All that Communism needs to make it successful is someone to feed and clothe it.

All that Communism needs to make it successful is someone to feed and clothe it.

Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way.

Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way.

It is precisely those things which belong to "the people" which have historically been despoiled- wild creatures, the air, and read more

It is precisely those things which belong to "the people" which have historically been despoiled- wild creatures, the air, and waterways being notable examples. This goes to the heart of why property rights are socially important in the first place. Property rights mean self-interested monitors. No owned creatures are in danger of extinction. No owned forests are in danger of being leveled. No one kills the goose that lays the golden egg when it is his goose.

We vote too much. We deliberate too little. We have brought within the scope of the federal jurisdiction a vast read more

We vote too much. We deliberate too little. We have brought within the scope of the federal jurisdiction a vast number of subjects that do not belong here, but are nevertheless here. What we need to do is to stop passing laws. We have enough laws now to govern the world for the next ten thousand years.

The fact is that up to now a free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither read more

The fact is that up to now a free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither accorded him a superior status to sustain his confidence nor made it easy for him to acquire an unquestioned sense of social usefulness. For he derives his sense of usefulness mainly from directing, instructing, and planning- from minding other people's business- and is bound to feel superfluous and neglected where people believe themselves competent to manage individual and communal affairs, and are impatient of supervision and regulation. A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.

If you make a living, if you earn your own money, you're free -- however free one can be on read more

If you make a living, if you earn your own money, you're free -- however free one can be on this planet.

While rationalism at the individual level is a plea for more personal autonomy from cultural norms, at the social level read more

While rationalism at the individual level is a plea for more personal autonomy from cultural norms, at the social level it is often a claim- or arrogation- of power to stifle the autonomy of others.

Commencement speakers have a good deal in common with grandfather clocks: Standing usually some six feet tall, typically ponderous in read more

Commencement speakers have a good deal in common with grandfather clocks: Standing usually some six feet tall, typically ponderous in construction, more traditional than functional, their distinction is largely their noisy communication of essentially commonplace information.

The man whose authority is recent is always stern.

The man whose authority is recent is always stern.