Voices of Liberty

Advancing freedom through the words of its greatest defenders 🗽 Follow Voices of Liberty on Substack for quote analysis, original essays, and more.

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Ludwig von Mises was born 145 years ago today. Here’s what the Austrian economist had to say about socialism:

“The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement.

They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent.

They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau.”

[Voices of Liberty @FreedomVoL]

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

— James Madison

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“America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.”

— Ayn Rand

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“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

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“What sickens me about left-wing people, especially the intellectuals, is their utter ignorance of the way things actually happen.”

— George Orwell

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“No one is as hopelessly enslaved as the person who thinks he’s free.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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“Attempts to spread the wealth are, in fact, spreading poverty because you attack the people who are creating the most wealth—not only for themselves, but for society.”

— Thomas Sowell

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“‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded—and once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed such emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist.”

— F. A. Hayek

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Adam Smith:

“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.

We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.”

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“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

— Aldous Huxley

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“Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish. Too much handling will spoil it.”

— Lao Tzu

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“Most people who read ‘The Communist Manifesto’ probably have no idea that it was written by a couple of young men who had never worked a day in their lives, and who nevertheless spoke boldly in the name of ‘the workers.’”

— Thomas Sowell

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“Beneath the rhetoric of diversity, democracy and tolerance that they so often preach, what truly lies is their blatant desire to eliminate dissent, criticism and ultimately freedom.”

— Javier Milei

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“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive … Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

— C. S. Lewis

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“It is easy to be conspicuously ‘compassionate’ if others are being forced to pay the cost.”

— Murray Rothbard

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“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

— Thomas Paine

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Read the context and analysis of this quote—and many others—on the Voices of Liberty Substack.

https://t.co/7H0Yw63Mqw

[Voices of Liberty @FreedomVoL]

Ludwig von Mises was born 145 years ago today. Here’s what the Austrian economist had to say about socialism:

“The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement.

They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent.

They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau.”

[Voices of Liberty @FreedomVoL]

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”

— Adam Smith

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“The Soviet Union has cured most people of the socialist illusion. The great socialist experiment was a disaster, economically and socially.”

— Roger Scruton

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Milton Friedman: “The problem with government is the absence of any mechanism for recognizing errors. What the private system abounds in is survival of the fittest.”

“What the governmental system abounds in is expansion of the mistakes. There is no mechanism for eliminating governmental agencies which are no longer needed or have behaved perversely.”