Isabel Paterson Quotes

Quotes about:

• A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.

  Isabel Paterson

  Education, Historical, Liberty

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.258, Transaction Publishers

  55 Copy quote

• 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.

  Isabel Paterson

  Children, Parent, Arbitrary

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.255, Transaction Publishers

  19 Copy quote

• Every politically controlled educational system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy sooner or later. . . . Once that doctrine has been accepted, it becomes an almost superhuman task to break the stranglehold of the political power over the life of the citizen. It has had his body, property and mind in its clutches from infancy. An octopus would sooner release its prey. A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.

  Isabel Paterson

  Educational, Octopus, Political

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.258, Transaction Publishers

  15 Copy quote

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

  Isabel Paterson

  Views, Might, Danger

  19 Copy quote

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

  Isabel Paterson

  People

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “The God of the Machine”, p.40, Transaction Publishers

  12 Copy quote

• The biggest pests are the people who use altruism as an alibi. What they passionately wish is to make themselves important.

  Isabel Paterson

  People, Wish, Important

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “The God of the Machine”, p.40, Transaction Publishers

  17 Copy quote

• Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends... ...when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object.

  Isabel Paterson

  Past, Direct Action, Omission

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.235, Transaction Publishers

  12 Copy quote

• People mostly do as they like, and that would be fine if they'd let other people do the same.

  Isabel Paterson

  People, Would Be, Fine

  21 Copy quote

• The humanitarian wishes to be a prime mover in the lives of others. He cannot admit either the divine or the natural order, by which men have the power to help themselves. The humanitarian puts himself in the place of God.
  But he is confronted by two awkward facts; first, that the competent do not need his assistance; and second, that the majority of people positively do not want to be "done good" by the humanitarian. Of course, what the humanitarian actually proposes is that he shall do what he thinks is good for everybody. It is at this point that the humanitarian sets up the guillotine.

  Isabel Paterson

  Men, Thinking, Order

  10 Copy quote

• Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.

  Isabel Paterson

  School, Omission, Long

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.235, Transaction Publishers

  23 Copy quote

• No law can give power to private persons; every law transfers power from private persons to government.

  Isabel Paterson

  Government, Law, Giving

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.285, Transaction Publishers

  14 Copy quote

• It takes the best part of a lifetime to find out what you don't want.

  Isabel Paterson

  Want, Lifetime

  11 Copy quote

• The philanthropist, the politician, and the pimp are inevitably found in alliance because they have the same motives, they seek the same ends, to exist for, through, and by others.

  Isabel Paterson

  Pimp, Alliances, Politician

  Isabel Paterson (2017). “God of the Machine”, p.323, Routledge

  12 Copy quote

• The craving for power is in itself a sign of inferior abilities and unfitness for responsibility.

  Isabel Paterson

  Responsibility, Ability, Craving

  6 Copy quote

• The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action.

  Isabel Paterson

  Action, Humanitarian, Theory

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “The God of the Machine”, p.242, Transaction Publishers

  14 Copy quote

• Whoever is fortunate enough to be an American citizen came into the greatest inheritance man has ever enjoyed. He has had the benefit of every heroic and intellectual effort men have made for many thousands of years, realized at last. If Americans should now turn back, submit again to slavery, it would be a betrayal so base the human race might better perish.

  Isabel Paterson

  Betrayal, Men, Race

  "The God of the Machine" by Isabel Paterson, (p. 292), 1943.

  4 Copy quote

• Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you or pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?

  Isabel Paterson

  Children, Teaching, School

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “The God of the Machine”, p.261, Transaction Publishers

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  Isabel Paterson

  May, Chance, Conservative

  10 Copy quote

• The military state is the final form to which every planned economy tends rapidly.

  Isabel Paterson

  Military, Finals, Economy

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “The God of the Machine”, p.269, Transaction Publishers

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Isabel Paterson

  Names, Forever, Wish

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Isabel Paterson

  Business, Political, Abuse

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “The God of the Machine”, p.171, Transaction Publishers

  10 Copy quote

• Nothing increases the number of jobs so rapidly as labor-saving machinery, because it releases wants theretofore unknown, by permitting leisure.

  Isabel Paterson

  Jobs, Numbers, Saving

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.192, Transaction Publishers

  9 Copy quote

• As such, the least practicable measure of government must be the best. Anything beyond the minimum must be oppression.

  Isabel Paterson

  Government, Oppression, Being The Best

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.69, Transaction Publishers

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Isabel Paterson

  Doe, Done, World

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.241, Transaction Publishers

  8 Copy quote

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

  Isabel Paterson

  Moving, Ideas, Mountain

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “The God of the Machine”, p.18, Transaction Publishers

  9 Copy quote

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