Henry George

“ We cannot go on permitting men to vote and forcing them to tramp. We cannot go on educating boys and girls in our public schools and at the same time refuse them the right to earn an honest living. We cannot go on prating of the inalienable rights of man and at the same time deny the inalienable right to the bounty of the Creator.
But if, while there is yet time, we turn to justice and obey her, if we trust Liberty and follow her, the dangers that now threaten must disappear, the forces that now menace will turn to agencies of elevation. ”

“ These rights are denied when the equal right to land - on which and by which alone men can live - is denied. Equality of political rights will not compensate for the denial of the equal right to the bounty of nature. Political liberty, when the equal right to land is denied, becomes, as population increases and invention goes on, merely the liberty to compete for employment at starvation wages. ”

“ They must have liberty to avail themselves of the opportunities and means of life; they must stand on equal terms with reference to the bounty of nature. Either this, or Liberty withdraws her light! Either this, or darkness comes on, and the very forces that progress has evolved turn to powers that work destruction. This is the universal law. This is the lesson of the centuries. Unless its foundations be laid in justice the social structure cannot stand.
Our primary social adjustment is a denial of justice. ”

“ With want destroyed; with greed changed to noble passions; with the fraternity that is born of equality taking the place of the jealousy and fear that now array men against each other; with mental power loosed by conditions that give to the humblest comfort and leisure; and who shall measure the heights to which our civilization may soar? Words fail the thought! It is the Golden Age of which poets have sung and high-raised seers have told in metaphor. It is the glorious vision that has always haunted man with gleam of fitful splendour. ”

“ Where Liberty rises, there virtue grows, wealth increases, knowledge expands, invention multiplies human powers, and in strength and spirit the freer nation rises among her neighbours as Saul amid his brethren - taller and fairer. Where Liberty sinks, there virtue fades, wealth diminishes, knowledge is forgotten, invention ceases, and empires once mighty in arms and arts become a helpless prey to freer barbarians. ”

“ For Liberty means justice, and justice is the natural law - the law of health and symmetry and strength, of fraternity and cooperation.
They who look upon Liberty as having accomplished her mission when she has abolished hereditary privileges and given men the ballot, who think of her as having no further relations to the everyday affairs of life, have not seen her real grandeur - to them the poets who have sung of her must seem rhapsodists, and her martyrs fools. As the sun is the lord of life, as well as of light ”

“ It has the qualities of a true reform, for it will make all other reform easier. What is it but the carrying but in letter and spirit of the truth enunciated in the American Declaration of Independence - the "self-evident" truth that is the heart and soul of the Declaration - "That all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." ”

“ With steam and electricity, and the new powers born of progress, forces have entered the world that will either compel us to a higher plane or overwhelm us - as nation after nation, as civilization after civilization, have been overwhelmed before. ”

“ In allowing one man to own the land on which and from which other men must live, we have made them his bondsmen in a degree that increases as material progress goes on. This is the subtle alchemy that in ways they do not realize is extracting from the masses in every civilized country the fruits of their weary toll, is instituting a harder and more hopeless slavery in place of that which has been destroyed and is bringing political despotism out of political freedom. ”

“ The new powers streaming through the material universe could be utilized only through land. While land remained private property, the classes that now monopolize the bounty of the Creator would monopolize all the new bounty. Rents would increase, but wages would remain at subsistence level. Can it be that the gifts of the Creator may be thus misappropriated with impunity? Is it a light thing that labour should be robbed of its earnings while greed rolls in wealth - that the many should want while the few are surfeited? ”

“ A merciful man would have better ordered the world; a just man would crush with his foot such an ulcerous anthill. It is not the Almighty, but we who are responsible for the vice and misery that fester amid our civilization. ”

“ It is this that crowds human beings into noisome cellars and squalid tenement houses; that fills prisons and brothels; that goads men with want and consumes them with greed; that robs women of the grace and beauty of perfect womanhood ”

“ Nay; the pillars of the state are trembling even now, and the very foundations of society begin to quiver with pent-up forces that glow underneath. The struggle that must either revivify, or convulse in ruin, is near at hand, if it be not already begun. ”

“ In the very centres of our civilization today are want and suffering enough to make sick at heart whoever does not close his eyes and steel his nerves. Dare we turn to the Creator and ask Him to relieve it? Supposing the prayer were heard, and there should glow in the sun a greater power; new virtue fill the air ”