Author: James Wesley Rawles

“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.  From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, “Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”  – Jean Jacques Rousseau, A …

“The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” – Gen. Colin Powell

“Hyperinflation can take virtually your entire life’s savings, without the government having to bother raising the official tax rate at all.” – Thomas Sowell

“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws.  On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” – Frederic Bastiat

“The business of procuring the necessities of life has been shifted from the wood lot, the garden, the kitchen and the family to the factory and the large-scale enterprise. In our case, we moved our center back to the land.” – Helen Nearing, The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing’s Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living

“Where wilderness can still be found, the ancientness of the land and the nobility of man’s struggle emerge. Wilderness is vastly different from the clutter and clatter of much of our civilized world. In wilderness one experiences exhilaration and joy. In freedom and simplicity, in its vitality and immense variety, happiness may not only be pursued; it is ofttimes found.” – Harvey Broome, Out Under Sky Of Great Smokies: A Personal Journal