For any individual, there are two ways to become wealthier. One is to do something productive. The other is to redistribute existing resources in one’s own favor. If we all work, we create wealth, and society is better off. But if we all do nothing except try to get our hands into our neighbors’ pockets, we will all be very busy, yet we will all eventually starve.
Reason, May 1994
When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side. Ayn Rand
1905-1982
The rule of law, which Hayek saw as crucial, both to the economy and to the survival of freedom, is nowhere in greater danger than in the Supreme Court of the United States. With two or three exceptions, the Justices seem determined to be philosopher-kings, deciding issues according to ‘evolving standards’ rather than fixed principles, and responsive to the self-styled ‘thinking people’ rather than the written Constitution or the statutes passed to express the will of the voting public. Thomas Sowell
Dr. Thomas Sowell, January 17, 1994, (1930- ) American writer, scholar and economist, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute,Stanford, California
Trade barriers are an excellent means to higher wealth for the few but lower wealth for the many. Dr. Walter E. Williams
May 14, 2003,http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20030514.shtml
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. Adam Smith
Die when I may, I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower wherever I thought a flower would grow. Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865), 16th president of the United States.
WeÃve been blessed with the opportunity to stand for something – for liberty and freedom and fairness. Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan, Mar 8, 1985
If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so that we may rebuild society; if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of civilization escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite. Russell Kirk
The Conservative Mind (1953)
It usually costs money to communicate an idea to a large audience. But no one would seriously contend that a limitation on the expenditure of money to print a newspaper would not deprive the publisher of freedom of the press. Nor can the fact that it costs money to make a speech – whether it be hiring a hall or purchasing time on the air – make the speech any less an exercise of First Amendment Rights. Justice William O. Douglas
Whenever a state seeks to enforce ‘substantive equality,’ in society, the principles of free speech, private property, and individual freedom inevitably raise insurmountable obstacles to the totalitarian project and are invariably suppressed. David Horowitz