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
The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True threats to freedom arise internally rather than from external forces.
Ludwig Von Mises emphasizes that the greatest threats to American freedom and its way of life are not necessarily from foreign adversaries but rather from internal challenges, such as government overreach, societal complacency, and ideological conflicts. This perspective invites individuals to reflect on their own societal structures and the necessity of vigilance in protecting their freedoms against internal dangers.
Themes
FreedomInternalDangerAmericanSociety
In practice
Example use cases
In a political debate about civil liberties, this quote can highlight the need to focus on internal threats.
More from Ludwig Von Mises
All quotes βWars of aggression are popular nowadays with those nations convinced that only victory and conquest could improve their material well-being.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
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.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
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.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
Each epoch has found in the Gospels what it sought to find there, and has overlooked what it wished to overlook.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
Similar quotes
It seemed that rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it: such a base as we had in the Red Sea Parts, the desert, or in the minds of the men we converted to our creed.
T. E. LawrenceRead
Man has his being in truth--if he sacrifices truth he sacrifices himself. Whoever betrays truth betrays himself. It is not a question of lying--but of acting against one's conviction.
NovalisRead
The universal and lasting establishment of peace constitutes not merely a part, but the whole final purpose and end of the science of right as viewed within the limits of reason.
Immanuel KantRead
We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say.
Pico IyerRead
The unspeakable visions of the individual.
Jack KerouacRead
We know that there is an infinite, and we know not its nature. As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore true that there is a numerical infinity. But we know not of what kind; it is untrue that it is even, untrue that it is odd; for the addition of a unit does not change its nature; yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even (this certainly holds of every finite number). Thus we may quite well know that there is a God without knowing what He is.
Blaise PascalRead