Freedom Thinkers

F.A. Hayek

Equality of the general rules of law and conduct, however, is the only kind of equality conducive to liberty and the only equality which we can secure without destroying liberty. Not only has liberty nothing to do with any other sort of equality, but it is even bound to produce inequality in many respects. This is the necessary result ...

Henry Hazlitt

The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one group; ...

Sam Houston

The great misfortune is that a notion obtains with those in power that the world, or the people, require more governing than is necessary. To govern well is a great science, but no country is ever improved by too much governing. Govern wisely and as little as possible! Most men think when they are elevated to position that it ...

David Hume

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy. -- David Hume David Hume Biography Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy My Own Life by David Hume McMaster University Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary by David Hume Library ...

W.H. Hutt

The two main conclusions suggested by this discussion are, first, that there has been a general tendency to exaggerate the "evils" which characterized the factory system before the abandonment of laissez faire and, second, that factory legislation was not essential to the ultimate disappearance of those "evils." Conditions which modern standards would condemn were then common to the community ...

John Jay

It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, ...

Thomas Jefferson

The essential principles of our Government ... form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone ...

William Stanley Jevons

If, instead of welcoming inquiry and criticism, the admirers of a great author accept his writings as authoritative, both in their excellences and in their defects, the most serious injury is done to truth. In matters of philosophy and science, authority has ever been the great opponent of truth. A despotic calm is usually the triumph of error. In ...

Bertrand de Jouvenel

hen we ask where liberty is, they refer us to the ballots in our hands; over the vast machine which keeps us in subjection we have this one right: we, the ten- or twenty-or thirty- millionth of the sovereign, lost in the vast crowd of our fellows, can on occasion take a hand in setting the machine in motion. ...

Israel M. Kirzner

Only in a society where entrepreneurs are free to make errors, can we expect an outpouring of entrepreneurship to lift its economy to new, hitherto unglimpsed, heights of prosperity. Only where potential entrepreneurs are free to follow the lure of profits as they see them, will there be the unleashing of entrepreneurial vision, daring, and judgment that creates profits ...

Frank H. Knight

Market competition is the only form of organization which can afford a large measure of freedom to the individual. -- Frank H. Knight, Freedom and Reform Frank H. Knight, 1885-1972 History of Economic Thought Frank Hyneman Knight (1885-1972) Library of Economics and Liberty Frank Knight's Mixed Legacy by David Gordon Ludwig von Mises Institute Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit by ...

Ludwig Lachmann

By reminding us that individuals are different and have different tastes and expectations, has reminded us not only to respect those differences in our everyday lives, but also to respect them in our scientific investigations. For it is only by acknowledging and referring to these differences that we will be able to understand how the market process ...

Rose Wilder Lane

Nothing whatever but the constitutional law, the political structure, of these United States protects any American from arbitrary seizure of his property and his person, from the Gestapo and the Storm Troops, from the concentration camp, the torture chamber, the revolver at the back of his neck in a cellar. -- Rose Wilder Lane Rose Wilder Lane Biography Marshall University

Robert E. Lee

What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world. -- Robert E. Lee Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) CivilWarHome.com ...

Robert LeFevre

Government, when it is examined, turns out to be nothing more nor less than a group of fallible men with the political force to act as though they were infallible. -- Robert LeFevre, Aggression Is Wrong Robert LeFevre Short Bio Answers.com The Wisdom of LeFevre by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. Ludwig von Mises Institute Aggression Is Wrong by Robert LeFevre Voluntaryist Tiger in ...

John Lilburne

For where there is no law declared, there can be no transgression. Therefore it is very requisite that the parliament would declare their privileges to the whole commons of England, that so no man may through ignorance (by the parliament's default) run causelessly into the hazard of the loss of their lives, liberties, or estates. For here it is ...

John Locke

Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment ...

Fritz Machlup

But you are asking me how did the Austrians distinguish their own economics from others in the 1920s and here is my list. One, methodological individualism. Two, methodological subjectivism. Three, marginalism. Four, individual tastes and preferences, that is, subjective valuations of goods and services determine the demand for these goods and services. Five, opportunity costs (Wieser's law). Six -- ...

James Madison

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, ...

Bernard de Mandeville

Thus every Part was full of Vice, Yet the whole Mass a Paradice; -- Bernard de Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees Bernard de Mandeville Biography History of Economic Thought The Grumbling Hive by Bernard de Mandeville Rutgers University De Mandeville Bibliography Rutgers University