Freedom/Power Quotes
Freedom, power, liberty, prosperity, well-being, romantic love, and happiness are the themes that unite the following quotes. Each offers a unique value. Together they offer a new array of values. To put a quote in its full context, you can refer to its source.
Allen, Gary "As long as people have economic freedom, they will be free." None Dare Call It Conspiracy, Concord Press, 1971, page 121.
Allen, James "Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself." As A Man Thinketh, DeVorss & Co., 1993, page 22.
Allen, James "In the bark of your soul reclines the commanding master; he does but sleep: wake him." As A Man Thinketh, DeVorss & Co., 1993, page 68.
Anderson, Bob "Ask yourself: What do I do in my daily living that I enjoy and was taught in school? It's amazing to think how little we learned in all those hours. We could have learned how to take care of ourselves, how to keep from becoming old before our time, and how to avoid suffering from back problems brought about by bad habits. But now we are teaching ourselves what we should have learned in school; and we haven't started any too soon." Stretching, Shelter Publications, 1980, page 51.
Anderson, Bob "...what good is knowledge if we do not use it to live more fully?" Stretching, Shelter Publications, 1980, page 69.
Anderson, Walter "To succeed, we must be prepared to fail. True success is always the last string of failed attempts to get it right. If we did not test, did not experiment, did not try, did not flub, we would not grow." The Confidence Course, HarperCollins, 1997, tape 1, side 2.
Bacon, Francis "Human knowledge and human power come to the same thing, for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced." Novum Organum, Open Court Publishing, 1994, page 43.
Bacon, Francis "Now the only true and proper goal of the sciences is to bring new discoveries and powers to human life." Novum Organum, Open Court Publishing, 1994, page 90.
Bacon, Francis "...what is worthy of existence is worthy of being known, knowledge being the image of existence." Novum Organum, Open Court Publishing, 1994, page 122.
Bastiat, Frederic "The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty." The Law, The Foundation for Economic Education, 1996, page 73.
Bastiat, Frederic "Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim—when he defends himself—as a criminal." The Law, The Foundation for Economic Education, 1996, page 16.
Beethoven, Ludwig van "Those who truly understand my music will be freed from the miseries of the world." A History of Music of the Western World, Multiple Authors, Sussex Tapes, 1980(?), tape 4, side 2.
Benton, Debra A. "The one who puts out the biggest effort almost always wins." The $100,000 Club, Warner Books, 1998, page 67.
Bly, Robert W. "Be yourself. Don't put on a false front when going after new business. If you get hired because of this false front, the client will dump you when your true self is revealed in the course of your working relationship." The Copywriter's Handbook, Henry Holt and Company, 1990, page 268.
Bova, Ben "The first immortal human beings are probably living among us today. You might be one of them." Immortality, Avon Books, 1998, page 3.
Branden, Nathaniel "No one is coming to the rescue." Succeeding Through Inner Strength, Nightingale-Conant, 1992, tape 1, side 2.
Branden, Nathaniel "One of the greatest innovations in the history of the world was the idea of the organization, because this is what allows people to accomplish all kinds of things which they couldn't accomplish on their own." Succeeding Through Inner Strength, Nightingale-Conant, 1992, tape 1, side 1.
Branden, Nathaniel "One of the interesting things about the myth of the hero's journey, and this is also true of heroine's journey, is there's a whole series of rites of passage—challenges that have to be met and overcome—on the path to full self-realization or full self-actualization. And almost always at the beginning of the story is the pain and the challange to leave home, to rise above as it were the gravitational pull of family. Because there's the awareness that even if it is a wonderful family, in order to become fully who you are, you have to leave the place where you began to become more fully who you can be." The Psychology of High Self-esteem, Nightingale-Conant, 1986, tape 1, side 2.
Branden, Nathaniel "...the first love affair you have to consumate successfully is the love affair with yourself, because only then are you really ready for relationships." The Psychology of High Self-esteem, Nightingale-Conant, 1986, tape 1, side 1.
Cahill, Thomas "The story the Hebrew Bible has to tell is the story of an evolving consciousness, a consciousness that went through many stages of development and that, like all living things, sometimes grew slowly and at other times in great spurts." The Gifts of the Jews, Doubleday, 1998, page 246.
Cook, James R. "Nothing spins off money like a proprietary enterprise." The Start-up Entrepreneur, Harper & Row, 1986, page 260.
Cook, James R. "Remember, the greater the opportunity, the fewer are those who see it." The Start-up Entrepreneur, Harper & Row, 1986, page 237.
Cook, James R. "There is nothing in the world that can stand in the way of someone who is possessed with belief, desire, and perseverance. No organization, business monolith, or institution can withstand one lone, relentless person on a long and difficult journey." The Start-up Entrepreneur, Harper & Row, 1986, page 238.
Cook, James R. "Thomas B. Walker...said, 'Not only can a man be honest and grow rich, but it is almost impossible for a man to grow rich unless he is honest. It is honesty, integrity, and uprightness that make people trust you and that attract trade and stimulate business relations'." The Start-up Entrepreneur, Harper & Row, 1986, page 134.
Cook, James R. "You have the greatest opportunity when the mainstream of public thought rejects your ideas and concepts." The Start-up Entrepreneur, Harper & Row, 1986, page 238.
De Angelis, Barbara "If all of us stopped tolerating the mistreatment of our friends, of our friend's children, and anyone we know who is in danger of being harmed in any way, if we spoke out against injustice instead of pretending it wasn't there and hoping it would magically disappear, then perpetrators of violence would not be able to act out their sickness onto others, and the world would be a much safer and kinder place to live." Ask Barbara, Delacorte Press, 1997, page 273.
de Bono, Edward "The size of a decision is always proportional to the inadequacy of the reason for making it." de Bono's Thinking Course, Facts on File, 1994, page 113.
de Bono, Edward "Once we know we are going to have something then the attraction of that fades but the anguish of giving up something else grows." de Bono's Thinking Course, Facts on File, 1994, page 119.
Dumas, Alexandre "In struggling against adversity, he will become great and powerful and will change his adversity into prosperity." The Count of Monte Cristo, Penguin Books, 1988, page 495.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till." Self-Reliance, Funk & Wagnalls, 1975, page 7.
Fisher, Mark "In fact, to be successful, you have to first do what you enjoy in life. If you don't enjoy your work, you can't do it well." How to Think Like a Millionaire, New World Library, 1997, page 98.
Fisher, Mark "Most people have more imagination for conjuring up problems that prevent them from realizing their dreams than for recognizing their opportunities for success." How to Think Like a Millionaire, New World Library, 1997, page 70.
Friday, Nancy "When there is an absolute need to know something, when an intellectual void must be filled, we will accept what only moments earlier we'd rejected for centuries." Women on Top, Simon & Schuster, 1991, page 21.
Friedan, Betty "But it is very much to the point to say that if an able American woman does not use her human energy and ability in some meaningful pursuit (which necessarily means competition, for there is competition in every serious pursuit in our society), she will fritter away her energy in neurotic symptoms, or unproductive exercise, or destructive 'love'." The Feminine Mystique, Dell Publishing, 1983, page 374.
Friedan, Betty "Early sex, early marriage, has always been a characteristic of underdeveloped civilizations and, in America, of rural and city slums." The Feminine Mystique, Dell Publishing, 1983, page 277.
Friedan, Betty "I guess that, existentially, once you start really living your life, and doing your work, and loving, you are not afraid to die." The Feminine Mystique, Dell Publishing, 1983, page 395.
Friedan, Betty "It is wrong for a woman, for whatever reason, to spend her days in work that is not moving as the world around her is moving, in work that does not truly use her creative energy." The Feminine Mystique, Dell Publishing, 1983, page 255.
Friedan, Betty "To do the work that you are capable of doing is the mark of maturity." The Feminine Mystique, Dell Publishing, 1983, page 253.
Grove, Andrew "The real learning is in actual fact in failure, because something wasn't done or something was done wrong—something didn't work. And unless you address those things, they will not be done or they will not work again in the future. So, the real improvement of the organization—the capabilities of organization, your methods, or your products—come from analyzing failures." Forbes Great Minds of Business, Simon & Schuster Audio, 1997, tape 1, side B.
Hazlitt, Henry "Fundamentally what happens in an exchange economy is that the things that A produces are exchanged for the things that B produces." Economics in One Lesson, Laissez Faire Books, 1996, page 156.
Hazlitt, Henry "If our lives and the lives of our animal ancestors had always run smoothly, if our every desire were immediately satisfied, if we never met an obstacle in anything we tried to do, thinking would never have appeared on this planet. But adversity forced us to it." Thinking as a Science, Dutton, 1916, page 15.
Hazlitt, Henry "Prices are determined by supply and demand, and demand is determined by how intensely people want a commodity and what they have to offer in exchange for it." Economics in One Lesson, Laissez Faire Books, 1996, page 90.
Hazlitt, Henry "The function of profits, finally, is to put constant and unremitting pressure on the head of every competitive business to introduce further economies and efficiencies, no matter to what stage these may already have been brought." Economics in One Lesson, Laissez Faire Books, 1996, page 147.
Hill, James J. "Do as I did, go into something today that is scorned, scoffed and ridiculed, when you are my age it will be the success of the world, then you will be a top-ringer." The Science of Chiropractic by B. J. Palmer, Palmer School of Chiropractic, 1917, page 46.
Hill, Napoleon "When riches begin to come they come so quickly, in such great abundance, that one wonders where they have been hiding during all those lean years." Think and Grow Rich, Fawcett Crest, 1960, page 27.
Kelder, Peter "So-called 'civilized' mankind is in truth living in the darkest of dark ages. However, we are being prepared for better and more glorious things. Each one of us who strives to raise his or her consciousness to higher levels helps to elevate the consciousness of mankind as a whole." Ancient Secret of the Fountain of Youth, Harbor Press, 1989, page 19.
Kelley, David "Nine out of ten new ideas will be mistakes, but the tenth will let in the light." Truth and Toleration, Institute for Objectivist Studies, 1990, page 83.
Kelley, Kevin "In a network economy, innovations must first be seeded into the inefficiencies of gift economy to later sprout in efficiencies of the commerce." New Rules for the New Economy, Penguin Books, 1998, page 151.
Kreidman, Ellen "...I don't know any man who is successful that didn't start out being a dreamer." Light His Fire, LHF Enterprises, 1991, tape 2, side 2.
Kreidman, Ellen "The tragedy is not that so many men dream an impossible dream, but they quit dreaming due to practical women in their lives." Light His Fire, LHF Enterprises, 1991, tape 2, side 2.
Lant, Jeffrey "What is important to consider, however, is that truly great success is only achieved concurrently with even greater failure. What matters is whether you can profit, directly or indirectly, in the midst of such considerable failure." Money Making Marketing, JLA Publications, 1991, page 9.
McCarthy, Jenny "Just keep trying, and your dreams will come true. But you have to give it all your time, effort, and soul." Jen-X, Regan Books, 1997, page 199.
Muir, John "When we try to pickout anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler, Anchor Press, 1986, page 222.
Nightingale, Earl "Honesty, unfailing integrity, is good business. In fact, Mirabeau wrote that if honesty did not exist, we would have to invent it as the best means of getting rich." Lead the Field, Nightingale-Conant, 1986, page 36.
Nugent, Ted "Some people say that they think they gonna die someday. I got news: you never got to go!" Stranglehold, Magicland Music Partnership, 1975.
Peikoff, Leonard "Men without values are zombies or puppets—or Nazis." The Ominous Parallels, Meridian, 1982, page 96.
Peikoff, Leonard "Reason destroys fear; egoism destroys guilt. More precisely: reason does not permit man to feel metaphysically helpless; egoism does not permit him to accept unearned guilt or to regard himself as a sacrificial animal." The Ominous Parallels, Meridian, 1982, page 302.
Peikoff, Leonard "The heroism of the Founding Fathers was that they recognized an unprecedented opportunity, the chance to create a country of individual liberty for the first time in history—and that they staked everything on their judgment: the new nation and their own 'lives, fortunes, and sacred honor'." The Ominous Parallels, Meridian, 1982, page 112.
Rabin, Susan "Our chatterboxes were installed in childhood. By the time we reach adulthood, our own negative messages about our looks, competence, personality, and abilities have become what sound technicians call 'white noise'—a dull, atonal background sound that we don't consciously register until...we realize that we're acting on it." How to Attract Anyone, Anytime, Anyplace, Plume, 1993, page 128.
Rand, Ayn "Alvah Scarret had never hated anything, and so was incapable of love." The Fountainhead, Signet, 1943, page 412.
Rand, Ayn "Anything may be betrayed; anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the courage of their own greatness." The Fountainhead, Signet, 1943, page 663.
Rand, Ayn "Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." The Fountainhead, Signet, 1943, page 683.
Rand, Ayn "If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others." The Fountainhead, Signet, 1943, page 607.
Rand, Ayn "To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life." The Fountainhead, Signet, 1943, page 579.
Rand, Ayn "Your soul has a single basic function—the act of valuing." The Fountainhead, Signet, 1943, page 539.
Ringer, Robert "A black market is nothing more than a free market asserting itself in spite of government regulation." Restoring The American Dream, QED, 1979, page 155.
Ringer, Robert "Perhaps some day a freedom lover will figure out a way to maintain an orderly society without the tyranny of Majority Rule." Restoring The American Dream, QED, 1979, page 298.
Robbins, Anthony "Massive rejection is the key to success." Personal Power II, Robbins Research International, 1996, volume 8, tape 1, side 2.
Robbins, Anthony "Who we are and what we're capable of is so far beyond our present concept...it's a joke." Power Talk: Regeneration: A Model for Success in the 21st century, Robbins Research International, 1993, tape 1, side b.
Rothbard, Murray "The enormous success of Karl Marx and Marxism has been due not to the validity of his ideas—all of which, indeed, are fallacious—but to the fact that he dared to weave socialist theory into a mighty system. Liberty cannot succeed without an equivalent and contrasting systematic theory; and until the last few years, despite our great heritage of economic and political thought and practice, we have not had a fully integrated and consistent theory of liberty." For a New Liberty, Macmillan, 1978, page 321.
Sagan, Carl "If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read." Cosmos, Ballantine Books, 1980, page 233.
Schlessinger, Laura "Pick your goals in life first, then pick the woman to match them." Ten Stupid Things Men do to Mess up Their Lives, HarperCollins, 1997, tape 1, side 2.
Schwarzenegger, Arnold "If you truly believe in yourself, nothing in the world will stop you from achieving your goal." Muscle & Fitness magazine, Weider Publications, February 1998, page 186.
Sciabarra, Chris "By achieving our goals, we gain a sense of self-confidence and control over our existence that fuels our further achievements, as well as our practical competence." Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995, page 250.
Sciabarra, Chris "Since nothing is a value-in-itself, and since values are not the result of subjective fancy, the free market will tend to enrich those individuals who see the wider context in the long run, and who introduce radical innovations that benefit human life." Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995, page 293.
Scott, Steven K "Simply stated, the Dream Conversion Process is: Defining a dream in writing; converting that dream into specific goals; converting each goal into specific steps; converting each step into specific tasks; assigning a projected time or date to complete each task." Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams, Simon & Schuster, 1998, page 106.
Sears, Barry "But before you can change the world, you have to change yourself." Zone Perfect Meals, Regan Books, 1997, page 236.
Shakespeare, William "There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats: for I am armed so strong in honesty that they pass by me as the idle wind which I respect not." Julius Caesar, Longman Literature, 1990, page 197.
Smith, Fred (founder of Federal Express) "I think any paradigmatic shift is very hard because you're going against the conventional wisdom." Forbes Great Minds of Business, Simon & Schuster Audio, 1997, tape 1, side B.
Smith, Fred (leader of Oldsmobile) "[William C. Durant] certainly made some capital mistakes...but the man who makes no mistakes rarely makes anything at all on a large scale." The Buick: A Complete History by Dunham and Gustin, Automobile Quarterly, 1987, page 83.
Smith, George H. "Atheism is merely a corollary, a specific application, of one's commitment to reason." Atheism: The Case Against God, Prometheus Books, 1989, page 98.
Smith, George H. "In the name of science, the theist posits a 'God of the gaps', a God who allegedly fills in the gaps of human knowledge. But gaps of knowledge eventually close, leaving God without a home." Atheism: The Case Against God, Prometheus Books, 1989, page 256.
Smith, George H. "...it is only through the integration of knowledge and decision that happiness can be achieved." Atheism: The Case Against God, Prometheus Books, 1989, page 183.
Smith, George H. "Sin represents something metaphysically monstrous, something that directly undercuts a man's sense of self-esteem, and this adds to its effectiveness as a manipulative device." Atheism: The Case Against God, Prometheus Books, 1989, page 301.
Smith, George H. "What [Christianity] can do, however, and what it has been extremely effective in accomplishing is to inculcate guilt in connection with pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure, when accompanied by guilt, becomes a means of perpetuating chronic guilt, and this serves to reinforce one's dependence on God." Atheism: The Case Against God, Prometheus Books, 1989, page 308.
Troiani, Maryann "The more skill and challenge someone exerts in a project, the more happiness that individual feels. The less skill and challenge a person puts into a work endeavor, the more the person feels apathy or unhappy emotions." Change Your Underwear, Change Your Life, Listen & Live Audio, 1997, tape 1, side A.
Trump, Donald "But where there's turmoil, there's opportunity." Trump: The Art of the Comeback, Random House, 1997, page 47.
Trump, Donald "Case in point: Take adversity and make it an asset." Trump: The Art of the Comeback, Random House, 1997, page 69.
Trump, Donald "Find a woman who is supportive, because there is nothing better than a supportive woman." Trump: The Art of the Comeback, Random House, 1997, page 149.
Trump, Donald "If you don't have passion about who you are, about what you are trying to be, about where you are going, you might as well close this book right now and give up." Trump: The Art of the Comeback, Random House, 1997, page 223.
Trump, Donald "I think the ultimate gift would be to be born happy." Trump: The Art of the Comeback, Random House, 1997, page 220.
Vernon, Lillian "Above and beyond every other consideration, be honest with your customers." An Eye for Winners, HarperCollins, 1996, page 209.
Vernon, Lillian "How did I know what would sell? I drew mostly on my own tastes or needs." An Eye for Winners, HarperCollins, 1996, page 77.
Vernon, Lillian "One reason we get an enormous amount of repeat business is our well earned reputation for honesty and reliability." An Eye for Winners, HarperCollins, 1996, page 113.
Waitley, Denis "If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything." Going for the Gold, Listen & Learn USA!, 1984, tape side 2.
Wallace, Frank R. "Good friendships can be rewarding and valuable, but are not necessary to experience the full potential of life. On the other hand, a romantic love relationship is necessary to reach one's full potential for experiencing happiness & pleasure." Neo-Tech Reference Encyclopedia, I & O, 1982, page 171.
Wallace, Frank R. "If a genius gives in to dishonesty or lack of integrity, he undermines his entire work and diminishes the long-term value of his end results." Neo-Tech Reference Encyclopedia, I & O, 1982, page 54.
Wallace, Frank R. "Only through developing the proper relationship with one's own self can a person fully experience the pleasures and happiness available from a romantic love partner or from life itself." Neo-Tech Reference Encyclopedia, I & O, 1982, page 302.
Wallace, Frank R. "To know and deal with an undistorted reality, a person must first know himself, which includes knowing his own emotions." Neo-Tech Reference Encyclopedia, I & O, 1982, page 235.
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler "Human thinking is still in as great a state of disorder and jumble as language was before the alphabet, music before the scale was discovered, printing before Gutenberg, or mathematics before Pythagoras formulated its laws. This systematization of all thought would be a more far reaching improvement than all the others, for it will do for education, health, economics, government, etc., what the alphabet did for language, movable type for printing and literature, the scale for music, and the rules of arithmetic for calculation. Being the exact counterpart of these in its particular field, its mission, like theirs, will be to bring order out of chaos." Thinking as a Science by Henry Hazlitt, Dutton, 1916, page 5.
Wurtman, Richard "Failure is just delayed success." Fortune magazine, 6/23/97, page 116.