Ever since the beginning of modern science, the best minds have recognized that "the range of acknowledged ignorance will grow read more

Ever since the beginning of modern science, the best minds have recognized that "the range of acknowledged ignorance will grow with the advance of science." Unfortunately, the popular effect of this scientific advance has been a belief, seemingly shared by many scientists, that the range of our ignorance is steadily diminishing and that we can therefore aim at more comprehensive and deliberate control of all human activities. It is for this reason that those intoxicated by the advance of knowledge so often become the enemies of freedom.

The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.

The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

...we are apt to forget that the vast majority of men and women who fell under the totalitarian spell was read more

...we are apt to forget that the vast majority of men and women who fell under the totalitarian spell was activated by unselfish motives, ready to accept the role of martyr or executioner, as the cause demanded.

To those who feel that their values are the values, the less controlled systems necessarily present a spectacle of "chaos," read more

To those who feel that their values are the values, the less controlled systems necessarily present a spectacle of "chaos," simply because such systems respond to a diversity of values. The more successfully such systems respond to diversity, the more "chaos" there will be, by definition, according to the standards of any specific set of values- other than diversity or freedom as values. Looked at another way, the more self-righteous observers there are, the more chaos (and "waste") will be seen.

It is not conclusive proof of a doctrine's correctness that its adversaries use the police, the hangman, and violent mobs read more

It is not conclusive proof of a doctrine's correctness that its adversaries use the police, the hangman, and violent mobs to fight it. But it is a proof of the fact that those taking recourse to violent oppression are in their subconsciousness convinced of the untenability of their own doctrines.

Every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. read more

Every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. The indications are that such an impairment is brought about not by strengthening the individual and pitting him against the possessors of power, but by distributing and diversifying power and pitting one category or unit of power against the other. Where power is one, the defeated individual, however strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse.

Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty.

Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty.