Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski Quotes & Sayings

Totalitarianism begins with using the word "we" without every I's permission. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

The world will know peace when the entrepreneur fully masters the art of starving the politician. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Economics without ethics is a caricature. Ethics without economics is a fairy tale. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Nationalism: the curious notion that barbarism becomes a virtue when it reaches tribal proportions. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

The surest way to damage society is to call for a "great man" to lead it. The surest way to improve society is to become a great man to lead oneself and convince others to do likewise. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

The ultimate foundation of spirituality is the recognition that there can't be such a thing as a purposeful life in a purposeless universe. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Unorganized morality is called sociability. Organized morality is called civilization. Unorganized immorality is called barbarity. Organized immorality is called statism. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Perhaps the most flagrant testimony to the intellectual shallowness of statism is that the typical statist believes that the fantastically hypothetical threat of a corporation monopolizing the supply of water is a devastating objection to libertarianism, but the painfully real threat of a state methodically exterminating tens of millions of individuals is not a devastating objection to statism. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

It takes abstract thinking to see how greed can lead to prosperity, but it takes wishful thinking to claim that violence can lead to charity. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

If you want peace, prepare for ideological war with those who want others to prepare for physical war. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

An entrepreneur is someone who sees a gain from trade where others see a tradeoff. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Whenever one feels like saying "the money that billionaire spent on his fleet of yachts could have been used better by the "public sector"", one should ask oneself when was the last time one heard of a billionaire buying an army of tanks and a set of nuclear weapons. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

If anarchy is chaos, and chaos is war, why wasn't a single war started by anarchists? — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Entrepreneurship is the use of self-interest in the service of others. Politics is the use of others in the service of self-interest. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Politics is an endless, borderless war against individual liberty. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

The only common good is the common liberty to pursue individual goods. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Believing that there is a conflict between rationality and spirituality is like believing that there is a conflict between knowledge and inspiration. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Expressing fear that cheap foreign labor will "steal" one's job is the most disarmingly honest admission of professional incompetence. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Anarcho-capitalism: the realization that the only way to effectively govern the market is to have an effective market in governance. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Patience is the ability to enjoy the calm of boredom. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Abolitionism was a movement to end private slavery. Libertarianism is a movement to end private and public slavery. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

The earliest use of writing was strictly commercial and economic, not political or bureaucratic. It was trade, entrepreneurship, and stewardship of private property, not politics, "public education" or the creation of national mythology that allowed humankind to transition from prehistory to history. Just as trade, entrepreneurship, and stewardship of private property have always been on the forefront of civilization's advancement, so were they also the driving force behind civilization's emergence. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Individualism turns a band into a society. Collectivism turns society into a mob. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

The best way to turn the earth into hell is to turn the state into a god. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Entrepreneurs make profits by serving the needy. Politicians make profits by creating the needy. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

It takes a common thug to commit injustice, but it takes an exceptional thug to call it "social justice". — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Failure to find the truth is perhaps an intellectual defeat, but failure to look for the truth is an intellectual surrender. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

To create a free society is not to accomplish the impossible task of convincing all people to abandon aggression, but to accomplish the essential task of convincing enough people to abandon the belief that aggression is ever legitimate. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

To eliminate statism is not to physically subdue the rulers, but to mentally liberate the ruled. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

The history of modern philosophy is the history of losing and regaining the awareness of the fact that there is no third way between the Absolute and the absurd. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Governments represent their citizens in the same way as parasites represent their hosts. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Voter: someone smart enough to choose how to be fooled. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

A libertarian is someone who graduated from thinking that there are problems with the state to realizing that the state is the problem. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

An anarcho-capitalist is someone who agrees that the best way to eliminate the tragedy of the commons is to privatize it away, and realizes that state politics is the mother of all such tragedies. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Nationalism: the love of tribal fictions inspired by the hatred of social realities. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

An anarchist is someone who rejects the curious notion that crimes become virtues as they grow in size. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

For the greater good":
the phrase that always precedes
the greatest evil. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

A slave believes that the law should define the scope of liberty. A free person believes that liberty should define the scope of the law. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Bad economics teaches that computers can design markets. Good economics teaches that markets can design computers. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

To claim that one can be happy without being free is to prove that one has no idea what happiness means. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Individual liberty may be unable to solve every social problem, but collective violence is unable to solve any social problem. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

The greatest obstacle to liberty is not the existence of evil rulers, but the belief in the existence of good rulers. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

A foolish environmentalist wants to save nature from the greed of the market by exposing it to the tragedy of the commons. A smart environmentalist wants to save nature from the tragedy of the commons by exposing it to the greed of the market. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Society is a voluntary scheme of mutual benefit. The state is a compulsory scheme of mutual exploitation. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

The goal of libertarianism is not to permit people to be free, but to make them realize that they don't need anyone's permission to be free. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

A fool believes that the society of the future will transcend the laws of economics. A person of reason hopes that it will finally learn to respect them. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski