Isabel Paterson - People Quotes

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The biggest pests are the people who use altruism as an alibi. What they passionately wish is to make themselves important.

Isabel Paterson

The power to do things for people is also the power to do things to people.

Isabel Paterson

When the word leader, or leadership, returns to current use, it connotes a relapse into barbarism. For a civilized people, it is the most ominous word in any language.

Isabel Paterson

But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they 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.

Isabel Paterson

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 toward virtuous ends.

Isabel Paterson