military_tech Power
Political and economic power
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"Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power."
menu_book Capitalism and Freedom
View Full Quote"For the present I should like merely to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
View Full Quote"He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. From where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves?"
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
View Full QuoteView Full Quote"I studied the Koran a great deal, mainly because of our position vis-à-vis the Muslim population of Algeria and throughout the Near East. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large, there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Mohammed."
View Full Quote"Mohammed brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not only religious doctrines but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories."
auto_stories Books
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
Written around 1549 by the young French magistrate Étienne de La Boétie and first published posthumously in 1576, this founding text of libertarian...
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