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
War is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror. Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things. Only economic action has created the wealth around us; labor, not the profession of arms, brings happiness. Peace builds, war destroys.
Interpretation
What this quote means
War brings destruction and suffering to all, while peace fosters growth and happiness.
This quote by Ludwig Von Mises emphasizes the detrimental effects of war not only on those who are defeated but also on the victors. He argues that true progress and wealth arise from peaceful actions and labor, suggesting that peace is foundational to a prosperous and harmonious society, in stark contrast to the destructive nature of war.
Themes
WarPeaceSocietyHappinessEconomicsLabor
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating for diplomacy, one might quote Mises to highlight the importance of peacemaking.
More from Ludwig Von Mises
All quotes →Wars 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 most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.
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
Similar quotes
There are no articles any more that dream about the cities of tomorrow.
Neil Degrasse TysonRead
I've become convinced that nostalgia is a fundamentally unhealthy modality. When you see it, it's usually attached to something else that's really, seriously bad. I don't traffic in nostalgia. We're becoming a global culture.
William GibsonRead
Man is able to do what he is unable to imagine. His head trails a wake through the galaxy of the absurd.
Rene CharRead
That saints will aid if men will call; For the blue sky bends over all!
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
I saw that philosophy had no power to make my life more bearable. Thus I lost my belief in philosophy.
Emil CioranRead
Where hunters and woodcutters once slept in their boots by the dying light of their thousand fires and went on, old teutonic forebears with eyes incandesced by the visionary light of a massive rapacity, wave on wave of the violent and the insane, their brains stoked with spoorless analogues of all that was, lean aryans with their abrogate Semitic chapbook reenacting the dramas and parable therein.
Cormac MccarthyRead