Property Quotes - Page 26

• Thus, experience has ever shown, that education, as well as religion, aristocracy, as well as democracy and monarchy, are, singly, totally inadequate to the business of restraining the passions of men, of preserving a steady government, and protecting the lives, liberties, and properties of the people . . . . Religion, superstition, oaths, education, laws, all give way before passions, interest, and power, which can be resisted only by passions, interest, and power.

  John Adams

  Passion, Men, Law

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• But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property, passions much more steady in their operation, and much more universal in their influence. Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.

  Adam Smith

  Affluence, Making Money, Rich

  Adam Smith, J.R. McCulloch (1828). “Aninquiry in to the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: With a Life of the Author, an Introductory Discourse, Notes, and Supplemental Dissertations by J.R. McCulloch”, p.190

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• A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.Most government is by the rich for the rich. Government comprises a large part of the organized injustice in any society, ancient or modern.Civil government, insofar as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, and for the defence of those who have property against those who have none.

  Adam Smith

  Reality, Government, Criminals

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• [A] republic . . . [is] a government, in which the property of the public, or people, and of every one of them was secure and protected by law . . . implies liberty; because property cannot be secured unless the man be at liberty to acquire, use or part with it, at his discretion, and unless he have his personal liberty of life and limb, motion and rest, for that purpose.

  John Adams

  Freedom, Men, Law

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.454

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• [D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.

  John Adams

  Eye, Men, Intellectual

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• As long as Property exists, it will accumulate in Individuals and Families. As long as Marriage exists, Knowledge, Property and Influence will accumulate in Families.

  John Adams

  Family, Long, Influence

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.103

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• You cannot know, should I discribe to you; the feelings of a parent . . . . Four years have already past away since you left your native land, and this rural Cottage-Humble indeed, when compared to the Palaces you have visited, and the pomp you have been witness to. But I dare say you have not been so inattentive an observer, as to suppose that Sweet peace, and contentment, cannot inhabit the lowly roof, and bless the tranquil inhabitants, equally guarded and protected, in person and property, in this happy Country, as those who reside in the most elegant and costly dwellings.

  Abigail Adams

  Family, Country, Sweet

  Abigail Adams (2016). “Abigail Adams: Letters”, p.376, Library of America

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• A representative assembly, although extremely well qualified, and absolutely necessary, as a branch of the legislative, is unfit to exercise the executive power, for want of two essential properties, secrecy and dispatch.

  John Adams

  Exercise, Two, Essentials

  John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.87, Hackett Publishing

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• The balance of power in a society accompanies the balance of property in land.

  John Adams

  Land, Balance, Accompany

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.376

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• Whatever you may suffer, speak the truth. Be worthy of the entire confidence of your associates. Consider what is right as to what must be done. It is not necessary that you should keep your property, or even your life, but it is necessary that you should hold fast your integrity.

  William Ellery Channing

  Integrity, Suffering, Done

  William Ellery Channing, William Henry Channing (1860). “Memoir of William Ellery Channing, with extracts from his correspondence and manuscripts ...”, p.424

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• Thirdly, the supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own.

  John Locke

  Men, Should Have, People

  John Locke (2012). “The Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration”, p.80, Courier Corporation

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• For a man's property is not at all secure, though there be good and equitable laws to set the bounds of it, between him and his fellow subjects, if he who commands those subjects, have power to take from any private man, what part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good.

  John Locke

  Men, Thinking, Law

  John Locke (1751). “Works”, p.207

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• And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of anybody, even of their legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish, or so wicked, as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the subject.

  John Locke

  Community, Design, Liberty

  John Locke (2009). “The Second Treatise on Civil Government”, p.77, Prometheus Books

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• As material fortune is associated with the properties of the body, so honor belongs to those of the soul.

  Ptolemy

  Soul, Honor, Body

  Ptolemy, Frank Egleston Robbins (1940). “Tetrabiblos”, Loeb Classical Library

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• War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end.

  Stonewall Jackson

  Country, War, Mean

  "Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War". Book by George Francis Robert Henderson, 1898.

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• Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.

  Adam Smith

  Government, Liberty, Pay

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.362

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• The financial history of the Baltimore and Ohio since the close of the nineteenth century is interesting chiefly in connection with changes in the control of the property

  John Moody

  Ohio, Interesting, Baltimore

  John Moody (1921). “The Railroad Builders: A Chronicle of the Welding of the States”

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• The magic of property turns sand to gold.

  Arthur Young

  Magic, Gold, Sand

  Arthur Young (1792). “Travels During the Years 1787, 1788, and 1789: Undertaken More Particularly with a View of Ascertaining the Cultivation, Wealth, Resources, and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France”, p.74

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• We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.

  John Adams

  Religious, Father, Character

  John Adams (2015). “The Works of John Adams Vol. 8: Letters and State Papers 1782 - 1799”, p.197, Jazzybee Verlag

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• In every society where property exists there will ever be a struggle between rich and poor. Mixed in one assembly, equal laws can never be expected; they will either be made by the member to plunder the few who are rich, or by the influence to fleece the many who are poor.

  John Adams

  Struggle, Law, Influence

  John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.158, Hackett Publishing

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• All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws

  Voltaire

  Equality, Men, Rights

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• Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.

  John Adams

  Liberty, Patriot, Secured

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.280

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• Assuming that a tax increase is necessary, it is clearly preferable to impose the additional cost on land by increasing the land tax, rather than to increase the wage tax - the two alternatives open to the City (of Pittsburgh). It is the use and occupancy of property that creates the need for the municipal services that appear as the largest item in the budget - fire and police protection, waste removal, and public works. The average increase in tax bills of city residents will be about twice as great with wage tax increase than with a land tax increase.

  Herbert Simon

  Fire, Average, Land

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• The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Foundation, Sacred

  Adam Smith (1814). “An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. With notes, and an additional vol., by D. Buchanan”, p.200

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• In the nature of things, those who have no property and see their neighbors possess much more than they think them to need, cannot be favorable to laws made for the protection of property. When this class becomes numerous, it becomes clamorous. It looks on property as its prey and plunder, and is naturally ready, at times, for violence and revolution.

  Daniel Webster

  Thinking, Law, Class

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