Four stars only because of the gross error found in McFadden's final statement, that Americans, "... outraged, robbed, pillaged, insulted, and betrayed as they are in their own land, will rise in their wrath ... etc." Boy! Was he wrong about that! Instead of holystoning our own temple, we militarily impose Pax Americana in strategic, heretofore sovereign nations and tell ourselves, endlessly, that it's 'exporting democracy.' Supplanting real freedom is self-delusion arriving with martial know-how. Make no mistake: we ALLOW these common, if spectacularly successful bankster-criminals, to fleece grand portions out of every iota of our labor, destroy the ecosphere and diminish, personally, every last one of us.

The error of applying single Party specificity to the undeniable accuracy of this quotation is intolerable. It speaks directly to the success (real) Power enjoys by keeping us ignorant, angry and divided. Have regular commentators here forgotten the Bill of Rights-destroying Patriot Act or Military Commissions Act? Those pieces of "legislation" set the precedence for Oblammo's citizen-seizing (execution) without-charges NDAA. Neither GOPS or DEMS are singularly responsible for projecting continuous global destabilization, open warfare and domestic police state tyranny. Both Parties are. They're BOTH inextricably attached to the currency-leaking genitalia of the Money Powers, the true Players of the Great Game, the Makers of War and Death. Need I cite the corresponding impoverishment of ever-growing millions of Americans? This is not a gopdemn Party problem. It's the same liberty/slavery issue ordinary people have always faced. BOTH PARTIES MUST BE REMOVED FROM POWER, A NEW PARADIGM BEGUN UNDER A REVITALIZED CONSTITUTION. Neither of these banal, utterly servile Parties are going to do anything but Massa's bidding - and Massa thinks the Constitution is toilet paper. We the People must help ourselves. How? I'm gonna start by writing in JESSE VENTURA for president - or any decent, last minute populist with national appeal (Ron Paul?). Write-in ballots must be hand-counted, minimizing fraud inherent to electronic, Diebold-type machines. Ventura strikes me as having great crossover appeal. Anyone have a better idea?

And "little else is requisite" for swift descent into "lowest barbarism" than pursuing successive foreign invasions and military occupations. At Nuremberg, the first and worst war crime of all was defined as simply starting a war - a thing in itself made possible only by imposition of heavy taxation and/or acquired debt. Subsequent suppression and control of domestic populations then becomes necessary, as the sheer profligacy of pursuing foreign empire, perpetual war and hometown prison-building becomes increasingly unmistakable and unbearable at home. Does any of this sound remotely familiar?

Norwalk: You are correct. I erred in saying capital (wealth) inferred status quo. It's much more correct to say capital sets, no, personifies/is the preferred status quo. Even so, I'd suggest that since there's 40+% more capital per person in the U.S. now than when the Middle Class was at its height in 1973, your assessment that the nation has somehow become unfriendly to capital is flawed. NYC: You've forgotten my 7/12/12 response to a Tolstoi quote, where I wrote, "Today's cash isn't "money" at all. It's created out of the ISSUANCE OF DEBT by central bankers. This means your cash is essentially nothing but a handful of IOUs from somebody else's poker game." Perhaps I need to be a little more clear in my meaning when I comment. Often enough my intention is to provide expository commentary about vulture capitalism dispossessing the Middle and Working Classes, a practice increasing by leaps and bounds, right now, in my country. Princeton: It's odd and it's interesting that you should compare me to a pair of history's most noted liars - without a citing a supposed lie of mine. How come none of you are taking on my primary premise: that "... automatically equating simple possession of "capital" with "talent and ideas" is absurd."

Automatically equating simple possession of "capital" with "talent and ideas" is absurd. It's much truer to say capital infers 'status quo', which, like any other successful-in-the-meantime organism, fights ceaselessly to maintain itself first and foremost - no matter how destructive it may be.

There is much truth to be found here and much complexity. Where von Mises' quote falls short is in balance, exactly the place broad pronouncements usually fall apart. For instance: if one changes the word 'liberty' in his first sentence to 'anarchy', is not the same level of 'truth' achieved, despite a very large difference in meaning? I submit that NAFTA, GATT, SPP (Security and Prosperity Agreement) and the current TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) are not "compatible with liberty" of ordinary Americans in the slightest. The substantial reductions of station and the personal wealth of ordinary Americans guaranteed by these "agreements", is profound and increasingly visible. I submit that an extraordinary amount of economic tyranny and loss of genuine personal freedom is being successfully palmed off on Americans, under the guise of 'free markets.' Outside of private, individual barter, which indeed remains free, and flea markets, which are taxed and regulated more assiduously than financial institutions are, there's no such thing as a free market in the U.S. Nor is freedom a commodity to be had in the marketplace; it's just not for sale - despite the fact our foremost politicians are.

However pithy, this quote is so far off the mark it becomes meaningless, if not openly harmful. One only needs to compare U.S. per-capita medical expenditures and the quality of care available here, to what's found in any modern, single-payer country. That simple act renders O'Rourke's conclusion into one of obvious absurdity.

FWIW, the following comment comes courtesy of a friend of mine, a professor emeritus and Nietzsche scholar, late of Western Michigan University. His first sentence rekindled some of the doubts I have regarding the true purpose of this site. My friend's opinion follows: The quotation is probably altogether bogus. Like the rest of Nietzsche's texts, THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA is divided into chapters--80 in all--most of which are divided into sub-sections--e.g. 79.12. If the quotation is simply jazzed up a bit (which is the submitter's privilege in my opinion), I would be able to check it out far more easily in the original text--either German or English. Nietzsche was fond of ZARATHUSTRA, as I was as a high school junior. At this point, however, I don't think it should distract one from Nietzsche's more provocative arguments in his other texts, especially JOYFUL WISDOM and THE ANTICHRIST.

Zarathustra also 'sprach': "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." Nietzsche's confounding genius is to leave his admirers and detractors alike in limbo, irretrievably caught between two conflicting concepts simultaneously emanating from a shared central locus. Defending one concept at the expense of the other is useless. When I look at today's quote and perceive the state as potentially being "the coldest of all cold monsters", and especially its lie, the first thing springing to my mind is the being I've come to identify as Nihillary Clinton, a single tool of the state. That's quite a feat, Madam Secretary. In hard fact I wonder how much of Nietzsche's "state" is where Power is truly and most jealously held, in his day as well as ours: in the bloody hands of the bloody few Financial Powers.

For whatever it's worth: The wisdom and ultimate peace suffusing these words is universal, with no attendant celebrity, religiosity or academic standing required by whomever may speak them or something similar. That said, Viktor Frankl originated logotherapy, a type of existential analysis known as the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy."

In Tolstoi's day the worldwide gold standard served as a non-negotiable regulator of the worth of a nation's currency. It also served as an honest bellwether regarding the health of a currency-issuing nation's economy. Neither of these regulators remain in place, meaning the quote's significance enjoys much more relevance now than when first stated. Today's cash isn't "money" at all. It's created out of the ISSUANCE OF DEBT by central bankers. This means your cash is essentially nothing but a handful of IOUs from somebody else's poker game. Worse, every single time we unlimber plastic and hand it to the cashier in lieu of currency, we pay the same banksters a percentage off the top of every transaction - a charge for moving essentially worthless IOU 'totals' from one accounting column to another, electronically. Hardly a friendly teller, "merely" an armed 900-pound, compulsory 'spare change' beggar. It's at this point where your interest payments and privacy concerns begin, too. Politicians and the ubiquitous TV 'framer', all with their gun hands permanently affixed to financial sector genitalia, tell us it's a matter of "confidence." That's baloney. It's a confidence game. LIBOR manipulation makes that clearer than ever and it's only made possible by extreme levels of public ignorance (none worse than in the U.S.) and international gullibility. Look in the mirror; then remember again the last word found in this Tolstoi quote. It's quite true. Your barracoon has finer physical appointments and your overseers bear smiles and suits instead of whips. Oh, and unscalable mountains of debt YOU remain responsible. That's it.

This may have held some truth in 1888, not now. Today's ordinary American has allowed his sense of individualism and his personal take on reality to be provided by TV, mostly, replacing the sensory-available here and now with a mere talking head description of it. Worse, media has him/her elegantly trained to believe there's no need to experience legitimate suffering anymore. Instead, there's a pharmaceutical product or super-sized belly blaster easily available (for a price) for use as a surrogate. Bryce's quote is full of high symbolism - and empty of real meaning in the real U.S.

... and the People's Republic of China is the global bastion of capitalism. Oops. Hey, wait a minute.

Pound's use of the term "jury lawlessness" precludes a higher rating. Jury nullification of formal criminal charges is anything but lawless. Their refusal to convict, despite abundant evidence of 'guilt', is usually because they've determined that the manner in which the charges have been applied in the case they've just heard, would constitute gross INJUSTICE and should never have been brought in the first place. Rendering a conviction under such circumstances would thus be immoral. In America, the jury's decision is supposed to be the last act of the law, prior to full release or final sentencing. This still-intact legal convention is one of the few beacons remaining in the churning, 'lock-em'-up fer good' mill of American jurisprudence. We the People should exercise it far more often. God preserve it.

Certainly true to a degree and probably brilliant at the time and place, and especially within the context it was uttered. Otherwise it's an over-broad generalization with no real bearing on reality in any society, free or totalitarian.

... and an idealist's red-white-blue fantasy. By the way, Prager's emotive, descriptive commentary embodies the essence of a LIBERAL education. Not recognizing that particular fact may indicate deficiencies in one's own understanding.

This sounds good but is in fact distressingly thin. A solid remedy for ignorance and thoughtless is the applied, intent-filled USE of literary skills. One may possess post-doctoral command of his native language, but if all one's free time is spent in front of a TV, personal ignorance and supreme selfishness becomes certain. Besides, there's nothing fake about societal misery stemming from public ignorance over sex, commerce and racism - the worst aspects of which are usually inherited from peers, parents and clergy.

This is more accurately applied to 1967 than today. Modern public schools are geared to operate more like extravagant daycare centers, with particular emphasis on student order-taking skills and test-taking abilities instead of fundamental education (3 'Rs'. Besides, across all strata of society the largest purveyor of "education" in America is TV. It has been for generations and most of us thoroughly trained to believe our favorite talking heads (and clergy, and politicians) without reservation, let alone applied critical thought.

... even if verbose. The vitally important part of this quote is found in its first sentence. The rest is mostly superfluous - at least until the expressed idea of humanity being possessed by an entirely lethal Plague of Power - itself a manifestation of wholly toxic self-importance, personal and collective.

Libertarians aren't any more perfect in their positions or pronouncements than any other collection of philosophical like-thinkers. But as with most serious political theorists/activists, some of their concepts are quite pure nonetheless. Considering the wide scope of the issues encapsulated/simplified by the quote, perhaps Sprading may be criticized for being too ambitious. But the truth of his varied conclusions is undeniable - and completely heart wrenching.

This quotation presents us with an entirely reasonable, if particularly useless conclusion. The 'wisdom' conveyed is belied by the present reality of extreme corporate socialism exemplified by TARP payments and Fed trillions sent to to the Eurozone. The opening clause of the first sentence should read: "A reasonable action on the part of THOSE EMPOWERED is very rare." History shows clearly that "Mob stupidity and brutality" has also been responsible for most of the truly meaningful changes in precisely who holds power and for the advancement of genuine freedom not usually enjoyed by ordinary people.

The 1st Amendment indeed lends cover to the individual in this regard. However, the unfortunately too-real reality is that legislatures, our highest courts and other individuals invariably don't.

This one is the best of the three Douglas quotes offered today. Among other unconstitutional realities, the 'Patriot' Act allows authorities secret, warrantless access to anybody's library records and/or personal computers, even in one's private home. This reality is BI-PARTISAN in origin, rigorously upheld by largely conservative courts and is not indicative at all of a Free People. This remains the case however often said People choose lying to themselves via compulsory 'patriotic', ultimately fascist displays of public flag worship. Why isn't Douglas' best quote included, from 'Griswold vs. Connecticut?' "The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom." FWIW, mentored by Louis Brandeis, FDR appointee William O. Douglas is considered to be one of the most liberal jurists in U.S. history.

This quote makes equal players of the polar opposites of Marxism and Imperialism, rendering them equal partners in emerging, non-constitutional, social/political control in America. On its surface this is an utterly ridiculous proposition. It's like putting two nouns together and hoping to come up with a verb. The author also equates socialism with profit-oriented corporatism, an equally absurd idea. Superficially, at least, these words are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" in the end except chaos. It makes me wonder what the site editors' intentions are when they post drivel like this. Sometimes it's like they're up to nothing more important than eliciting campaign slogans from commentators, instead of serious reflection.

Beautiful thought - pure whimsy in the physical here and now.