If capitalism had never existed, any honest humanitarian should have been struggling to invent it. But when you see men struggling to evade its existence, to misrepresent its nature, and to destroy its last remnants—you may be sure that whatever their motives, love for man is not one of them. —Ayn Rand
You can’t use logic and reason to persuade someone away from a position that they didn’t use logic and reason to get to. —Eric July
If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor. No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty, or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as “the right to enslave” —Ayn Rand
The rights of one man cannot and must not violate the rights of another. For instance: a man has the right to live, but he has no right to take the life of another. He has the right to be free, but no right to enslave another.
The very right upon which he acts defines the same right of another man, and serves as a guide to tell him what he may or may not do. —Ayn Rand
Any alleged right of one man which necessitates the violation of the rights of another is not and cannot be a right. —Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Because the state necessarily commits aggression, the consistent libertarian, in opposing aggression, is also an anarchist. —Stephan Kinsella
The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others.
Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects — his laziness, incompetence, improvidence or stupidity. Never believe in the honesty or disinterestedness of anyone who disagrees with you.
This basic hatred is the heart of Marxism. This is its animating force. You can throw away the dialectical materialism, the Hegelian framework, the technical jargon, the “scientific” analysis, and millions of pretentious words, and you still have the core: the implacable hatred and envy that are the raison d’etre for all the rest.
— Henry Hazlitt
All the perplexities, confusions, and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation. —John Adams
At the core of Libertarian philosophy, self-ownership is a beautiful yet complex and scary idea that has fallen to the wayside in today’s culture of entitlements, victimhood, and blame. We must hold ourselves accountable. —Kalish Morrow
Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control, education, knowledge, and well-being. —Lord Acton