Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations on Property

The love of property and consciousness of right and wrong have conflicting places in our organization, which often makes a man’s course seem crooked, his conduct a riddle.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State

Don’t you know that if people could bottle the air they would? Don’t you know that there would be an American Air-bottling Association? And don’t you know that they would allow thousands and millions to die for want of breath, if they could not pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just telling how it is.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic

Lay up your treasures in heaven where there is no depreciation.
Unknown

Professors in every branch of the sciences, prefer their own theories to truth: the reason is that their theories are private property, but truth is common stock.
Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist

I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot inquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments… but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic

By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman

The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.
John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician

Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine were taken away.
Anaxagoras (500–428 BCE) Ionian Philosopher

Once you have decided to keep a certain pile, it is no longer yours; for you can’t spend it.
Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist

To the illumined man or woman, a clod of dirt, a stone, and gold are the same.
The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic

So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Florentine Political Philosopher

Americans are uneasy with their possessions, guilty about power, all of which is difficult for Europeans to perceive because they are themselves so truly materialistic, so versed in the uses of power.
Joan Didion (b.1934) American Essayist, Novelist, Memoirist

I told my mother-in-law that my house was her house, and she said, “Get the hell off my property”.
Joan Rivers (1933–2014) American Comedienne, Writer

The accumulation of property is no guarantee of the development of character, but the development of character, or of any other good whatever, is impossible without property.
William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) American Polymath, Academic, Historian, Sociologist, Anthropologist

Our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes; our power wielded by cowards and weaklings; and our honour false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright

Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark.
Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator, Writer

Property is desirable as the ground work of moral independence, as a means of improving the faculties, and of doing good to others, and as the agent in all that distinguishes the civilized man from the savage.
James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist

The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.
John Adams (1735–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer

The three most important factors in buying a home are, location, location, location!
Unknown

The more we have the less we own.
Meister Eckhart (c.1260–1327) German Christian Mystic

Property, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The object of man’s brief rapacity and long indifference.
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist

Each of us has a natural right—from God to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?
Frederic Bastiat (1801–50) French Political Economist

If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.
Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) Austrian Economist, Philosopher, Author

Don’t buy the house, buy the neighborhood.
Russian Proverb

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher

No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
Unknown

Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher

Man was born to be rich, or, grows rich by the use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players. Cultivated labor drives out brute labor.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher

Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.
Bill Gates (b.1955) American Businessperson, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Author

Less is more.
Robert Browning (1812–89) English Poet

What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.
Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) British Economist, Social Philosopher

How many are the things I can do without!
Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher

The earth is the general and equal possession of all humanity and therefore cannot be the property of individuals.
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
Adam Smith (1723–90) Scottish Philosopher, Economist

The recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain, not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing is to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar

Where there is no property there is no injustice.
John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician

What we call real estate—the solid ground to build a house on—is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) American Novelist, Short Story Writer

A great object is always answered, whenever any property is transferred from hands that are not fit for that property to those that are.
Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman

Property is dear to men not only for the sensual pleasure it can afford, but also because it is the bulwark of all they hold dearest on earth, and above all else, because it is the safeguard of those they love most against misery and all physical distress.
William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) American Polymath, Academic, Historian, Sociologist, Anthropologist

Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State

The highest law gives a thing to him who can use it.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher

I am what is mine. Personality is the original personal property.
Norman O. Brown (1913–2002) American Philosopher

If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?
Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher

Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic

Justice is the insurance we have on our lives and property, and obedience is the premium we pay for it.
William Penn (1644–1718) American Entrepreneur, Political leader, Philosopher

Just as man can’t exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one’s rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.
Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher

Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American Head of State, Lawyer

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