quote · Legacy record
If men were like ants, there would be no interest in human freedom. If individual men, like ants, were uniform, inter changeable, devoid of specific personality traits of their own, then who would care whether they were free or not? Who, indeed, would care if they lived or died? The glory of the human race is the uniqueness of each individual, the fact that every person, though similar in many ways to others, possesses a completely individuated personality of his own. It is the fact of each person’s uniqueness—the fact that no two people can be wholly interchangeable—that makes each and every man irreplaceable and that makes us care whether he lives or dies, whether he is happy or oppressed. And, finally, it is the fact that these unique personalities need freedom for their full development that constitutes one of the major arguments for a free society.
If men were like ants, there would be no interest in human freedom. If individual men, like ants, were uniform, inter changeable, devoid of specific personality traits of their own, then who would care whether they were free or not? Who, indeed, would care if they lived or died? The glory of the human race is the uniqueness of each individual, the fact that every person, though similar in many ways to others, possesses a completely individuated personality of his own. It is the fact of each person’s uniqueness—the fact that no two people can be wholly interchangeable—that makes each and every man irreplaceable and that makes us care whether he lives or dies, whether he is happy or oppressed. And, finally, it is the fact that these unique personalities need freedom for their full development that constitutes one of the major arguments for a free society.
Approximate author period: c. 1960 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Murray N. Rothbard
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1960 AD · modern
Approximate author-period evidence for Murray Rothbard: life dates 1926 to 1995. Wikidata Q297079, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q297079 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 152696; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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