Great Throughts Treasury

"Perhaps the most obvious of our systemic problems is uncontrollable growth. I use the word “uncontrollable” advisedly, in preference to “uncontrolled.” The growth of which I speak is not humanity’s colonization of the planet over millennia of history. It is rather an inexorable material reality that is unique to our era: namely, that unlimited economic growth is assumed to be evidence of human progress. We have taken this notion so much for granted over the past few generations that it is as immutably fixed in our consciousness as the sanctity of property itself." - Murray Bookchin

"Hereditary succession to the magistracy is absurd, as it tends to make a property of it; it is incompatible with the sovereignty of the people." - Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I

"When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

"So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

"Some people say we are diminishing the value of their property by increasing restrictiveness and I would say the opposite. That's been the experience of the county up to now." - Paul Rudnick

"Every man, in proportion to his virtue, considers himself, with respect to the great community of mankind, as the steward and guardian of their interests in the property which he chances to possess. Every man, in proportion to his wisdom, sees the manner in which it is his duty to employ the resources which the consent of mankind has entrusted to his discretion." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Some benefit has not failed to flow from the imperfect attempts which have been made to erect a system of equal rights to property and power upon the basis of arbitrary institutions. They have undoubtedly, in every case, from the instability of their foundation, failed. Still, they constitute a record of those epochs at which a trite sense of justice suggested itself to the understandings of men, so that they consented to forego all the cherished delights of luxury, all the habitual gratifications arising out of the possession or the expectation of power, all the superstitions with which the accumulated authority of ages had made them dear and venerable. They are so many trophies erected in the enemy's land, to mark the limits of the victorious progress of truth and justice." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"You ought to love all mankind; nay, every individual of mankind. You ought not to love the individuals of your domestic circles less, but to love those who exist beyond it more. Once make the feelings of confidence and of affection universal, and the distinctions of property and power will vanish; nor are they to be abolished without substituting something equivalent in mischief to them, until all mankind shall acknowledge an entire community of rights." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Education can no longer be the sole property of the state." - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker

"That is what we have done, and still do, with other species. They're effectively things; they're property that we can own, buy and sell. We use them as is convenient and we keep them in ways that suit us best, producing products we want at the cheapest prices. So my argument is simply that this is wrong, this is not justifiable if we want to defend the idea of human equality against those who have a narrower definition. I don't think we can say that somehow we, as humans, are the sole repository of all moral value, and that all beings beyond our species don't matter. I think they do matter, and we need to expand our moral consideration to take that into account." - Peter Singer

"Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over anything which he has stamped as his own." - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong. " - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself. Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these sales multiply, and soon the people — who have been neither able nor willing to sell, and who have received none of the proceeds of the sale — will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor’s door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, So perish idlers and vagrants!" - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"Reader, calm yourself: I am no agent of discord, no firebrand of sedition. I anticipate history by a few days; I disclose a truth whose development we may try in vain to arrest; I write the preamble of our future constitution. This proposition which seems to you blasphemous — property is robbery — would, if our prejudices allowed us to consider it, be recognized as the lightning-rod to shield us from the coming thunderbolt; but too many interests stand in the way! ... Alas! philosophy will not change the course of events: destiny will fulfill itself regardless of prophecy. Besides, must not justice be done and our education be finished?" - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"Thus, communism violates the sovereignty of the conscience, and equality: the first, by restricting spontaneity of mind and heart, and freedom of thought and action; the second, by placing labor and laziness, skill and stupidity, and even vice and virtue on an equality in point of comfort. For the rest, if property is impossible on account of the desire to accumulate, communism would soon become so through the desire to shirk." - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"Yes: all men believe and repeat that equality of conditions is identical with equality of rights; that property and robbery are synonymous terms; that every social advantage accorded, or rather usurped, in the name of superior talent or service, is iniquity and extortion. All men in their hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made to understand it." - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"To a Sufi, revelation is the inherent property of every soul. There is an unceasing flow of the divine stream, which has neither beginning nor end." - Inayat Khan, aka Hazrat Inayat Khan, fully Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan

"Rabbi Yose said: “Let your friend’s property be as precious to you as your own; Give yourself to studying the Torah, for it does not come to you by inheritance; and let all your deeds be done in the name of Heaven.”" - Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL

"Rabbi Yose said: “Let your friend’s property be as precious to you as your own; Give yourself to studying the Torah, for it does not come to you by inheritance; and let all your deeds be done in the name of Heaven.”" - Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL

"Rabbi Yosi said: “Let the property of your fellow man be as dear to you as your own. Prepare yourself for the study of the Torah, for the knowledge of it is not yours by inheritance. Let all your deeds be done for the sake of Heaven.”" - Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL

"The goods of this world are originally meant for all. The right to private property is valid and necessary, but it does not nullify the value of this principle. Private property, in fact, is under a social mortgage." - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL

"Private property is a natural fruit of labor, a product of intense activity of man, acquired through his energetic determination to ensure and develop with his own strength his own existence and that of his family, and to create for himself and his own an existence of just freedom, not only economic, but also political, cultural and religious." - Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL

"Private property is a natural fruit of labor, a product of intense activity of man, acquired through his energetic determination to ensure and develop with his own strength his own existence and that of his family, and to create for himself and his own an existence of just freedom, not only economic, but also political, cultural and religious." - Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli NULL

"In fact, a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right to property… The dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights. People have rights" - Potter Stewart

"The dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights. People have rights... In fact, a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right in property." - Potter Stewart

"The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation, no less that the right to speak out or the right to travel is, in truth, a “personal” right." - Potter Stewart

"Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

"A citizen without a property doesn" - Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL

"Worldly people think highly of their wealth. They feel that there is nothing like it. Sambhu said, 'It is my desire to leave all my property at the Lotus Feet of God.' But does God care for money? He wants from His devotees knowledge, devotion, discrimination, and renunciation." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream. How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?" - René Descartes

"Children are not our property, and they are not ours to control any more that we were our parents' property or theirs to control." - Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. The adage is true as long as you don't really believe the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds." - Richard Dawkins

"Property has acquired an almost greater sacredness in our social conscience than religion: for offence against the latter there is lenience, for damage to the former no forgiveness. Since Property is deemed the base of all stability, the more's the pity that not all are owners, that in fact the greater proportion of Society comes disinherited into the world. Society is manifestly thus reduced by its own principle to such a perilous inquietude, that it is compelled to reckon all its laws for an impossible adjustment of this conflict; and protection of property " - Richard Wagner, fully Wilhelm Richard Wagner

"Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"The conservative thinks of political policies as intended to preserve order, justice, and freedom. The ideologue, on the contrary, thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature. In his march toward Utopia, the ideologue is merciless." - Russell Kirk

"I am a radical in thought (and principle) and a conservative in method (and conduct)." - Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes

"The bliss of the elect in heaven would not be perfect unless they were able to look across the abyss and enjoy the agonies of their brethren in eternal fire." - Saint Gregory, aka Pope Gregory I, St. Gregory the Dialogist, "Gregory the Great" NULL

"If the soul sometimes prays it does so with such lack of strength and sweetness that it thinks that God neither hears it nor pays heed to it. Indeed, this is no time for the soul to speak with God – it should rather put its mouth in the dust, and endure its purgation with patience… It has such distractions and times of such profound forgetfulness of the memory that frequent periods pass by without its knowing what it has been doing or thinking. This unknowing and forgetfulness are caused by the interior recollection wherein this contemplation absorbs the soul." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL

"It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes." - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis

"Harmony makes small things grow, lack of it makes great things decay." - Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

"I'll have you understand I am running this court, and the law hasn't got a damn thing to do with it!" - Sam Ervin, fully Samuel James "Sam" Ervin, Jr.

"A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security." - Samuel Adams

"A little boy and a little girl were looking at a picture of Adam and Eve. "Which is Adam and which is Eve?" said one. "I do not know," said the other, "but I could tell if they had their clothes on."" - Samuel Butler

"No man is defeated without some resentment, which will be continued with obstinacy while he believes himself in the right, and asserted with bitterness, if even to his own conscience he is detected in the wrong." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Be sure don't let people's telling you, you are pretty, puff you up; for you did not make yourself, and so can have no praise due to you for it. It is virtue and goodness only, that make the true beauty." - Samuel Richardson

"Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable." - Samuel Smiles

"The life of a good man is at the same time the most eloquent lesson of virtue and the most severe reproof of vice." - Samuel Smiles

"All family life is organized around the most damaged person in it." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud