Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The fundamental principle of human action, the law, that is to political economy what the law of gravitation is to physics is that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion
Henry George
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Henry George
Age: 58 †
Born: 1839
Born: September 2
Died: 1897
Died: October 29
Economist
Editor
Journalist
Philosopher
Politician
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Humans
Principles
Gravitation
Men
Economy
Exertion
Least
Desires
Law
Physics
Desire
Fundamental
Action
Fundamentals
Political
Principle
Human
Seek
Gratify
More quotes by Henry George
Passing into higher forms of desire, that which slumbered in the plant, and fitfully stirred in the beast, awakes in the man.
Henry George
Unless there be correct thought, there cannot be any action, and when there is correct thought, right action will follow.
Henry George
We have made, and still are making, enormous advances on material lines. It is necessary that we commensurately advance on moral lines. Civilization, as it progresses, requires a higher conscience, a keener sense of justice, a warmer brotherhood, a wider, loftier, truer public spirit.
Henry George
Blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading protective tariffs are a means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading. What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.
Henry George
How many men are there who fairly earn a million dollars?
Henry George
Abolish all taxation save that upon land values.
Henry George
It is but a truism that labor is most productive where its wages are largest. Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over.
Henry George
one sex of voice in public matters, and that we could in no way so increase the attention , the intelligence and the devotion which may be brought to the solution of social problems as by enfranchising our women .
Henry George
The tolerance of wrong dulls our sense of its injustice. Men may become accustomed to theft, murder, even to slavery - that sum of all villainies - so they see no injustice in it, yet that which is unjust is unjust still.
Henry George
That which is unjust can really profit no one that which is just can really harm no one.
Henry George
Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power.
Henry George
It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly.
Henry George
The ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion to his contribution to the general stock.
Henry George
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.
Henry George
Property in land is as indefensible as property in man.
Henry George
What would happen to the individual if all the functions of the body were placed under the control of the consciousness is what would happen to a nation in which all individual activities were directed by government.
Henry George
My primary object is to defend and advance a principle in which I see the only possible relief from much that enthralls and degrades and distorts, turning light to darkness and good to evil, rather than to gage a philosopher or weigh a philosophy. Yet the examination I propose must lead to a decisive judgment upon both.
Henry George
Private ownership of land is the nether mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. Between them, with an increasing pressure, the working classes are being ground.
Henry George
There is danger in reckless change, but greater danger in blind conservatism.
Henry George
Charity is false, futile, and poisonous when offered as a substitute for justice.
Henry George
