The Art of The Argument Quotes

“Children are rarely taught critical thinking anymore, and society has become so antirational that basic reason and evidence are the new counterculture: thought is the new punk.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“Human beings have a deeply seated desire to correct others. We can be noble and say that this is for the cause of moral instruction and the improvement of the minds and choices of others across the globe – and on occasion this may actually be the case. But the reality is that human beings like to correct other human beings because it is a non-violent way to control them.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“As the old saying went in the Soviet Union, “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“The star-shreds that aggregated into the most improbable and miraculous explosion of your consciousness should be appreciated with more noble sentiments than resentment and depression.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“Calling someone a “racist” is rather pointless to anyone with half a brain. If someone is a racist, pointing out the reasons why is sufficient to communicate the conclusion. If The Argument begins with the conclusion,”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“There is a sickly market for selling helpless people the idea that they are poor because the ambitious and wealthy people have stolen resources from them. This creates a dangerous hatred for the productive that sets society on the path to self-destruction.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“Deductive reasoning goes from the general to the specific – Socrates is mortal – because that is what predators do. If you were to program a lion with syllogisms, it might come out something like this: I am hungry. My hunger is satisfied with meat. All zebras are made of meat. The slowest zebras are the easiest to catch. I will stalk and chase the slowest zebra. This zebra is the slowest zebra; I will stalk and chase this one. You see how this works? The lion is going from the general to the specific – from all zebras to one particular zebra that satisfies the criterion for appeasing the lion’s hunger.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“Civilization is the general agreement to refrain from resorting to violence if negotiations fail.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“If a business executive uses political connections to get a government subsidy, taxpayers will almost certainly disagree with that subsidy, which is why it needs to come from the government, rather than from voluntary investors. His competitors will also oppose it as well, and try to get a similar subsidy, which provokes even more competitors to do the same, provoking more resentment among taxpayers, and more sophistry from politicians and the media.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“Should the welfare state stop, single mothers would find a way to survive, and indeed would most likely flourish.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“Single mothers have children largely because the welfare state and other government mechanisms transfer hundreds of billions of dollars to single mothers. (We know this because, as the welfare state has grown, so has the prevalence of single motherhood – and, on the rare times that benefits are curtailed, additional births decline as well.)”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“Particularly in politics, once an argument for transferring resources to a particular group is established, those resources become both the figurative and literal lifeblood of many in that group.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand

“Frédéric Bastiat wrote in 1850: “Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”
― Stefan Molyneux, The Art of The Argument: Western Civilization's Last Stand