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Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. – John Adams (1814)
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin
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One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. – Thomas B. Reed (1886)
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If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. – Jacob Hornberger (1995)
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Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none. – Thomas Jefferson
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A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson (1801)
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The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. – Thomas Jefferson
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Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. – Thomas Jefferson
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None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. – Goethe
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It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve. – Henry George
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Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. – Barry Goldwater (1964)
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If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. – Samuel Adams
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If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too. – Somerset Maugham
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Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. – Justice Learned Hand
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It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. – Charles A. Beard
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The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. – Thomas Jefferson (1781)
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Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! -Patrick Henry to the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1775
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Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southern man apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance. Our cause was so just, so sacred, that had I known all that has come to pass, had I known what was to be inflicted upon me, all that my country was to suffer, all that our posterity was to endure, I would do it all over again. - Jefferson Davis
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I am with the South in life or in death, in victory or defeat. I never owned a negro and care nothing for them, but these people have been my friends and have stood up to me on all occasions. In addition to this, I believe the North is about to wage a brutal and unholy war on a people who have done them no wrong, in violation of the Constitution and the fundamental principles of the government...We propose no invasion of the North, no attack on them, and only ask to be let alone. Patrick R. Cleburne
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If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution. – Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1861
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I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination President Jefferson Davis, Confederate States of America
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Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.
General Pat Cleburne, CSA
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If centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire system of free Institutions as established by our common ancestors is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established in their stead; if that is to be the last scene of the great tragic drama now being enacted: then, be assured, that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our own consciences, but in the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so terrible a catastrophe, and from all guilt of so great a crime against humanity.
-Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America
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I saw in States’ rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy…. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.
-Lord Acton, in a letter to Robert E Lee right after the war
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Liberty is not a means to a political end. It is itself the highest political end. – Lord Acton
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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. – H.L. Mencken
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‘When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence. – Gary Lloyd
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To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson
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[On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon
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Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – C. S. Lewis
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Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property. – Lysander Spooner
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It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself. – Justice Casey Percell
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No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words no and not employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights. – Edmund A. Opitz
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Those who expect to reap the benefits of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. – Thomas Paine
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Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. – Harry Emerson Fosdick
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It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. – Calvin Coolidge
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It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. – Voltaire
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The war for freedom will never really be won because the price of our freedom is constant vigilance over ourselves and over our Government. – Eleanor Roosevelt
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First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me. – Pastor Father Niemoller (1946) German Lutheran pastor arrested by the Gestapo in 1937
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Government at its best is a necessary evil, and at its worst, an intolerant one. – Thomas Paine
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The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire. – Joseph Sobran (1995)
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Here's your enemy for this week, the government says. And some gullible Americans click their heels and salute – often without knowing who or even where the enemy of the week is. – Charley Reese (1998)
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The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another. – Milton Friedman
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If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free. – P.J. O'Rourke (1993)
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Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. – James Madison
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The Constitution shall never be construed … to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. – Samuel Adams
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I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. – Thomas Jefferson (1800)
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The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. – George Washington
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A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca, c. 4BC - 65AD.
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Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest. – Mahatma Gandhi, in Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 446
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Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery. – Benjamin Disraeli, 1874
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In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. – Voltaire (1764)
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Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. – William Pitt (1783)
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Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. – Pericles (430 BC)
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There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as caring and sensitive because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, whoisn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money – if a gun is held to his head. – P.J. O'Rourke
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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. – Herbert Spencer (1891)
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Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others. – William Allen White
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I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war. – Thomas Jefferson (1823)
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America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the wellwisher to the freedom and independence of all. She well knows that by enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom. – John Quincy Adams (1821)
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An Avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he a establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. – Thomas Paine
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Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. – Frederic Bastiat
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Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what your government is doing to you. – Joseph Sobran (1990)
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God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it. – Daniel Webster (1834)
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The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time. – Justice George Sutherland (1938)
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Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. – Thomas Paine (1776)
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Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production. – Ludwig von Mises (1920)
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If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. – James Madison
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Let the people think they govern and they will be governed. – William Penn (1693)
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The threat posed by humans to the natural environment is nothing compared to the threat to humans posed by global environmental policy. – Fred L. Smith (1992)
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Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? – Thomas Jefferson (1801)
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Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. – Mao Zedong (1938)
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We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. – Winston Churchill (1903)
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If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves. – Thomas Sowell (1992)
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Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. – Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
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Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. – Albert Einstein
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Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. – George Bernard Shaw
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In matters of Power, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. – Thomas Jefferson
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The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. – Patrick Henry
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The strength of the Constitution, lies in the will of the people to defend it. – Thomas Edison
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The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now. – South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905)
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Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. – Ludwig von Mises
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The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced. If the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt, people must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance. – Marcus Tullius Cicero, 55 BC
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The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. – John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)
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Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free. – Harry Browne
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If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. – Noam Chomsky
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I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. – Aldous Huxley
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The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills. – Thomas Jefferson
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America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. – Ayn Rand
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One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. – Plato
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Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention. – Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
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The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner. – Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session (February 1982)
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When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both. – James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union
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Virtually all reasonable laws are obeyed, not because they are the law, but because reasonable people would do that anyway. If you obey a law simply because it is the law, that's a pretty likely sign that it shouldn't be a law. – Unknown
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The welfare state reduces a citizen to a client, subordinates them to a bureaucrat, and subjects them to rules that are anti-work, anti-family, anti-opportunity and anti-property … Humans forced to suffer under such anti-human rules naturally develop pathologies. The evening news is the natural result of the welfare state. – Unknown
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Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire. – Ludwig von Mises
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Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial … the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. – Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1928
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Tariffs, quotas and other import restrictions protect the business of the rich at the expense of high cost of living for the poor. Their intent is to deprive you of the right to choose, and to force you to buy the high-priced inferior products of politically favored companies. – Alan Burris, A Liberty Primer
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Perhaps the removal of trade restrictions throughout the world would do more for the cause of universal peace than can any political union of peoples separated by trade barriers. – Frank Chodorov
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We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. – Stephen Schneider, environmental activist, in Discover, Oct. '89
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The usual road to slavery is that first they take away your guns, then they take away your property, then last of all they tell you to shut up and say you are enjoying it. – James A. Donald
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The high rate of unemployment among teenagers, and especially black teenagers, is both a scandal and a serious source of social unrest. Yet it is largely a result of minimum wage laws. We regard the minimum wage law as one of the most, if not the most, anti-black laws on the statute books. – Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winning economist
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Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark - Mapp vs. Ohio
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If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread. – Thomas Jefferson
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Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them. – George Santayana
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Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labor of his body and the work of his hands are properly his. – John Locke, 1690
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There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation. – James Madison
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Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Seizing the results of someone's labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities. – Robert Nozick, Harvard philosopher
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Alcohol didn't cause the high crime rates of the '20s and '30s, Prohibition did. And drugs do not cause today's alarming crime rates, but drug prohibition does. – US District Judge James C. Paine, addressing the Federal Bar Association in Miami, November, 1991
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The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people. – Congressman Ron Paul, 1987
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They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here? – Paul Harvey 8/31/94
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If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence … and the courts must abide by that decision. – US v Moylan, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969, 417 F.2d at 1006
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Where is it written in the Constitution, in what section or clause is it contained, that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battle in any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it? – Daniel Webster
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The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, See if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk. – Harry Browne
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Why doesn't everybody just leave everybody else the hell alone? – Jimmy Durante
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This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future! – Adolph Hitler [1935] The Weapons Act of Nazi Germany.
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After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military. – William S. Burroughs
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What's *just* has been debated for centuries but let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn *belongs* to you – and why? – WalterWilliams
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No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: But what would you replace it with? When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with? – Thomas Sowell
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A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort … is not strictly speaking a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang violence. – Ayn Rand
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One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license. – P.J. O'Rourke
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When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. – Thomas Jefferson
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When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress? – Marilyn French
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No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. – Ronald Reagan
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When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty. – George Mason
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There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal. Personally, I cannot imagine a more alarming situation. – Frédéric Bastiat
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The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace. – H. L. Mencken
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Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn't even get out of committee. – F. Lee Bailey
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Socialists make the mistake of confusing individual worth with success. They believe you cannot allow people to succeed in case those who fail feel worthless. – Kenneth Baker
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Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State lives at the expense of everyone. – Frédéric Bastiat
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The American heritage was one of individual liberty, personal responsibility and freedom from government … Unfortunately … that heritage has been lost. Americans no longer have the freedom to direct their own lives … Today, it is the government that is free – free to do whatever it wants. There is no subject, no issue, no matter… that is not subject to legislation. – Harry Browne
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It must never be unpatriotic to support your country against your government. It must always be unpatriotic to support your government against your country. – Stephen T. Byington
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Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging than the drug itself. – Jimmy Carter
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We are living in a sick society filled with people who would not directly steal from their neighbor but who are willing to demand that the government do it for them. – William L. Comer
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America was born of revolt, flourished on dissent, became great through experimentation. – Henry Steele Commager
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You can only be free if I am free. – Clarence Darrow
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Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment. – Philip K. Dick
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When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all. – Justice William O. Douglas
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Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good andfruitful in our national heritage. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
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So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. In giving them freedom, we free ourselves. – Marilyn Ferguson
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Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion – the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals – the technique of the marketplace. – Milton Friedman
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Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless or, which is the same thing, corrupt. – Mohandas Gandhi
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The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed. – Alexander Hamilton
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Past studies by and large confirm the prediction that higher minimum wages reduce employment opportunities and raise unemployment, particularly among teenagers, minorities and other low-skilled workers. – Masanori Hashimoto
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The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. – Adolf Hitler
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I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own. – Billie Holiday
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Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control. – Jack Hugh
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I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. – Thomas Jefferson
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It's no accident that capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production but also in knowledge. Egoism and competition are, alas, stronger forces than public spirit and sense of duty. – Albert Einstein
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On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed. – Thomas Jefferson
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He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
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If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded. – Karl Marx
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In 1950, the average family of four paid 2% of its earnings to federal taxes. Today it pays 24%– William R. Mattox, Jr. (sometime before 1996)
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Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy. – Ludwig von Mises
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When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.
When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent.
When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don't own a gun.
Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet.
– Lyle Myhr
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It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money. – P.J. O'Rourke
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When the government fears the people, it is liberty. When the people fear the government, it is tyranny. – Thomas Paine
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The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. – Thomas Jefferson
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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
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Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220-pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110-pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out … People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically right. Guns ended that, and a social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work. – L. Neil Smith (from The Probability Broach)
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What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long. – Thomas Sowell
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However insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible. – Herbert Spencer (from The Right To Ignore The State)
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In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man and brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot. – Mark Twain
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I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. – Voltaire
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Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any body of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. – Noah Webster
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Liberals believe government should take people's earnings to give to poor people. Conservatives disagree. They think government should confiscate people's earnings and give them to farmers and insolvent banks. The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one's property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage. – Walter Williams
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The higher entry standards imposed by licensing laws reduce the supply of professional services … The poor are the net losers, because the availability of low-cost service has been reduced. In essence, the poor subsidize the information research costs of the rich. – S. David Young
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The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge. – U.S. vs. Dougherty, 1972
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The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising. – Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Japanese Shogun, August 29, 1558
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I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials. – George Mason
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People who create things nowadays can expect to be prosecuted by highly moralistic people who are incapable of creating anything. There is no way tomeasure the chilling effect on innovation that results from the threats of taxation, regulation and prosecution against anything that succeeds. We'll never know how many ideas our government has aborted in the name protecting us. – Joseph Sobran May 13, 1998 (commenting on US vs Microsoft)
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I believe the states can best govern our home concerns and the federal government our foreign ones. – Thomas Jefferson