PROPERTY QUOTES II
quotations about property
A pickpocket is obviously a champion of private enterprise. But it would perhaps be an exaggeration to say that a pickpocket is a champion of private property.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Outline of Sanity
Well! some people talk of morality, and some of religion, but give me a little snug property.
MARIA EDGEWORTH
The Absentee
All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.
BIBLE
Acts 2:44-45
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
conversation with Baron Humboldt, Life of Thomas Jefferson
When in the Land of Property think like a propertarian. Dress like one, eat like one, act like one, be one.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Dispossessed
What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
Few rich men own their own property. The property owns them.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Political Speeches of Robert G. Ingersoll
Property is the fruit of labor--property is desirable--is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
reply to New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association, March 21, 1864
No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
GIDEON J. TUCKER
Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Surrogate's Court
I've been so bothered with my property, that I'm tired of it, and don't mean to save up any more, but give it away as I go along, and then nobody will envy me, or want to steal it, and I shan't be suspecting folks and worrying about my old cash.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Men
Without that sense of security which property gives, the land would still be uncultivated.
FRANCOIS QUESNAY
Maximes Generales
Property ought to have its influence, and sweet indeed might be the uses of that influence in binding up the broken-hearted, in visiting the widow and the fatherless; these are the influences which in some measure might atone to mankind for the evils which property as now recognized inflicts upon them; but if property will pervert its influence to effect the moral degradation and political enthrallment of those to whom it owes its value--if it will accumulate only to corrupt and crush, let it beware lest its rights and influence be deemed incompatible with the anterior rights of man.
FRANCIS HOPKINSON
attributed, Day's Collacon
No property has a lasting tenure, and heir comes upon heir, as wave on wave; what real benefit is there in landed property and ever-increasing hoards?
HORACE
attributed, Day's Collacon
It is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else. When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor, for his whole life. I am not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat, just what might happen to any poor man's son! I want every man to have the chance, and I believe a black man is entitled to it, in which he can better his condition. When he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the true system.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech in New Haven, Connecticut, March 6, 1860
Private property ... is a Creature of Society, and is subject to the Calls of that Society, whenever its Necessities shall require it, even to its last Farthing, its contributors therefore to the public Exigencies are not to be considered a Benefit on the Public, entitling the Contributors to the Distinctions of Honor and Power, but as the Return of an Obligation previously received, or as payment for a just Debt.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Queries and Remarks respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1789
Property has its duties as well as its rights.
THOMAS DRUMMOND
letter to the Earl of Donoughmore, May 22, 1838
An absolute and unlimited right over any object of property would be the right to commit nearly every crime. If I had such a right over the stick I am about to cut, I might employ it as a mace to knock down the passengers, or I might convert it into a sceptre as an emblem of royalty, or into an idol to offend the national religion.
JEREMY BENTHAM
The Works of Jeremy Bentham
Private property was the original source of freedom. It is still its main bulwark.
WALTER LIPPMANN
The Method of Freedom
If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven.
JESUS
Matthew 19:21
A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings