things shall happen here. / I feel the strength for bold endeavour.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Faust
The yonder is to me a trifling matter. / Should you this world to ruins shatter, / The other then may rise, its place to fill. / 'Tis from this Earth my pleasure springs, / And this sun shines upon my sufferings; / When once I separate me from these things, / Let happen then what can and will. / And furthermore I've no desire to hear / Whether in future too men hate and love, / And whether too in yonder sphere, / There is an under or above.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Faust
Civilization and profits go hand in hand.
Calvin Coolidge
The mind of each man is the man himself.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
The more laws, the less justice.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
"Thinking men cannot be ruled."
Ayn Rand
"Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power."
Henry George
"What protectionism teaches us is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war."
Henry George
"He who sees truth, let him proclaim it, without asking who is for it or who is against it."
Henry George
In 18th century England I would have been a Whig, in 19th century England—a Tory. In 19th century America I would have been a Democrat, in 20th century America— a Republican. In the 21st century I hesitate to associate myself with any of these names, as they have increasingly come to be synonymous with a single term: Socialism.
G. Stolyarov II
The term 'universe' is a mere collective designation for all the data of existence. While particular men, planets, celestial objects, even galaxies, have been born and have died throughout time, the stage for their being, three-dimensional Euclidean space, has remained in existence infinities back.
G. Stolyarov II
I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
Francis Bacon
To know truly is to know by causes.
Francis Bacon
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.
Francis Bacon
Constancy is the foundation of virtue.
Francis Bacon
For whatever deserves to exist deserves also to be known, for knowledge is the image of existence; and things mean and splendid exist alike.
Francis Bacon
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
Francis Bacon
A cripple in the right way may beat a racer in the wrong one. Nay, the fleeter and better the racer is, who hath once missed his way, the farther he leaveth it behind.
Francis Bacon
He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.
Francis Bacon
Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.
Francis Bacon
We do not hear the term 'compassionate' applied to business executives or entrepreneurs, certainly not when they are engaged in their normal work. Yet in terms of results in the measurable form of jobs created, lives enriched, communities built, living standards raised, and poverty healed, a handful of capitalists has done infinitely more for mankind than all the self-serving politicians, academics, social workers, and religionists who march under the banner of 'compassion.'
Nathaniel Branden
If we do not believe in ourselves- neither in our efficacy nor in our goodness- the universe is a frightening place.
Nathaniel Branden
Positive self-esteem operates as, in effect, the immune system of the consciousness, providing resistance, strength, and a capacity for regeneration. When self-esteem is low, our resilience in the face of life's adversities is diminished. We crumble before vicissitudes that a healthier sense of self could vanquish. We tend to be more influenced by the desire to avoid pain than to experience joy. Negatives have more power over us than positives.
Nathaniel Branden
The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being.
Nathaniel Branden
Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek to prove their value by measuring themselves against a comparative standard. Their joy is being who they are, not in being better than someone else.
Nathaniel Branden
It is generally recognized that creativity requires leisure, an absence of rush, time for the mind and imagination to float and wander and roam, time for the individual to descend into the depths of his or her psyche, to be available to barely audible signals rustling for attention. Long periods of time may pass in which nothing seems to be happening. But we know that kind of space must be created if the mind is to leap out of its accustomed ruts, to part from the mechanical, the known, the familiar, the standard, and generate a leap into the new.
Nathaniel Branden
Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness. They are more willing to follow their own vision, even when it takes them far from the mainland of the human community. Unexplored places do not frighten them- or not, at any rate, as much as they frighten those around them. This is one of the secrets of their power. That which we call 'genius' has a great deal to do with courage and daring, a great deal to do with nerve.
Nathaniel Branden
Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.
Nathaniel Branden
Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.
Honore de Balzac
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Isaac Asimov
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer.
Henry Kissinger
Perhaps the removal of trade restrictions throughout the world would do more for the cause of universal peace than can any political union of peoples separated by trade barriers.
Frank Chodorov
Tariffs, quotas and other import restrictions protect the business of the rich at the expense of high cost of living for the poor. Their intent is to deprive you of the right to choose, and to force you to buy the high-priced inferior products of politically favored companies.
Alan Burris
A Liberty Primer
Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.
Ludwig von Mises
When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will.
Claude Frederic Bastiat
The welfare state reduces a citizen to a client, subordinates them to a bureaucrat, and subjects them to rules that are anti-work, anti-family, anti-opportunity and anti-property … Humans forced to suffer under such anti-human rules naturally develop pathologies. The evening news is the natural result of the welfare state.
Anonymous
The U.S. Constitution may be flawed, but it's a whole lot better than what we have now.
Anonymous
Virtually all reasonable laws are obeyed, not because they are the law, but because reasonable people would do that anyway. If you obey a law simply because it is the law, that's a pretty likely sign that it shouldn't be a law.
Anonymous
When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both.
James Dale Davidson
National Taxpayers' Union
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Plato
America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.
Ayn Rand
The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills.
Thomas Jefferson
Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free.
Harry Browne
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