State function

Ludwig von Mises: "All that good government can do to improve the material well-being of the masses is to establish and to preserve an institutional setting in which there are no obstacles to the progressive accumulation of new capital and its utilization for the improvement of technical methods of production." - Planning for Freedom

Origin of revolutions

"The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief" Gustave LeBon

Natural corruption

Upton Sinclair:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

The price of liberty

"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it." ~ Daniel Webster (1834)

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." ~ Wendell Phillips (1811–1884)

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"Those who have been once intoxicated with power and have derived any kind of emolument from it can never willingly abandon it." ~ Edmund Burke

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people." ~ John Adams


"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms." ~ Thomas Jefferson, 1787

Mathematics

"Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds you stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends on what you put in."
Thomas Huxley (1825–1895)