Quotation of the Day…
by Don Boudreaux
on March 14, 2021
… is from page 21 of the 1993 Liberty Fund reissue of the 1969 Cambridge University Press edition of the 1854 translation of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s great 1792 work, The Limits of State Action:
But the happiness for which man is plainly destined, is no other than that which his own energies procure for him; and the very nature of such a self-reliant position sharpens his intellect and develops his character. Are there no instances of such evils where State agency fetters individual spontaneity by too detailed interference? There are many, doubtless; and the man whom it has accustomed to lean on an external power for support, is thus given up in critical emergencies to a far more hopeless fate. For, just as the very act of struggling against misfortune, and encountering it with vigorous efforts, lightens the calamity; so delusive expectations aggravate its severity tenfold.
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