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The aim of protection, in short, is to prevent the bringing into a country of things in themselves useful and valuable, in order to compel the making of such things. But what all mankind in the individual affairs of every-day life, regard as to be desired is not the making of things, but the possession of things.

— Henry George Protection or Free Trade? (1886)

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More quotes by Henry George

There are people into whose heads it never enters to conceive of any better state of society than that which now exists.

Progress and Poverty (1879)

It is too narrow an understanding of production which confines it merely to the making of things. Production includes not merely the making of things, but the bringing of them to the consumer.

Progress and Poverty (1879)

The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air — it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right to be in this world, and others no right.

Progress and Poverty (1879)

In that spirit, and in no other, is the power to solve social problems and carry civilization onward.

Social Problems (1883)

The rights of men to the use of land are not joint rights: they are equal rights.

A Perplexed Philosopher (1892)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Henry George (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.