Property (1935)
Context: The actual participants in industry under individualism are prompted to action by the following combination of incentives: desire for an income, desire for a higher income, desire for security, satisfaction received from shouldering responsibility or from wielding power, the joy of participation in creative activity, and the desire for applause and prestige.... And all these motivations may be conserved and strengthened under socialism.
“I'm a "social conservative."”
When the mullahs take over, I'll grow my beard a little fuller, get a couple extra wives, and keep my head down. It's the feminists and gays who'll have a tougher time.
Source: America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (2006), p. 14
Adam Przeworski and Michael Wallerstein, The American Political Science Review (Jun., 1982)
"Energy and Force" (Mar 28, 1873)
Source: 1990s, Liberty A to Z (2004), p. 127
Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence and Its Perils, chapter 4, p.91 (1913).
Source: Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994), p. 253
“Under the warm breath of religious faith all social institutions become plastic.”
Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Introduction, p.xii
"Nietzscheism and Realism" from The Rainbow, Vol. I, No. 1 (October 1921); reprinted in "To Quebec and the Stars", and also in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 71
Non-Fiction
Context: The undesirability of any system of rule not tempered with the quality of kindness is obvious; for "kindness" is a complex collection of various impulses, reactions and realisations highly necessary to the smooth adjustment of botched and freakish creatures like most human beings. It is a weakness basically—or, in some cases, and ostentation of secure superiority—but its net effect is desirable; hence it is, on the whole, praiseworthy. Since all motives at bottom are selfish and ignoble, we may judge acts and qualities only be their effects. Pessimism produces kindness. The disillusioned philosopher is even more tolerant than the priggish bourgeois idealist with his sentimental and extravagant notions of human dignity and destiny.
“Generals are usually a conservative force who can be relied on to oppose social change.”
The Egyptians (1967), p. 93
General sources
