195 Quotes About Theft

A pickpocket is obviously a champion of private enterprise. But it would perhaps be an exaggeration to say that a pickpocket is a champion of private property. The point about Capitalism and Commercialism, as conducted of late, is that they have really preached the extension of business rather than the preservation of belongings; and have at best tried to disguise the pickpocket with some of the virtues of the pirate.

Many a person thinks that he or she has stolen treasure—in the form of a thing, or a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife—from someone who thinks that he or she has been relieved of trash.

The man who was once starved may revenge himself upon the world not by stealing just once, or by stealing only what he needs, but by taking from the world an endless toll in payment of something irreplaceable, which is the lost faith.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

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.

I was reading in the paper today that Congress wants to replace the dollar bill with a coin. They’ve already done it. It’s called a nickel.

A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration.

Growing economies are built by billions of actors behaving according to their own interests, coordinated through institutions that no one in particular created.Realizing this requires humility, a trait that is in short supply among would-be dictators, politicians, and bureaucrats, which is precisely why these groups are the proven enemies of prosperity in all times and places.

There is only a certain amount of wealth in the world, this thinking goes. Economics is a matter of acquiring and allocating, not creating. This was the view of the world’s smartest people, all top philosophers and not stupid people, for many thousands of years before the age of the enlightenment. It still is.