Notable Quotable 49

Jan 13, 2023

The worship of the State is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilisation than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.

- Ludwig von Mises

The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is making sure he never knows he's in prison.

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at.

- Murray N. Rothbard

The producers and promoters of modern art form a veritable mafia that is made up of an international network of art galleries, museums, universities, critics and auction houses. Governments at the national and provincial levels also support this genre by subsidizing artists and related exhibitions, thus contributing to the distortion and imbalance of the masses. Art should elevate people's feelings, arousing in them appreciation and admiration for the beauty of classical forms and noble deeds. The so-called modern or contemporary art is nothing more than the manifestation of an unbalanced society uprooted from nature by the pretentious and perverse intellectuals of Gramscian formation who control the media and the educational system of our decadent society. So, it is used as a weapon of cultural degradation. The awareness of this is the duty of every good citizen and every lover of beauty and dignity.

- Claudio Lombardo

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one... Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance... In 1984 people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

- Neil Postman

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world it’s pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We’re on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.

- C.S. Lewis

The vocation, whether it be that of the farmer or the architect, is a function; the exercise of this function as regards the man himself is the most indispensable means of spiritual development, and as regards his relation to society the measure of his worth... It is only when the maker of things is a maker of things by vocation, and not merely holding down a job, that the price of things is approximate to their real value...

- Ananda Coomaraswamy

If you don't have a plan, you become part of someone else's plan.

- Terence McKenna

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of it's thoughts.

- Marcus Aurelius

Creation is more than an accident of dead matter. It's a romance. It has purpose. It sings of the Living God. It bears his signature.

- Charles J. Chaput