Isabel Paterson Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action. — Isabel Paterson

There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than 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

If you go back 150 years you are a reactionary; but if you go back 1000 years, you are in the foremost ranks of progress. — Isabel Paterson

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

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

An army is a diversion of energy from the productive life of a nation. — Isabel Paterson

Not uncommonly one hears some romantic young woman say, 'Oh, I would give anything to be a writer.' But she would not; and 'anything' is not enough. One must give everything. — Isabel Paterson

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

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

By stressing intrinsic value in thought. And it is true that when men have become engrossed in practical devices they are apt to narrow their field of vision and lose sight of the interconnection of the various branches of knowledge. More than that, as is now the case, they will even forget the larger principles they have applied, and on which their well-being depends. — Isabel Paterson

The only way to prevent prostitution altogether would be to imprison one half of the human race. — Isabel Paterson

Leadership is obliged to justify itself daily. — Isabel Paterson

But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism. — Isabel Paterson

As the several items can be exchanged, they must be equal; but in what terms? Not in pounds, yards, or hours; they are equal in value. Then what is wanted is a unit of value to reckon by. — Isabel Paterson

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

The great truth is that women actually like men, and men can never believe it. — Isabel Paterson

In arguing against free enterprise capitalism, the collectivist always adopts the false assumption of a fixed number of jobs in that system. Conversely, in arguing for collectivism, he always assumes that there will be as many jobs as there are workers. The government will make the jobs. — Isabel Paterson

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

The power to do things for people is also the power to do things to people. — Isabel Paterson

The objection to profit is as if a bystander, observing the planter digging his crop, should say: "You put in only one potato and you are taking out a dozen. You must have taken them away from someone else; those extra potatoes cannot be yours by right." If profit is denounced, it must be assumed that running at a loss is admirable. On the contrary, that is what requires justification. Profit is self-justifying. — Isabel Paterson

The military state is the final form to which every planned economy tends rapidly. — Isabel Paterson

Right now it is a terrible thing to be a rugged individualist; but we don't know what else to be except a feeble nonentity. — Isabel Paterson

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

No law can give power to private persons; every law transfers power from private persons to government. — Isabel Paterson

Poverty can be brought about by law; it cannot be forbidden by law. — Isabel Paterson

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

Money is indispensable to a long-circuit heavy load energy system. It must be used when a sufficient surplus is being produced to allow a margin for exchange, and cost of transport, over a considerable distance. Money represents a storage battery when idle, and a generalized mode of the conversion of energy when it is in motion, with a function of equating time and space. — Isabel Paterson

Trade and money, which go together in a stream of energy, inevitably wash away the enclosing walls of a society of status. — Isabel Paterson

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

One genius is about all a house will hold. — Isabel Paterson

Newton was asked as a mathematician, not as a moralist. He replied 'Gentlemen, in applied mathematics, you must describe your unit. — Isabel Paterson

As freak legislation, the antitrust laws stand alone. Nobody knows what it is they forbid. — Isabel Paterson

An abstraction will move a mountain: Nothing can withstand an idea. — Isabel Paterson

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

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

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