Quotes About Property

A woman who attempts a public career must expect to be treated as public property: what would be an intrusion on a domiciled gentlewoman is a tribute to me.

And from this followeth another law: that such things as cannot be divided be enjoyed in common, if it can be; and if the quantity of the thing permit, without stint; otherwise proportionably to the number of them that have right.

Except for spending to protect property rights, enforce the law, and protect citizens from foreign aggressors, all government spending crowds out private spending and weakens the vitality of capitalism.

Private property and capitalism also provide strong incentives to preserve resources for the future, whereas political resource allocation under democracy tends toward immediate gratification.

Modern governments actually spend relatively little on programs and systems that benefit all citizens, such as national defense or the judicial system; mainly they are concerned with infringing on the property rights of one (less politically powerful) group of citizens for the benefit of another (more politically powerful) group.

Of course, no one can have a right to such material things unless someone else can be compelled to pay for them.

When it comes down to it, what are being traded in a capitalist economy are property rights—the ownership rights in goods and services.

We who live in capitalist countries tend to take all of this—property rights, free-market pricing, entrepreneurship—for granted, but every socialist country that has ever existed in the world has taken away these key ingredients of capitalism and has consequently created an economic catastrophe.

most millionaires generally don't limit themselves to stocks, bonds, and related investments—they invest heavily in private businesses and real estate.

Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.

The constitution of most of the states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.

Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. Letter to James Madison, October 28, 1785

Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.

I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality [in Europe] producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,...[One] means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.

If only the soil can maintain life, then only the possession of it can confer freedom. Manual labourers and peasants, however honourable their position, if they possess no real property, can only be the property of those who do.

Results have not been encouraging. We seem up against a dilemma built into Nature, much like the Heisenberg situation. There is nearly complete parallelism between analgesia and addiction. The more pain it takes away, the more we desire it. It appears we can't have one property without the other, any more than a particle physicist can specify position without suffering an uncertainty as to the particle's velocity—

But mob violence, like tourism, is a kind of communion. By its special magic a large number of lonely souls, however heterogeneous, can share the common property of opposition to what is.

In short, reducing the set of mutually acceptable terms tends to reduce the set of mutually acceptable results, with both tenants and landlords ending up worse off on the whole, though in different ways.

Confiscating physical wealth for the purpose of redistribution is confiscating something that will be used up over time, and cannot be replaced without the human capital that created it. Nor is human

Since democratic elections are always held in the short term, politicians have every incentive to extract as much wealth as possible from the fixed capital under their jurisdiction, whether through taxes, the imposition of charges on property or of the expropriation. Only public awareness of the long-term consequences can limit this form of exploitation.

I love you, Shanna. I want you to share my life and that which belongs to me. I want to build you a mansion, as you father did for your mother, as my parent did here. I want to give you children, with dark hair and light, and watch them grow, bathed in our love. I hav properties on the James. The land is good, and 'twill nourish our offsprings. It only waits your word to say where the house will be.

Everyone's an equal shareholder. Birth shares are inalienable, and death duties are unavoidable. The estate tax is one hundred per cent. In between, you can buy and sell and earn as much as you like.

We're creating... an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property.

The concept "rights" is a deduction from the fundamental fact of self-ownership. The claim to property in one's own person is a moral claim to noninterference and exclusivity. No person has a claim on any other person's life (i.e., their body, mind, and actions).