People mostly do as they like, and that would be fine if they'd let other people do the same.

Most 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.

The military state is the final form to which every planned economy tends rapidly.

Right now it is a terrible thing to be a rugged individualist; but we don't know what else to be except a feeble nonentity.

The craving for power is in itself a sign of inferior abilities and unfitness for responsibility.

Every 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.

The biggest pests are the people who use altruism as an alibi. What they passionately wish is to make themselves important.