Quotes by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski

A philosopher operates with deductions. A sophist operates with paradoxes. A public intellectual operates with buzzwords.

Failure to find the truth is perhaps an intellectual defeat, but failure to look for the truth is an intellectual surrender.

Believing that there is a conflict between rationality and spirituality is like believing that there is a conflict between knowledge and inspiration.

The ultimate foundation of spirituality is the recognition that there cant be such a thing as a purposeful life in a purposeless universe.

Entrepreneurship is the use of self-interest in the service of others. Politics is the use of others in the service of self-interest.

The surest way to damage society is to call for a great man to lead it. The surest way to improve society is to become a great man to lead oneself and convince others to do likewise.

If you want peace, prepare for ideological war with those who want others to prepare for physical war.

If anarchy is chaos, and chaos is war, why wasnt a single war started by anarchists?

The world will know peace when the entrepreneur fully masters the art of starving the politician.

The greatest obstacle to liberty is not the existence of evil rulers, but the belief in the existence of good rulers.

Individualism turns a band into a society. Collectivism turns society into a mob.

Individual liberty may be unable to solve every social problem, but collective violence is unable to solve any social problem.

Society is a voluntary scheme of mutual benefit. The state is a compulsory scheme of mutual exploitation.

Unorganized morality is called sociability. Organized morality is called civilization. Unorganized immorality is called barbarity. Organized immorality is called statism.

Economics without ethics is a caricature. Ethics without economics is a fairy tale.

The earliest use of writing was strictly commercial and economic, not political or bureaucratic. It was trade, entrepreneurship, and stewardship of private property, not politics, public education or the creation of national mythology that allowed humankind to transition from prehistory to history. Just as trade, entrepreneurship, and stewardship of private property have always been on the forefront of civilizations advancement, so were they also the driving force behind civilizations emergence.

Anarcho-capitalism: the realization that the only way to effectively govern the market is to have an effective market in governance.

Governments represent their citizens in the same way as parasites represent their hosts.

It takes a common thug to commit injustice, but it takes an exceptional thug to call it social justice.

To create a free society is not to accomplish the impossible task of convincing all people to abandon aggression, but to accomplish the essential task of convincing enough people to abandon the belief that aggression is ever legitimate.