“Agreement got by compulsion or trickery is not agreement, but a thing akin to slavery. Free minds are the only company worth having.”

— Neal Stephenson, book Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

Source: Fall; or, Dodge in Hell (2019), Chapter 43

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Neal Stephenson167

American science fiction writer 1959

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“The free trade agreement that we will have to do with the European Union should be one of the easiest in human history…/ /…. The only reason that we wouldn’t come to a free and open agreement is because politics gets in the way of economics.”

Liam Fox (1961) British Conservative politician

BBC Today programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-40667879/eu-trade-deal-easiest-in-human-history (20 July 2017) 2017

“There is no need to adopt more “free trade agreements”, which are asymmetrical agreements providing privileges to investors but no enforceable obligations.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G16/151/19/PDF/G1615119.pdf?OpenElement. 2016, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

“The military option will remain on the table. If there is a good agreement to have, obviously it's worth waiting for and completing the negotiations.”

Ash Carter (1954) United States Secretary of Defense

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“It's not us that loses financially if we don't have a free trade agreement, it's Germany and France and other European countries, and that's why of course there will be a free trade agreement that allows all our business to trade freely to and from continental Europe. It will take a relatively short period time in my view because they lose financially.”

Chris Grayling (1962) British politician

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“Agreement in likes and dislikes—this, and this only, is what constitutes true friendship.”
Idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est.

Catiline (-109–-62 BC) ancient Roman Senator

As quoted by Sallust (86 BC – c. 35 BC) in Catiline's War, Book XX, pt. 4 (trans. J. C. Rolfe).
Variant translations:
To like and dislike the same things, that is indeed true friendship.
To like the same things and to dislike the same things, only this is a strong friendship.

“Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

“They look upon all obligations, not as moral, but as social, and even then not really as obligations except as these have been consciously and voluntarily assumed. If a man makes an agreement with men, the latter may combine to hold him to his agreement; but, in the absence of such agreement, no man, so far as the Anarchists are aware, has made any agreement with God or with any other power of any order whatsoever.”

Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1854–1939) American journalist and anarchist

The Relation of the State to the Invididual (1890)
Context: What relations should exist between the State and the Individual? The general method of determining these is to apply some theory of ethics involving a basis of moral obligation. In this method the Anarchists have no confidence. The idea of moral obligation, of inherent rights and duties, they totally discard. They look upon all obligations, not as moral, but as social, and even then not really as obligations except as these have been consciously and voluntarily assumed. If a man makes an agreement with men, the latter may combine to hold him to his agreement; but, in the absence of such agreement, no man, so far as the Anarchists are aware, has made any agreement with God or with any other power of any order whatsoever. The Anarchists are not only utilitarians, but egoists in the farthest and fullest sense. So far as inherent right is concerned, might is its only measure.

“To the extent that bilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements lead to violations of human rights, they should be modified or terminated”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order on the adverse impacts of free trade and investment agreements on a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx. 2015, Report submitted to the UN General Assembly

“You don't have to like your life to get it off your mind. You DO have to renegotiate your agreements w/yourself about it.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

15 August 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/21206170236 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“It is only by the abolition of the State, by the conquest of perfect liberty by the individual, by free agreement, association, and absolute free federation that we can reach Communism — the possession in common of our social inheritance, and the production in common of all riches.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

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“Agreement got by compulsion or trickery is not agreement, but a thing akin to slavery. Free minds are the only company worth having.”

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Neal Stephenson167

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