26 quotes
The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson.
Socialism is founded on a lie -- the premise that man knows more than he in fact does know.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
Communism, socialism, the welfare state, et cetera, are essentially one and the same thing.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
Civilization, I sometimes think, is little more than a thin veneer of culture covering a host of red-assed baboons!
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
It should be noted that people in the free market rarely bear false witness; integrity is the rule.
The Complete Works of Leonard E. Read (1976)
Coercion doesn't change from evil to good if employed by two against one or by 200 million against one. Arithmetic has no bearing on moral principles.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
I have never met a single European who had a clean, clear-cut understanding of the principles of strictly limited government.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
Self-promotion is self-defeating. No matter how brilliant an individual, one becomes instinctively "leery" when he toots his own horn.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
In market terms, one is entitled to what others will offer in willing exchange. That is all!
Socialism takes and redistributes wealth, but it is utterly incapable of creating wealth.
Anything That's Peaceful (1964)
Government cannot, in logic and justice, possess any powers or rights that are not properly the powers and rights of any or all of the individuals who establish it.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
'What would you cut out of government expenditures?' I cannot answer that question. Ask me what I would leave in.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
All creative thought and creative action is strictly personal. A committee, any collective, cannot think. It cannot act creatively. It can only act destructively. It can exercise brute force.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
At one end of the intellectual spectrum are the wise, those who know they don't know much; and on the other end are the egotists, those who have little, if any, awareness of how little they know.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
Such terms as communism, socialism, Fabianism, the welfare state, Nazism, fascism, state interventionism, egalitarianism, the planned economy, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Republicanism, the New Frontier are simply different labels for much the same thing.
Elements of Libertarian Leadership (1962)
Clever phrases or cliches such as "Human rights are above property rights" or "What would you do, let them starve?" have influenced untold numbers of Americans to vote for charlatans and to advocate legal thievery.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
An action is morally good which aids or promotes this unfolding of self and it is morally bad if it inhibits or destroys the process. It, of course, goes without saying that this does not include one's own rise at the expense of another.
Leonard E. Read Journal (1949)
There is really nothing that can be done except by an individual. Only individuals can learn. Only individuals can think creatively. Only individuals can cooperate. Only individuals can combat statism.
Essays on Liberty (1954)
What, actually, is the difference between communism and fascism? Both are forms of statism, authoritarianism. The only difference between Stalin’s communism and Mussolini’s fascism is an insignificant detail in organizational structure.
Once an activity has been socialized, it is impossible to point out, by concrete example, how men in a free market could better conduct it. How, for instance, can one compare a socialized post office with private postal delivery when the latter has been outlawed?