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Plunder Quotes

“Private property based on the labour of the small proprietor, free competition, democracy, i.e., all the catchwords with which the capitalists and their press deceive the workers and the peasants- are things of the past. Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the people of the world by a handful of "advanced" countries. And this "booty" is shared between two or three powerful world marauders armed to the teeth"..."who involve the whole world in their war over the sharing of their booty.”

PovertyCapitalismLaborImperialismPrivate PropertyPlunderGlobalismOppression WealthOwnership Class
Book:Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
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“When reading the history of the Jewish people, of their flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, I must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. They were cheated, deceived and abused. Their god was quick-tempered unreasonable, cruel, revengeful and dishonest. He was always promising but never performed. He wasted time in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had done. It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god. He had solemnly promised the Jews that he would take them from Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. He had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over, and that they would soon in the land of Canaan, surrounded by their wives and little ones, forget the stripes and tears of Egypt. After promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this God, forgetting every promise, said to the wretches in his power:—'Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted.' This curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. Into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of God. Into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe these things. They are so cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. A book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be accepted as a revelation from God. When we think of the poor Jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each, other, swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of God. No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt, and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. Compared with Jehovah, Pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of God. While reading the Pentateuch, I am filled with indignation, pity and horror. Nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. Ignorant and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. God was their greatest enemy, and death their only friend. It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:—such is the God of the Pentateuch.”

LoveBookGodHomePainDeathJoyReligionReadingBeliefFearJusticeFreedomLibertyBeautyMusicChristianityEnemyHistoryImpossibleDreamsBloodTearsSorrowPromiseHorrorSadDespairBibleMurderSafetySlaveryAffectionDelightMythMythologyTyrannyIgnorantPityCrueltyDustWanderVainCurseHypocrisyShockPriestsSympathyTyrantsArrogantFalsehoodAgonyFriendJudaismThankfulPreyDeceivedCorpsesHatefulDishonestyMosesFamineHideousUnreasonableHeartlessRevelationSuperstitiousIndignationJehovahSportJewishDespicablePlunderJewsInfamousPromised LandYahwehThe BibleAbhorrentExodusExchangePharaohWastedRevengefulGovernParallelRobbedSerpentsPentateuchPlaguesStarvedBenefactor
Book:Some Mistakes of Moses
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“My take on socialism is this: Socialism only seems to work when you don't fully implement it, when you keep enough capitalism around to pay socialism's bills, at least for a time. It's the difference between milking the cow and killing it. Socialism has no theory of wealth creation; it's just a destructive, envy-driven fantasy about redistributing it after something else (and somebody else) creates it first.”

GovernmentEvilPoliticsFreedomLibertyDemocracyCapitalismTradeLibertarianCommunismAnarchyIndividualismFreeTaxationFree MarketTheftMafiaCoercionCollectivismStatismLegalPlunderVoluntaryismMarketsLaissez FaireNon Aggression PrincipleAncapAnarcho CapitalismMob Rule
Author:Lawrence W. Reed
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“The character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is the most horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be true, he was the wretch that first began and carried on wars on the score or on the pretence of religion; and under that mask, or that infatuation, committed the most unexampled atrocities that are to be found in the history of any nation. Of which I will state only one instance: When the Jewish army returned from one of their plundering and murdering excursions, the account goes on as follows (Numbers xxxi. 13): 'And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, 'Have ye saved all the women alive?' behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, 'kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women- children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for Yourselves.' Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world have disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater than Moses, if this account be true. Here is an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters. Let any mother put herself in the situation of those mothers, one child murdered, another destined to violation, and herself in the hands of an executioner: let any daughter put herself in the situation of those daughters, destined as a prey to the murderers of a mother and a brother, and what will be their feelings? In short, the matters contained in this chapter, as well as in many other parts of the Bible, are too horrid for humanity to read, or for decency to hear.”

CharacterBibleMurderHorribleVillainReadDecencyViolationMosesAtrocitiesJewishPlunderThe BibleAtrocityThe LordWretchDetestableExecutionerHorridWars Of Religion
Book:The age of reason
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“I used to wonder: Do only ignorant laypeople gaze on the colossal bust of Ramses II at the British Museum and ask themselves how it ended up there? Is it only the unschooled visitor who looks at the soaring column from the Temple of Artemis at the Met and questions why it exists in this place?”

ArtMuseumsColonialismPlunder
Book:Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
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“...But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis—as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace.”

DeathJoyFightingHopeForceFearPeaceProgressInfluenceEmotionalCivilizationWeaponsMadnessIslamProsperityBritishIndianGenerousEcstasyCreedsIntoleranceMuslimFear Of DeathFuryMilitantPlunderReligious ViolenceArabsMad DogsTurksMohammedanReligious BloodthirstinessSoudan
Book:The Story of the Malakand Field Force
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“Economists have always recognised that some kind of initial accumulation was necessary for the rise of capitalism. Adam Smith called this ‘previous accumulation’, and claimed that it came about because a few people worked really hard and saved their earnings– an idyllic tale that still gets repeated in economics textbooks. But historians see it as naïve. This was no innocent process of saving. It was a process of plunder.”

CapitalismExploitationEconomistPlunderOriginAdam Smith
Book:Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
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“The case of Ballantyne's The Coral Island is instructive, for the author had never seen a coral island, or, indeed, a palm tree, or a coconut, and his novel is a construction out of his reading of other books, some of which are pillaged to the point of plagarism. The textual bricolage is matched by the ironic presentation of the imperial values which it is generally assumed the book exists to promote: a pirate by the name of 'Bloody Bill' is allowed to articulate how useful religion is to the advancement of trade (and plunder).”

ReligionTradeNovel WritingPlunderPalm TreesPolynesiaBloody BillImperial ValuesRm BallantyneThe Coral Island
Book:The International Companion to the Scottish Novel
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“The founders understood that democracy would inevitably evolve into a system of legalized plunder unless the plundered were given numerous escape routes and constitutional protections such as the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, election of senators by state legislators, the electoral college, no income taxation, most governmental functions performed at the state and local levels, and myriad other constitutional limitations on the powers of the central government.”

StatesGovernmentGivenLevelsDemocracyRightsCollegeUnderstoodFunctionElectionBillsProtectionSeparationIncomeLocalsLimitationEvolveFoundersSenatorsRoutesTaxationIncome TaxLegislatorsBill Of RightsPlunderSeparation Of PowersElectoral CollegeCentral Government
Author:Thomas DiLorenzo
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“Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to steal, murder, plunder, or bear false witness), and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality.”

ShouldReadingInterestMoralParticularBearsMoralityReflectionMurderAgreeConvincedStealingObservationWitnessDogmaPlunderFalse Witness
Book:Jefferson: Political Writings
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“A thorough-paced knave will rarely quarrel with one whom he can cheat: his revenge is plunder; therefore he is usually the most forgiving of beings, upon the principle that if he come to an open rupture, he must defend himself; and this does not suit a man whose vocation it is to keep his hands in the pocket of another.”

IfsMenDoeHandsPrinciplesForgivingRevengeSuitsPocketsCheatVocationQuarrelsThoroughPlunderKnavesRuptureKnavery
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“But the instinct of hoarding, like all other instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the institution of private property comes another institution-that of plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which unlike most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then.”

KnowsMenLittlesEnoughActionDesirePowerfulRichInstitutionsPropertyInstinctAverageMotiveConsumerismPersistentPrivate LifePrivate PropertyOverconsumptionPlunderAverage ManHoardingSatiety
Book:Outspoken essays
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“The effort to improve the conditions of man, however, is not a task for the few. It is the task of all nations-acting alone, acting in groups, acting in the United Nations, for plague and pestilence, plunder and pollution, the hazards of nature and the hunger of children are the foes of every nation. The earth, the sea and the air are the concern of every nation. And science, technology and education can be the ally of every nation.”

MenChildrenEarthNationsUnitedEffortActingTechnologyGroupsAirSeaConditionsConcernTasksEnvironmentalHungerAlliesPollutionUnited NationsFoePlagueHazardsPlunderPestilenceScience TechnologyTechnology And Education
Author:John F. Kennedy
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“Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain - and since labor is pain in itself - it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it. When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.”

MenDoeShowsPainConditionsDangerousMoralityEasierLaborPainfulResortsPlunder
Book:The Law
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“Why, I say, that to tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection; it is plunder, and I entirely disclaim it; but I ask you to protect the rights and interests of labour generally in the first place, by allowing no free imports from countries which meet you with countervailing duties; and, in the second place, with respect to agricultural produce, to compensate the soil for the burdens from which other classes are free by an equivalent duty. This is my view of what is called "protection."”

FirstsCountryAsksInterestCommunityViewsClassRightsProduceDutyProtectTaxesAdvantageBurdenProtectionSoilLabourAllowingImportsPlunderSecond Place
Author:Benjamin Disraeli
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“If you look at Washington, you see permanently camped on the banks of the Potomac spread around in concentric circles an army representing thousands of selfish interests. The sole purpose of their presence is to plunder, by hook or crook, the public treasury for the benefit of their particular people or corporations.”

PeopleIfsLooksPurposeInterestParticularBenefitsArmySpreadSelfishCirclesCorporationsSoleHookRepresentingTreasuryPlunderCrooksSelfish Interest
Author:Charley Reese
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“Conservatives or better, pro-corporate apologists hijacked the vocabulary of Jeffersonian liberalism and turned words like "progress," "opportunity," and "individualism" into tools for making the plunder of America sound like divine right. This "degenerate and unlovely age," as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove the reputed brain of George W. Bush as the seminal age of inspiration for politics and governance of America today.”

MindInspirationAgeTodayAmericaOpportunitySoundBrainProgressDivineToolsCorporateLiberalismHistorianIndividualismVocabularyGovernanceDegeneratesPlunderAmerica TodayDivine Right
Author:Bill Moyers
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“We're a young species; We're only 175,000 years old. On the evolutionary scale, life on this planet is 4 billion years old. We're 175,000 years old. So we're trying something out. Who wouldn't think it would be better to have the most stuff to take as much as you could? As we do that, we see why the moral prophets come along and say, don't even store into barns, right? It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. We've seen we plunder nature. We plunder our neighbor. We create enemies because we're against each other.”

ThinkingMenTryingYearsWould BeEyeYoungHeavenStuffMoralEnemyRichPlanetsEasierSpeciesStoresNeighborBillionsScalesKingdomsProphetCooperationNeedlesRich ManKingdom Of HeavenThrough The EyesCamelsPlunderBarnsTrying Something
Author:Tom Shadyac
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“The Indian who fells the tree that he may gather the fruit, and the Arab who plunders the caravans of commerce are actuated by the same impulse of savage nature, and relinquish for momentary rapine the long and secure possession of the most important blessings.”

MayLongImportantTreeBlessingFruitPossessionSecureIndianImpulseCommerceSavagesMomentaryPlunderCaravans
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“You want sanity, democracy, community, an intact Earth? We can't get there, obeying Constitutional theory and law crafted by slave masters, imperialists, corporate masters, and Nature destroyers. We can't get there, kneeling before robed lawyers stockpiling class plunder precedent up their venerable sleeves. So isn't disobedience the challenge of our age? Principled, inventive, escalating disobedience to liberate our souls, to transfigure our work as humans on this Earth.”

WantHumansSoulAgeEarthLawCommunityChallengesClassDemocracyMastersTheorySlaveLawyerCorporateSanityDisobedienceSleevesPrecedentDestroyersObeyingPlunderKneelingPrincipledEscalating
Author:Richard Grossman
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“The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out of--career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.”

ValuesFeltProcessKnownCareersEffectsCivilizationOffersAmbitionClaimsLifestyleConsumptionProfitableRipHippieSanctityIntricateSurplusPlunderDropoutsConspicuous ConsumptionScions
Book:The Madwoman's Underclothes: Essays and Occasional Writings
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“The prosecution of [Warren] Hastings, though he should escape at last, must have good effect. It will alarm the servants of the Company in India, that they may not always plunder with impunity, but that there may be a retrospect; and it will show them that even bribes of diamonds to the Crown may not secure them from prosecution.”

ShouldMayShowsLastsCompanyEffectsIndiaSecureServantDiamondCrownsAlarmsRetrospectBribeImpunityPlunderProsecution
Author:Horace Walpole
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“It was this desire for a feeling of importance that led an uneducated, poverty-stricken grocery clerk to study some law books he found in the bottom of a barrel of household plunder that he had bought for fifty cents. You have probably heard of this grocery clerk. His name was Lincoln.”

BookFeelingsLawDesireFoundNamesPovertyStudyHeardImportanceBottomFiftyCentsHouseholdGroceriesBarrelsClerksUneducatedPlunderLaw Books
Book:How to win friends & influence people
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“Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth by falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages. A peace will equally leave the warrior and the relater of wars destitute of employment; and I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie.”

KnowsMayWarLyingInterestStreetsFilledSoldierEmploymentWarriorFalsehoodAccustomedCalamityCredulityPlunderDestitute
Author:Samuel Johnson
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“Our earth is like a child who has grown up without parents, having no one to guide her... Some have attempted to help her but most have simply tried to use her. Humans, who have been given the task to lovingly steer the world, instead plunder her with no consideration, other than their immediate needs. And they give little thought for their own children who will inherit their lack of love. So they use her and abuse her with little consideration and then when she shudders of blows her breath. They are offended and raise their fist at God.”

WorldNeedsGivingHumansChildrenLittlesHas BeensHelpingUseEarthGivenParentTasksAbuseBreathsRaisesEnvironmentalBlowGuidesConsiderationOffendedFistsStewardshipSteersPlunderLack Of Love
Author:William P. Young
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“When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example for the poor to plunder the rich of his property, for the rights of the one are as much property to him as wealth is property to the other, and the little all is as dear as the much. It is only by setting out on just principles that men are trained to be just to each other; and it will always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the poor will protect the property of the rich. But the guarantee, to be effectual, must be parliamentarily reciprocal.”

MenLittlesPoliticalFoundPoliticsWealthPoorPrinciplesRichRightsExampleProtectPropertyDearSettingSettingsGuaranteesPlunderReciprocal
Book:The Political Writings of Thomas Paine ...: Prospects on the Rubicon. Rights of man, part I. Rights of man, part II. Letter to the authors of the Republican. Letter to the Abbe Sieyes. Address to the addressers. Letters to Lord Onslow. Dissertation on the first principles of government. Speech delivered in the French National convention. Letter to Mr. Secretary Dundas. The decline and fall of the English system of finance. Letter to the people of France. Reasons for preserving the life of Louis
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“In every society where property exists there will ever be a struggle between rich and poor. Mixed in one assembly, equal laws can never be expected; they will either be made by the member to plunder the few who are rich, or by the influence to fleece the many who are poor.”

MadeLawPoorStruggleRichInfluenceEqualMembersPropertyExpectedAssemblyRich And PoorPlunderFleece
Book:The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections
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“In the nature of things, those who have no property and see their neighbors possess much more than they think them to need, cannot be favorable to laws made for the protection of property. When this class becomes numerous, it becomes clamorous. It looks on property as its prey and plunder, and is naturally ready, at times, for violence and revolution.”

ThinkingNeedsLooksMadeLawPoliticalClassViolenceReadyRevolutionProgramPropertyProtectionNeighborPreyPlunderGovernment Programs
Author:Daniel Webster
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“Not all the pride of beauty; Those eyes, that tell us what the sun is made of; Those lips, whose touch is to be bought with life; Those hills of driven snow, which seen are felt: All these possessed are nought, but as they are The proof, the substance of an inward passion, And the rich plunder of a taken heart.”

HeartMadeEyePassionFeltSunRichTakenPrideLipsDrivenProofSnowHillsSubstancePossessedInwardPlunder
Book:The Poetical Works of Milton, Young, Gray, Beattie, and Collins
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