Isabel Paterson was a leading literary critic, journalist, novelist and philosopher. She was a great inspiration to Ayn Rand, and is considered one of the key founders of the American libertarian movement. Her best-known work is a treatise on philosophy, economics and history called The God of the Machine.
On freedom:
“The most dimwitted attempt at argument we’ve heard in this mortal world is the supposed retort to any advocate of freedom: ‘Do you mean to be free to starve?’ We mean, do you think you can’t starve with your hands tied?”
On state education:
“A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.”
“Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you or pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?”
On individualism:
“Right now it is a terrible thing to be a rugged individualist; but we don’t know what else to be except a feeble nonentity.”
On good intentions:
“Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals towards virtuous ends.”
“The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action.”
“The philanthropist, the politician, and the pimp are found in alliance because they have the same motives, they seek the same ends, to exist for, through, and by others.”
On legislation:
“No law can give power to private persons; every law transfers power from private persons to government.”
On the military:
“An army is a diversion of energy from the productive life of a nation.”
On the apologists of Communism and the Ukranian famine:
“But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) have starved to death in one year by the methods the approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism [emphasis in text].”
You can read The God of the Machine for free from the Mises Institute.