Aristotle Quotes

Property should be in a certain sense common, but, as a general rule, private; for, when every one has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because every one will be attending to his own business.

The right to private property is valid, but all private property is under a "social mortgage.

Private property is a means, and neither its abolition nor its unrestricted right should be an end in itself.

We have seen that this great labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners.

There is a deliberate and quite outspoken attack on the whole idea of people owning private property.

Make no mistake. Without individual property, none are free.

Every man has a right by nature to possess property as his own.

The land on which the cattle grazed was communal property. It was owned by no one. It was nobody's private farm. It was the common property of the people, shared by the people. So the practice of sharing was central to the concept of ownership of property.

Collective property and individual property, these two banners will be the standards under which, from now on, the great battles of the future will be fought.

Property is impossible.

There was no private property in the past. Everything was communal property. In the Indian community where I was born, everything belonged to the community. This way of life is more equitable.

The protection of private property does more than promote market efficiency; it enhances the level of human freedom in the most intimate and personal parts of our lives.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

Private property is a necessary institution, at least in a fallen world; men work more and dispute less when goods are private than when they are in common.

The fact that God gave the whole human race the earth to use and enjoy cannot indeed in any manner serve as an objection against private possessions.

Personally I think that private property has a right to be defended. Our civilisation is built up on property, and can only be defended by private property.

In conditions of private property ... "life-activity" stands in the service of property instead of property standing the service of free life-activity.

Some French socialist said that private property was theft... I say that private property is a nuisance.

Every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own. This is one of the chief points of distinction between man and the animal creation.

Private property is one of the best institutions which has ever evolved, to protect us from the bullying of others.

Egalitarianism, in every form and shape, is incompatible with the idea of private property.

Any material element or resource which, in order to become of use or value to men, requires the application of human knowledge and effort, should be private property-by the right of those who apply the knowledge and effort.

A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom

If history could prove and teach us anything, it would be the private ownership of the means of production as a necessary requisite of civilization and material well-being. All civilizations have up to now been based on private property. Only nations committed to the principle of private property have risen above penury and produced science, art, and literature. There is no experience to show that any other social system could provide mankind with any of the achievements of civilization.

Possession properly has two faces, two aspects: we all have a right to private property, but this is accompanied by our responsibility for its righteous use. These two things (which should be inseparable) are frequently divided today. Everyone admits that the farmer who own a horse is obligated to feed and care for it, but in the case of stocks and bonds, we often forget that the same principle should prevail.