The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
Man is born an asocial and antisocial being. The newborn child is a savage. Egoism is his nature. Only the experience of life and the teachings of his parents, his brothers, sisters, playmates, and later of other people FORCE HIM to acknowledge the advantages of social cooperation and accordingly to change his behavior.
Interpretation
Human nature begins as self-centered, and social cooperation must be learned through life experiences.
This quote by Ludwig Von Mises emphasizes that humans are inherently self-centered and isolated at birth, likening the newborn to a 'savage'. It suggests that social behaviors and the understanding of cooperation are not innate but are cultivated through various life experiences and influences from family and peers, highlighting the transformative power of social interaction in shaping human behavior.
In practice
In a discussion about personal growth and overcoming selfish tendencies.
The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom.
Wars of aggression are popular nowadays with those nations convinced that only victory and conquest could improve their material well-being.
Only stilted pedants can conceive the idea that there are absolute norms to tell what is beautiful and what is not. They try to derive from the works of the past a code of rules with which, as they fancy, the writers and artists of the future should comply. But the genius does not cooperate with the pundit.
The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.
The public firm can nowhere maintain itself in free competition with the private firm; it is possible today only where it has a monopoly that excludes competition. Even that alone is evidence of its lesser economic productivity.
Each epoch has found in the Gospels what it sought to find there, and has overlooked what it wished to overlook.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.
Parents realize their wealth should be used for social good rather than children's good.
There seems to be something in the human soul that causes us to think less of ourselves every time we do something wrong... And maybe it is good for us to feel that way. It may make us more sensitive to what we do wrong and move us to repent and grow.
There would be no one there to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistance with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
The soul is neither inside nor outside the body; neither proximate to nor separate from it.
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