A Quote by Jacob Weisberg

The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school. Like other ideologues, libertarians react to the world's failing to conform to their model by asking where the world went wrong.

Jacob Weisberg

Quote Topics

About Asking Conform Failing Frozen High High School Ideologues Immature Intellectually Libertarians Like Many Model Novels Other React Reading Say School Them Thing World Worldview Worst Worst Thing Wrong

Quote Author

Jacob Weisberg
American - Journalist
Born: 1964

Many people, improperly, lump together libertarians and the Tea Parties. That's really wrong. Many of the libertarians are physicists, and many of the Tea Party people don't bathe. There's really not much in common there!

Alan Grayson

I know these are going to sound like school reading-list suggestions, but if you like dystopian fiction, you should check out some of the originals: Anthem, by Ayn Rand; 1984, by George Orwell; or Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.

Sara Shepard

I know these are going to sound like school reading-list suggestions, but if you like dystopian fiction, you should check out some of the originals: 'Anthem,' by Ayn Rand; '1984,' by George Orwell; or 'Brave New World,' by Aldous Huxley.

Sara Shepard

There's an oft-used shorthand for the technologist's view of the world. It is assumed that libertarianism dominates Silicon Valley, and that isn't wholly wrong. High-profile devotees of Ayn Rand can be found there.

Franklin Foer

I reject her [Ayn Rand's] philosophy. It's an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person's view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. Don't give me Ayn Rand.

Paul Ryan

The Libertarians, of whom I'm rather fond, are running Harry Browne. Libertarians are, just as they claim, principled and consistent - they believe in individual liberty. Commendable as they are, and despite their reliability as allies in civil liberties struggles, you may notice that Libertarians sometimes prove that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and that there is a difference between logic and wisdom.

Molly Ivins

John Stuart Mill believed that the only acceptable reason for government to limit a person's liberty was to prevent him from causing unacceptable harm to others. Mill was not a libertarian, but many libertarians are quick to cite this principle when arguing against a regulation that they oppose. And I believe most thoughtful libertarians are prepared to embrace something fairly close to Mill's harm principle. But accepting that principle implies accepting many of the institutions of the modern welfare state that libertarians have vigorously opposed in the past, such as safety regulation.

Robert H. Frank

Libertarians are believers in small government who really mean it -- no excuses, no exceptions. [For Libertarians], the excesses of government are their best recruiters.

Richard Brookhiser

I'm tired of people thinking that Libertarians don't have morality- that they don't have values. that's a lot of hogwash. Libertarians are the ONLY politicians with values.

Peter McWilliams

Some libertarians succeed by re-inventing the wheel. Most libertarians fail by re-inventing the flat tire.

Mike Cloud

I read all of Ayn Rand's novels when I was 17.

Rand Paul

Like many people, most Libertarians feel empathy and sympathy for less fortunate people. But they know you can't have perfection in a world of limited resources.

Harry Browne

The thing for me about Ayn Rand is that her philosophy is the only one applicable to the world today - in every sense. If you take her ideas, then take them farther in your own mind, you can find answers to pretty well everything on an individual basis.

Neil Peart

Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read.

Gore Vidal

The best thing you can say about libertarians is that because their views derive from abstract theory, they tend to be highly principled and rigorous in their logic.

Jacob Weisberg

I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are.

Paul Ryan