52 Quotes by Isabel Paterson

What kind of world does the humanitarian contemplate as affording him full scope? It could only be a world filled with breadlines and hospitals, in which nobody retained the natural power of a human being to help himself or to resist having things done to him. And that is precisely the world that the humanitarian arranges when he gets his way.

If there were just one gift you could choose, but nothing barred, what would it be? We wish you then your own wish; you name it. Ours is liberty, now and forever.

Now the sole remedy for the abuse of political power is to limit it; but when politics corrupt business, modern reformers invariably demand the enlargement of the political power.

But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism.

Freedom is dangerous. Possibly crawling on all fours might be safer than standing upright, but we like the view better up there.

An abstraction will move a mountain: Nothing can withstand an idea.

The power to do things for people is also the power to do things to people.

If you hear some bad collectivistic notions, chances are that they came from [modern] liberals. But if you hear or read something outrageously, god-awfully collectivistic, you may be sure that the author is a conservative.

There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than is required to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure.