"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy.  The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe.  Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
 
...
"Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction.  The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear."
 
...
"I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason.  If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows."
 
...
"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase "to make money."  No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor.  Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created."
 
...
"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)."
 
...
"Man's character is the product of his premises."
 
...
"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others.  But the creator is the man who disagrees.  Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current.  But the creator is the man who goes against the current.  Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together.  But the creator is the man who stands alone."
 
       ...

 

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason his only absolute."
 
...

 

"The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort."

...

 

"The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of one man necessitates the injury of another."

 
...
 
"The right of a nation to determine its own form of government does not include the right to establish a slave society (that is, to legalize the enslavement of some men by others).  There is no such thing as 'the right to enslave'. A nation can do it, just as a man can become a criminal--but neither can do it by right."
 
...
 
"The right to agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that is crucial.  It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagree . . ."
 
...
"There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic.  Force or persuasion.  Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic have always resorted to guns."
 
...
"There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob."
 
...
"There's no way to rule innocent men.  The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.  When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.  One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
 
...
"Thinking men cannot be ruled."
 
...
"To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality."
 
...
"Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals--that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government--that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government."
 
...
 
"Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force?"

 

Trondheim, 10.12.2001
Andrea Gruber, andrea@andreagruber.net