Prohibition Quotes - Page 9

• Once we begin to appreciate that the apparent destructiveness of the toddler in taking apart a flower or knocking down sand castles is in fact a constructive effort to understand unity, we are able to revise our view of the situation, moving from reprimand and prohibition to the intelligent channeling of his efforts and the fostering of discovery.

  Polly Berrien Berends

  Moving, Flower, Intelligent

  Polly Berrien Berends (1987). “Whole child, whole parent”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• For most people the prohibitions are a good thing. But If you are able to maintain very powerful states of mind, then you'll find yourself in everything you see.

  Frederick Lenz

  Powerful, Philosophy, People

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• Remember, government is not an enlightened organization designed to promote public welfare. It is barbaric, uncivilized force…military and police power put to the service of the insiders who control it. Yes, there are constraints on the way the insiders use their power. There are ‘checks and balances,’ built into the constitution, for example. And there are cultural norms and traditional prohibitions. But eventually, the norms and traditions wear off, like painkillers. And then, the pain of raw government begins again.

  Bill Bonner

  Pain, Government, Organization

  "Careful Steps to Avoid a 'Dystopian Future'" by Bill Bonner, dailyreckoning.com. January 12, 2012.

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• Your mother and I do not approve of drinking. Have you not heard of the Eighteenth Amendment?” “Prohibition? I drink to its health whenever I can.

  Libba Bray

  Mother, Drinking, Amendments

  "The Diviners". Book by Libba Bray, September 18, 2012.

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• I used often to go to America during Prohibition, and there was far more drunkenness there then than before; the prohibition of pornography has much the same effect.

  Bertrand Russell

  America, Used, Pornography

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

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• The drug war has nothing to do with making communities livable or creating a decent future for black kids. On the contrary, prohibition is directly responsible for the power of crack dealers to terrorize whole neighborhoods. And every cent spent on the cops, investigators, bureaucrats, courts, jails, weapons, and tests required to feed the drug-war machine is a cent not spent on reversing the social policies that have destroyed the cities, nourished racism, and laid the groundwork for crack culture.

  Ellen Willis

  War, Kids, Jail

  Ellen Willis (2012). “No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays”, p.250, U of Minnesota Press

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• Three times I have been mistaken for a prohibition agent, but never had any trouble clearing myself.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Three, Agents, Trouble

  Dashiell Hammett (2009). “Detective Stories”, p.11, Coyote Canyon Press

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• Good luck finding a place to park in New York City. And when you do, good luck figuring out the parking signs, restrictions, and prohibitions. It is so complicated. It has gotten so bad, I never park my car without a lawyer.

  David Letterman

  New York, Good Luck, Cities

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• Persecution for opinion is the master vice of society.

  Frances Wright

  Vices, Speech, Opinion

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of Popular Lectures”, p.128

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• Understand now, I'm purely a fiction writer and do not profess to be an earnest student of political science, but I believe strongly that such a law as one prohibiting liquor is foolish, and all the writers, keenly interested in human welfare whom I know, laugh at the prohibition law.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Believe, Law, Laughing

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• There are no violent gangs fighting over aspirin territories. There are no violent gangs fighting over whisky territories or computer territories or anything else that's legal. There are only criminal gangs fighting over territories covering drugs, gambling, prostitution, and other victimless crimes. Making a non-violent activity a crime creates a black market, which attracts criminals and gangs, which turns what was once a relatively harmless activity affecting a small group of people into a widespread epidemic of drug use and gang warfare.

  Harry Browne

  Fighting, Drug Use, Epidemics

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• The new puritans have been highly successful. All of the preconditions for new prohibitions on alcohol and tobacco are in place. ... Indeed, the future agenda of the federal government has already been established to outlaw alcohol and tobacco in the near future. ... If current trends persist, America will be moving toward stricter prohibitions, greater restrictions, and more centralized control over consumption. This represents an erosion of liberty at its most fundamental level.

  Mark Thornton

  Moving, Successful, America

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• I knew that the Hague Convention prohibited the use of poison in war. I didn't know the details of the terms of the Convention, but I did know of that prohibition.

  Otto Hahn

  War, Details, Poison

  Otto Hahn (1970). “My life: the autobiography of a scientist”, MacDonald

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• The Compromise of 1850 provided that the prohibition of slavery should be left up to the individual States, thus thwarting the Canaanites in their attempts to make this problem an excuse for federal intervention and a cause of war between the States.

  Eustace Mullins

  War, Slavery, Causes

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• In the 1920s, we thought the problems associated with alcohol could be solved by police and jails. Prohibition taught us we were wrong. The strategy of the present drug war is Prohibition redux.

  Rodney S. Quinn

  War, Taught Us, Jail

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• The aggressive and quite illogical idea of a single religion for all mankind, a religion universal by the very force of its narrowness, one set of dogmas, one cult, one system of ceremonies, one ecclesiastical ordinance, one array of prohibitions and injunctions which all minds must accept on peril of persecution by men and spiritual rejection or eternal punishment by God, that grotesque creation of human unreason which has been the parent of so much intolerance, cruelty and obscurantism and aggressive fanaticism, has never been able to take firm hold of the Indian mentality.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Spiritual, Men, Ideas

  "A Defense of Indian Culture". Essay by Sri Aurobindo, as quoted in Sisirkumar Mitra "The Vision of India", 1947.

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• Self-denial is taught much better by inspiring the love of our neighbor, than by the prohibition of innocent comforts and pleasures. Spirituality is much better taught by making spiritual things the objects of supreme desire, than by commanding an ostentatious avoidance of the enjoyments of life.

  Harriet Martineau

  Spiritual, Self, Desire

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• Nobody tells the history of marijuana and its prohibition like Russ Belville does. He has a special talent for presenting scholarship in a remarkably engaging way. That’s why I turned to Russ when I needed someone to present on the subject to the annual staff retreat of the Drug Policy Alliance. And it’s why I repeatedly recommend him for speaking and media opportunities. He’s good!

  Ethan Nadelmann

  Marijuana, Opportunity, Media

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• Government prohibitions do always more mischief than had been calculated; and it is not without much hesitation that a statesman should hazard to regulate the concerns of individuals, as if he could do it better than themselves.

  Albert Gallatin

  Government, Liberty, Hazards

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• Funny to watch these Senators switching back and forth on Prohibition. Politics is a great character builder. You have to take a referendum to see what your convictions are for that day.

  Will Rogers

  Character, Watches, Politics

  Will Rogers (1978). “Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams: The Coolidge years, 1926-1929”, Will Rogers Heritage Trust

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• To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.

  Eric Hoffer

  Respect, Freedom, Mean

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Books of apostates, heretics, schismatics, and all other writers defending heresy or schism or in any attacking the foundations of religion, are altogether prohibited.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Book, Religion, Foundation

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• I agree that marijuana laws are overdue for an overhaul. I also favor the medical use of marijuana -- if it's prescribed by a physician. I cannot understand why the federal government should interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, nor why it would ignore the will of a majority of voters who have legally approved such legislation.

  Abigail Van Buren

  Marijuana, Law, Doctors

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• There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There's a prohibition against taking it away.

  Alberto Gonzales

  Constitution, Grants

  "Gonzales: 'There Is No Express Grant of Habeas Corpus In The Constitution'". Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings Transcript, thinkprogress.org. January 19, 2007.

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• I think that, that it would be hard for New Hampshire to vote for somebody who was a fundamentalist minister, affable as he is. He does seem to actually want to write, for example, a prohibition against abortion into the Constitution , which Ronald Reagan, for all his talking about it, never tried to do one time.

  Mike Huckabee

  Writing, Thinking, Talking

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