"Property is the fruit of labor; property..." - Quote by Abraham Lincoln
Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; it is a positive good.
More by Abraham Lincoln
“I have seen your despatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bull-dog gripe, and chew & choke, as much as possible.”
“Illinois surpasses every other spot of equal extent upon the face of the globe in fertility of soil and in the proportionable amount of the same which is sufficiently level for actual cultivation.”
“In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he [the president] is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature [of] things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress?”
More on Labor
“Of course, it is not the employer who pays wages. He only handles the money. It is the product that pays wages and it is the management that arranges the production so that the product may pay the wages.”
“Capitalist agricultural production prevents the return to the soil of its elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; it therefore violates the conditions necessary to lasting fertility of the soil. By this action it destroys at the same time the health of the town labourer and the intellectual life of the rural labourer.”
“This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.”
More on Property
“The good people of Dakota offered to give Calvin Coolidge a farm if he would live on it. I wouldn't advise you to give those people too much credit for generosity. There is not a farmer in any State in the West that wouldn't be glad to give him a farm if he will paint it, fix up the fences and keep up the series of mortgages that are on it. And if you think Coolidge ain't smart, you just watch him not take it.”
“We must speak first about the division of land and about those who cultivate it: who should they be and what kind of person? We do not agree with those who have said that property should be communally owned, but we do believe that there should be a friendly arrangement for its common use, and that none of the citizens should be without means of support.”
“The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never deprived of their goods by public men.”