Propriety

“ but they are not equal to him, who, though poor, is yet cheerful, and to him, who, though rich, loves the rules of propriety.' 2. ”

“ 'Without an acquaintance with the rules of Propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established. ”

“ All notions of propriety, decency, chastity, politeness, order, duty, right, rights, discipline, respect, reverence, coöperation, and fellowship, especially all things in regard to which good and ill depend entirely on the point at which the line is drawn, are in the mores. The mores can make things seem right and good to one group or one age which to another seem antagonistic to every instinct of human nature. ”

“ Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman; elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman; dignity is proper to noblemen; and majesty to kings! ”

“ Of these six great men every one was very attentive to the rules of propriety, thus to secure the display of righteousness, the realisation of sincerity, the exhibition of errors, the exemplification of benevolence, and the discussion of courtesy, showing the people all the normal virtues. Any rulers who did not follow this course were driven away by those who possessed power and position, and all regarded them as pests. ”

“ If I have rightly grasped the object of your thought; if I succeed in bringing to light a truth which is indisputable, but, from causes which I am bold enough to claim to have explained, has always been misunderstood; if by an infallible method of investigation, I establish the dogma of equality of conditions; if I determine the principle of civil law, the essence of justice, and the form of society; if I annihilate property forever,—to you, gentlemen, will redound all the glory, for it is to your aid and your inspiration that I owe it. ”

“ Well, sir, in writing against property, have I done more than quote the language of history? I have said to modern society,—the daughter and heiress of all preceding societies,—Age guod agis: complete the task which for six thousand years you have been executing under the inspiration and by the command of God; hasten to finish your journey; turn neither to the right nor the left, but follow the road which lies before you. You seek reason, law, unity, and discipline ”

“ We have only to prove, then, that functions are equal to each other; just as laborers, who perform the same function, are equal to each other.
Property makes man a eunuch, and then reproaches him for being nothing but dry wood, a decaying tree.
Are you astonished that I refuse to genius, to knowledge, to courage,—in a word, to all the excellences admired by the world,—the homage of dignities, the distinctions of power and wealth? It is not I who refuse it: it is economy, it is justice, it is liberty. ”

“ In the mean time, we may content ourselves with observing, that the same love of order and uniformity, which arranges the books in a library, and the chairs in a parlour, contribute to the formation of society, and to the well-being of mankind, by modifying the general rule concerning the stability of possession. And as property forms a relation betwixt a person and an object, 'tis natural to found it on some preceding relation; and as property is nothing but a constant possession, secur'd by the laws of society. ”

“ With reason, then, the common opinion of mankind, little affected by the few dissentients who have contended for the opposite view, has found in the careful study of nature, and in the laws of nature, the foundations of the division of property, and the practice of all ages has consecrated the principle of private ownership, as being pre-eminently in conformity with, human nature, and as conducing in the most unmistakable manner to the peace and tranquillity of human existence. ”

“ Thus the doctrine that the foundation of the right of property lies in the will, that property is 'realised will,' is true enough if we attach a certain meaning to 'will'; if we understand by it, not the momentary spring of any and every spontaneous action, but a constant principle, operative in all men qualified for any form of society, however frequently overborne by passing impulses, in virtue of which each seeks to give reality to the conception of a well-being which he necessarily regards as common to himself with others. ”

“ We need not stop for any long discussion of the definition of property, for it does not seem to be involved in the issue before us. By property I mean the sum of things which serve the wants of men, and the appropriation of which to individual use and enjoyment is assured by the power of society. Such, also, seems to be the sense in which the word is taken in the passage quoted, so that we are at least free from the constant confusion between property, the metaphysical notion of property, the right of property, and the moral justification of property. ”

“ Do not get excited, I beg of you. Property makes of a poet either a Crœsus or a beggar; only equality knows how to honor and to praise him. What is its duty? To regulate the right of the singer and the duty of the listener. ”

“ Finally, in the last chapter, calling psychology to our aid, and probing man’s nature to the bottom, we shall disclose the principle of justice—its formula and character; we shall state with precision the organic law of society; we shall explain the origin of property, the causes of its establishment, its long life, and its approaching death ”

“ If justice, therefore, be a virtue, which has a natural and original influence on the human mind, property may be look'd upon as a particular species of causation; whether we consider the liberty it gives the proprietor to operate as he please upon the object, or the advantages, which he reaps from it. ”

“ The sole basis of the idea of property is the idea of personality. As soon as property is born at all, it is born, of necessity, in all its fulness. As soon as an individual knows himself,—his moral personality, his capacities of enjoyment, suffering, and action,—he necessarily sees also that this self is exclusive proprietor of the body in which it dwells, its organs, their powers, faculties, &c.... ”

“ Vigor, genius, diligence, and all the personal advantages which result therefrom, are the work of Nature and, to a certain extent, of the individual; society awards them the esteem which they merit: but the wages which it pays them is measured, not by their power, but by their production. Now, the product of each is limited by the right of all. ”

“ The adjectival expression of the idea of possession.—All the world over, a property is a possession; and persons, at least, may be said to be the owners of their attributes. Whatever may be the nature of words like mine and thine, the adjectival character of their Latin equivalents, meus and tuus, is undoubted.
The ideas of partition and possession merge into one another.—A man's spade is the possession of a man; a man's hand is the part of a man. ”

“ From all which it is evident, that though the things of nature are given in common, yet man, by being master of himself, and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it, had still in himself the great foundation of property ”

“ But farther, though it seems a very simple proposition to say, that nature, by an instinctive sentiment, distinguishes property, yet in reality we shall find, that there are required for that purpose ten thousand different instincts, and these employed about objects of the greatest intricacy and nicest discernment. For when a definition of PROPERTY is required, that relation is found to resolve itself into any possession acquired by occupation, by industry, by prescription, by inheritance, by contract, &c. ”

“ But the entire human race, since the origination of society and language, when metaphysics and dialectics were first born, has been guilty of this puerile confusion of thought. All which man could call his own was identified in his mind with his person. He considered it as his property, his wealth ”

“ In some of these, the person and the thing have been pushed apart to a wide remove from one another; in others, the association of ownership between them is subtilely conditioned by various circumstances and contingencies; in others, several persons are associated with the same thing, in common ownership, or with a succession of rights in it, or with rights that are various in degree; in still others, the thing which is the subject of property is a pure figment of the brain—the mere idea of a property-right which has itself become property by a convenient fiction. ”

“ But is this the chief reason why we must not steal?—No, Sir, but because we ought to respect the property as well as the persons of others.—Very good. Property is an extension of human personality and must be respected as such. ”

“ What constitutes the rightful basis of property? What is it that enables a man justly to say of a thing, “It is mine?” From what springs the sentiment which acknowledges his exclusive right as against all the world? ”

“ I will break into pieces the authority of the great; of the law of property. Let the will of each be master of mankind, one’s own strength be one’s one property, for the freeman is the sacred man, and there is nothing sublimer than he.... ”

“ The author from whom we are quoting, and on whose judgment too much reliance cannot be placed, then proceeds to cite many of the patristic texts on property, which we quoted in the section dealing with that subject, and asks: 'What conclusion should one draw from these different passages? It is that in Christ there are no rich and no poor, no mine and no thine; that in Christian perfection all things are common to all men, but that nevertheless property is legitimate and derived from human law. ”

“ Though respect for another's property is decidedly the rule, yet it is surprising to note with what care everything is counted, tied up, or put away, and how marks of ownership are set up on all occasions. ”

“ It is that which constitutes the proprietor; it is that which you fail to justify. In reasoning from the human personality and individuality to the right of property, you unconsciously construct a syllogism in which the conclusion includes more than the premises, contrary to the rules laid down by Aristotle. The individuality of the human person proves individual possession, originally called proprietas, in opposition to collective possession, communio. It gives birth to the distinction between thine and mine, true signs of equality, not, by any means, of subordination. ”

“ I have accomplished my task; property is conquered, never again to arise. Wherever this work is read and discussed, there will be deposited the germ of death to property; there, sooner or later, privilege and servitude will disappear, and the despotism of will will give place to the reign of reason. ”

“ With this power of creation, and this passion for independence, property has reached an ideal perfection. It is felt and treated as the national life-blood. The laws are framed to give property the securest possible basis, and the provisions to lock and transmit it have exercised the cunningest heads in a profession which never admits a fool. ”

“ Such reflections appear visionary to the eye of the practical statesman, but they are within the range of possibility to the philosopher. He can imagine that in some distant age or clime, and through the influence of some individual, the notion of common property may or might have sunk as deep into the heart of a race, and have become as fixed to them, as private property is to ourselves. ”

“ The accursed system of private property, rooted in the abysmal malice of the human heart, lies like a dead weight upon every creative impulse. Everything is weighed and judged, everything is valued and measured, in relation to this. ”

“ Property is one of those basic institutions, new theories concerning which cannot be presented too soon; for it must not be forgotten, and the publicist and statesman must know, that on the answer to the question whether property is the principle or the result of social order, whether it is to be considered as a cause or an effect, depends all morality, and, consequently, all the authority of human institutions. ”

“ True, there must be the industry, the energy, the management and economy; there must be the good judgment, sagacity, etc. These are main articles in running the world, but wealth bears no just proportion to these. We speak not of a fortuity, which brings an estate at once, but of the growing up of an estate. ”

“ PROPERTY, that which is peculiarly one’s own, that which belongs to or is characteristic of an individual. The Latin proprietas (formed from proprius, one’s own, possibly derived from prope, near) in post-Augustan times was extended to ownership and rights of possession. It is thus, in law, the generic term for rights of ownership and for things subject to the rights of ownership. ”

“ As is the property of a nation, so is its family, its marriage, its religion, its civil and military organization, and its legislative and judicial institutions. History, viewed from this standpoint, is a grand and sublime psychological study. ”

“ Nature has given to every man but one mind, one heart, one will. Property, granting to one individual a plurality of votes, supposes him to have a plurality of minds.
7. All consumption which is not reproductive of utility is destruction. Property, whether it consumes or hoards or capitalizes, is productive of INUTILITY,—the cause of sterility and death.
8. The satisfaction of a natural right always gives rise to an equation; in other words, the right to a thing is necessarily balanced by the possession of the thing. ”

“ It is property that has descended to him through ancestors for two centuries; property that is historically connected with his name—on which he was born, on which he has lived, and on which he has hoped to die; property, in a word, that is associated with all the higher feelings of humanity. ”

“ Forget that you are a proprietor and remember that you are a man. Forget that you own anything and remember that you are something. I dont advise you to destroy your properties. I only say: Take your name off them. How much better it looks not to be a boss or a superior. ”