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Curtis Yarvin
210 quotes
“The secret of power is that power and responsibility are the same thing.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The mystery of the gray government", Unqualified Reservations (June 6, 2007).
“In a democracy with a free press, the press is the government. Public opinion on any subject will naturally shift toward the opinions of those who explain that subject to the public.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why there's no such thing as "liberal media bias"", Unqualified Reservations (June 7, 2007).
“In the English language as we use it now, words like progressive and conservative are actually relative designations. Progressive means "left of the mainstream" and conservative means "right of the mainstream." When the mainstream shifts, these words have to shift as well, and the result is that many of the radical left-wing ideas of 1907 would be radical right-wing ideas in 2007.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he continuity of tradition from Plymouth Rock to the United Nations is quite unmistakable.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why there's no such thing as "liberal media bias"" (June 9, 2007).
“[I]n a free society, there is no such thing as official truth.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Separation of information and security", Unqualified Reservations (June 9, 2007).
“Journalism […] looks like an unfree market because it is tied so closely to the unfree market of higher education.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Separation of information and security" (June 10, 2007).
“[P]ower in a democracy is held by those who manage public opinion.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[A]s long as the actions of two parties advance each others' interests, they can be considered allies, even if their philosophies of the world are so utterly opposed that they cannot afford the luxury of any such favorable reference.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Friction in theory and practice", Unqualified Reservations (June 19, 2007).
“A common error […] is to identify tyranny and monarchy, which in fact are quite unrelated political forms—all they share is the coincidence of personal rule. We may not all know it, but we'd almost all rather live under the "autocratic" and "absolutist" tsars than under Stalin.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]yranny is best seen as a sort of static civil war. The tyrant's office differs from the monarch's in that the latter's legitimacy is assured by law, whereas the former's is a matter of personal power and prestige.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tyranny […] is essentially informal and unstable. At least in the modern era, they tend to evolve into juntas, which tend to evolve into oligarchies, which tend to evolve into democracies. […] With each of these steps, legitimacy and internal security increase, and the state becomes stronger and harder to overthrow. Unless Gaza is your idea of fun, a strong and secure state is a good thing.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps the principal error of modern libertarians is their failure to distinguish between weak government and small government. My ideal government is extremely small, extremely efficient, and extremely strong—its authority cannot be challenged. It does not repress its citizens not because it is physically incapable of repression, but because repression is, far from being in its interests, directly opposed to them.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“a foreign traveler in 1864 […] asked some random American to explain the war. "It's the conquest of America by Massachusetts," was the answer. Massachusetts, of course, later went on to conquer first Europe and then the entire planet, the views of whose elites as of 2007 bear a surprisingly coincidental resemblance to those held at Harvard in 1945.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why conservatives never quite catch the boat", Unqualified Reservations (June 21, 2007)
“Conservatives cannot admit that conservatism is futile, because then they'd have nothing to do. No man will willingly abolish his own occupation.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he problem with genius is not promoting it, but suppressing it. It takes a very large and intricate system to perform the latter task, but it works pretty well as you can see.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why conservatives never quite catch the boat" (June 22, 2007).
“[L]eftism is Protestantism and Protestantism is leftism.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Some objections to ultracalvinism", Unqualified Reservations (June 23, 2007).
“Are we really to believe that Marx, on his own, invented the idea that all men are brothers, despite living in a society dominated by a religion whose creed taught exactly that?”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[N]ever trust a German when he tells you he's an atheist.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Power corrupts not by repression, but by seduction.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why conservatives never quite catch the boat" (June 23, 2007).
“If you have a rule that says the state cannot be taken over by a church, […] the obvious mutation to circumvent this defense is for the church to find some plausible way of denying that it's a church.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The ultracalvinist hypothesis: in perspective", Unqualified Reservations (June 24, 2007).
“Academic politics is a murky and brutal game, and a small finger on the scales can steer it quite effectively, especially over time.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why conservatives never quite catch the boat" (June 25, 2007).
“Cosmic righteousness and consistent, objective law are not just different things. They are actively opposed. Arbitrary rules whose derivation is entirely historical, but whose result is absolutely clear—such as property titles—are often the only way to define a consensus that everyone can agree on peacefully.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I distrust all velvet gloves. Take the abstract ideals off and show us government as it really is. Law enforcement is not a bad thing.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Surely, after the legal realists plunged us into a century-long nightmare of litigation and government by judiciary, precisely as its critics warned, we can see the value of legal formalism. Law is inherently objective and consistent because it is defined as such. If it isn't inherently objective and consistent, it is not the rule of law but the rule of men. Which we have far too much of these days.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You get rid of the system by making it fashionable, among the most fashionable people, to believe the system needs to be gotten rid of. It is certainly possible to build a system of government that can withstand, in a purely military sense, the disapproval of its own elites, but such is not the case with ours.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The system will be defeated when most intelligent people realize that The New York Times is a government gazette and Harvard is a government seminary, and when they form alternate institutions that fulfill the same role in a way that is genuinely independent.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In any conflict between X and Y, there are three paths to peace. X can prevail, Y can prevail, or X and Y can agree to leave the battle lines where they are now.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The mystery of pacifism", Unqualified Reservations (July 1, 2007).
“Ultimately, a pacifist is just an activist whose strategy for victory is to suppress the military efforts of his enemies.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The problem with the permanent bureaucracy is that any enterprise controlled by its own employees tends to expand without limit.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why conservatives never quite catch the boat" (July 2, 2007).
“[T]he moderate ideas of one generation are the extremist ideas of its parents, and the whole system shifts gradually over time.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[I]f you actually want to abolish politics, you have to deal with the existing power structure rather than the ideal form it pretends to be.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why, when, and how to abolish the United States", Unqualified Reservations (July 3, 2007).”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A good test for getting rid of anything is: if we didn't have this, would we need it?”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why, when, and how to abolish the United States", Unqualified Reservations (July 3, 2007).
“Stability is much underappreciated, especially by those who enjoy its benefits.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The mystery of pacifism" (July 4, 2007).
“[T]he law itself is arbitrary—a product of history, just like all other distributions of property. We support it because it's stable, and we like stability.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The entire intellectual system of the West was corrupted by its twentieth-century connection to government. Public opinion reflects press opinion, press opinion reflects academic politics, and academic politics are driven by power-struggles in which the attraction of the state is clear. The victory of Keynesian over Misesian economics, for example, is a classic case of this. Theories of economics which led to jobs advising the state were adaptive. Theories which didn't weren't.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why, when, and how to abolish the United States" (July 7, 2007).
“All the great crimes of the recent past have been committed by states which portrayed themselves as profoundly ethical actors. Removing this mask, eliminating the ability of the beast to portray itself as good, uninstalls an essential module in this perverse system.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[W]e have long since learned that offering any resistance to any kind of a mob is incompatible with our great American tradition of civil liberties.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: I wonder if Jonah Goldberg talks about this", Unqualified Reservations (July 6, 2006).
“Someday Westerners will learn that what matters about a government is what it does, and what doesn't matter is the race, creed, color, sexual preference, or country of origin of its employees. Unfortunately, I suspect we may have to learn it the hard way.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[P]lenty of perfectly stable and peaceful societies […] have been governed by a ruling caste which was culturally distinct from the body of the population.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is physically impossible to win a war by arresting an invading army and trying each of its soldiers.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Iraq simply cannot be governed by a military effort, no matter how technically advanced, well-trained, and well-funded, that thinks of itself as a combination of a SWAT team and the Salvation Army.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Western world certainly has all the physical and human tools it needs to restore civilization in the Third World and resume the work of Lord Cromer. But it lacks the legal and political tools, and until it has those it shouldn't even try. As in Vietnam, it ends up just handing victories to its adversaries, who use the result as simply one more piece of evidence that demonstrates their invincibility.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm quite happy to be an anti-intellectual, actually. It is the modern equivalent of anticlericalism, and it is long overdue. One can oppose specific institutions without opposing thought in general. In fact, sometimes it is even necessary.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hegel (III)", Eunomia (July 10, 2007).
“Everyone who spins a myth claims to be debunking one.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hegel (IV)", Eunomia (July 10, 2007).
“[I]f there is any constant in history, it is that philosophers are very bad at predicting the future. Even when the policies they propose are followed, the results tend to be quite different from predictions.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: UR-ICF #1: Carlyle, Montagu, Nock", Unqualified Reservations (July 11, 2007).
“The charge that universities are directly responsible for almost all the violence in the world today […] strikes me as essentially accurate.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: My Navrozov moments", Unqualified Reservations (July 11, 2007).
“[M]ost of the advances in Western scientific history, contrary to popular belief, occurred when scientists were not servants of the state.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he university, which was established as a refuge whose purpose was to pursue truth without regard for the opinions of the world, has become a power center whose purpose is to impose its own opinions on the world.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he tradition to which most sophisticated Westerners of 2007 conform is best seen as a sect of Christianity.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Universalism: postwar progressivism as a Christian sect", Unqualified Reservations (July 17, 2007).