Trade and money, which go together in a stream of energy, inevitably wash away the enclosing walls of a society of status.
Isabel PatersonThe humanitarian wishes to be a prime mover in the lives of others. He cannot admit either the divine or the natural order, by which men have the power to help themselves. The humanitarian puts himself in the place of God.
Isabel PatersonMost of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.
Isabel PatersonWhat kind of world does the humanitarian contemplate as affording him full scope? It could only be a world filled with breadlines and hospitals, in which nobody retained the natural power of a human being to help himself or to resist having things done to him. And that is precisely the world that the humanitarian arranges when he gets his way.
Isabel PatersonAs freak legislation, the antitrust laws stand alone. Nobody knows what it is they forbid.
Isabel PatersonMost of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends... ...when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object.
Isabel PatersonA tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.
Isabel PatersonWhoever is fortunate enough to be an American citizen came into the greatest inheritance man has ever enjoyed. He has had the benefit of every heroic and intellectual effort men have made for many thousands of years, realized at last. If Americans should now turn back, submit again to slavery, it would be a betrayal so base the human race might better perish.
Isabel PatersonNow the sole remedy for the abuse of political power is to limit it; but when politics corrupt business, modern reformers invariably demand the enlargement of the political power.
Isabel PatersonNo law can give power to private persons; every law transfers power from private persons to government.
Isabel PatersonMost of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse or omission.
Isabel PatersonThe craving for power is in itself a sign of inferior abilities and unfitness for responsibility.
Isabel PatersonThe philanthropist, the politician, and the pimp are inevitably found in alliance because they have the same motives, they seek the same ends, to exist for, through, and by others.
Isabel PatersonRight now it is a terrible thing to be a rugged individualist; but we don't know what else to be except a feeble nonentity.
Isabel PatersonDo you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you or pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?
Isabel PatersonIf you go back 150 years you are a reactionary; but if you go back 1000 years, you are in the foremost ranks of progress.
Isabel PatersonThe biggest pests are the people who use altruism as an alibi. What they passionately wish is to make themselves important.
Isabel PatersonPeople mostly do as they like, and that would be fine if they'd let other people do the same.
Isabel PatersonIf there were just one gift you could choose, but nothing barred, what would it be? We wish you then your own wish; you name it. Ours is liberty, now and forever.
Isabel PatersonThere can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than is required to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure.
Isabel PatersonAs such, the least practicable measure of government must be the best. Anything beyond the minimum must be oppression.
Isabel PatersonNothing increases the number of jobs so rapidly as labor-saving machinery, because it releases wants theretofore unknown, by permitting leisure.
Isabel PatersonEvery politically controlled educational system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy sooner or later. . . . Once that doctrine has been accepted, it becomes an almost superhuman task to break the stranglehold of the political power over the life of the citizen. It has had his body, property and mind in its clutches from infancy. An octopus would sooner release its prey. A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.
Isabel Paterson