Dylan Miles

“The fearful necessity of war ought only to be taken seriously and sternly. There are lies enough in the world as it is. War should be treated as a hard fact; not as a game; otherwise it becomes a mere pastime for the idle and frivolous. There is no more honourable class than the military, and yet to what extremities they are driven to gain their ends!—In fact, what is the aim and end of war?—Murder.—And its means?—Treachery and spying.—Its procedure?—Pillage and robbery for the maintenance of the men! . . . That is to say, falsehood and dishonesty in every form, under the name of the Art of War.—What, I ask you, is the rule to which military men are bound? To slavery, that is to say, to a rigorous discipline, which condones idleness, depravity, drunkenness—and yet they are universally respected, except the Emperor respected. Every monarch in the world, the man who has killed the greatest number of his fellow creatures wins the highest rewards. A million of men meet—to-morrow, for instance—to solemn thanksgivings for the massacre and maiming of the figures? Why, Te Deums are loudly boasted of, for the more men killed the more brilliant it is thought to be, and the victory is acceptable to God to be.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Any man of reasonable intelligence can make money if that’s what he wants.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

“Another tried-and-true method for bending subjects to the state's will is inducing guilt. Any increase in private well-being can be attacked as "unconscionable greed, "materialism",, or "excessive affluence." Profit-making can be attacked as "exploitation" and "usury", mutually beneficial exchanges are denounced as selfishness, and somehow, with the conclusion always being drawn that more resources should be siphoned from the private to the public sector. The induced guilt makes the public more ready to do just that. While individual persons tend to indulge in "selfish greed", the failure of the state's rulers to engage in exchanges is supposed to signify their devotion to higher and nobler causes, parasitic predation being apparently morally and aesthetically lofty as compared to peaceful and productive work.”
― Murray N. Rothbard, Anatomy of the State

“They are subjected to all manner of taxes: the tithe, the hearth tax and the capitation tax. When all those are paid, they are left with a pittance, which means they spend their lives struggling to survive. I can understand their despair. And I can understand their anger when they look at the nobility and the clergy and see them enjoying lives of luxury, unburdened by any tax. What astonishes me is that they have put up with it for so long. I can only begin to imagine the suffering that has driven those people in Seurre to action.”
― Simon Scarrow, Young Bloods