It is probable that democracy owes more to nonconformity than to any other single movement.

The certainties of one age are the problems of the next.

A society which reverences the attainment of riches as the supreme felicity will naturally be disposed to regard the poor as damned ... if only to justify itself for making their life a hell.

The real economic cleavage is not... between employers and employed, but between all who do constructive work, from scientist to laborer, on the one hand, and all whose main interest is the preservation of existing proprietary rights upon the other, irrespective of whether they contribute to constructive work or not.

Private property is a necessary institution, at least in a fallen world; men work more and dispute less when goods are private than when they are in common.

When men have gone so far as to talk as though their idols have come to life, it is time that someone broke them.

Bankruptcies of governments have, on the whole, done less harm to mankind than their ability to raise loans.