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The practical reason for freedom is that freedom seems to be the only condition under which any kind of substantial moral fiber can be developed - we have tried law, compulsion and authoritarianism of various kinds, and the result is nothing to be proud of.

Albert J. Nock

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Albert J. Nock
Age: 74 †
Born: 1870
Born: October 13
Died: 1945
Died: August 19
Autobiographer
Biographer
Essayist
Journalist
Philosopher
Sociologist
Scranton
Pennsylvania
Law
Condition
Moral
Kinds
Authoritarianism
Freedom
Various
Fiber
Seems
Result
Substantial
Reason
Tried
Compulsion
Nothing
Conditions
Practicals
Kind
Proud
Practical
Results
Developed

More quotes by Albert J. Nock

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Like Prince von Bismarck in diplomacy, I have no secrets.
Albert J. Nock
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There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others this is the political means.
Albert J. Nock
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The position of modern science, as far as an ignorant man of letters can understand it, seems not a step in advance of that held by Huxley and Romanes in the last century.
Albert J. Nock
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As a general principle, I should put it that a man's country is where the things he loves are most respected. Circumstances may have prevented his ever setting foot there, but it remains his country.
Albert J. Nock
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Americans have a strange notion that the ordinary laws of economics do not apply to them. So doubtless they will think they are prosperous if the boom starts, and that deficits and indebtedness are merely signs of how prosperous they are.
Albert J. Nock
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It would seem that in Paine's view the code of government should be that of the legendary King Pausole, who prescribed but two laws for his subjects, the first being, Hurt no man, and the second, Then do as you please.
Albert J. Nock
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There's only one way to improve society. Present it with a single improved unit: yourself.
Albert J. Nock
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It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own.
Albert J. Nock
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Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class.
Albert J. Nock
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I am said to be difficult of acquaintance, unwilling to meet any one half way, and showing a social manner which is easy, not diffident, but formal and unresponsive, tending constantly to hold people off.
Albert J. Nock
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When we speak freely, let us speak plainly, for plain speech is wholesome especially, plain speech about public affairs and public men.
Albert J. Nock
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Someone asked me years ago if it were true that I disliked Jews, and I replied that it was certainly true, not at all because they are Jews, but because they are folks, and I don’t like folks.
Albert J. Nock
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The State claims and exercises the monopoly of crime... It forbids private murder, but itself organizes murder on a colossal scale. It punishes private theft, but itself lays unscrupulous hands on anything it wants, whether the property of citizen or of alien.
Albert J. Nock
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Personal publicity of every kind is utterly distasteful to me, and I have made greater efforts to escape it than most people make to get it.
Albert J. Nock
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Assuming that man has a distinct spiritual nature, a soul, why should it be thought unnatural that under appropriate conditions of maladjustment, his soul might die before his body does or that his soul might die without his knowing it?
Albert J. Nock
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The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation. No primitive State known to history originated in any other manner.
Albert J. Nock
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When politicians say I'm in politics, it may or may not be possible to trust them, but when they say, I'm in public service, you know you should flee.
Albert J. Nock
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You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it and whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you.
Albert J. Nock
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Learning has always been made much of, but forgetting has always been deprecated therefore pedantry has pretty well established itself throughout the modern world at the expense of culture.
Albert J. Nock
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Considered now as a possession, one may define culture as the residuum of a large body of useless knowledge that has been well and truly forgotten.
Albert J. Nock