Walter E. Williams Quotes

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• The Founders knew that a democracy would lead to some kind of tyranny. The term democracy appears in none of our Founding documents. Their vision for us was a Republic and limited government.

  Walter E. Williams

  Government, Vision, Democracy

  90 Copy quote

• 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?

  Walter E. Williams

  Freedom, Justice, Society

  "All it takes is guts". Book by Walter E. Williams, 1987.

  171 Copy quote

• Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place.

  Walter E. Williams

  Creating, Faces, Firsts

  41 Copy quote

• (F)or 50 years, the well-meaning leftist agenda has been able to do to blacks what Jim Crow and harsh discrimination could never have done: family breakdown, illegitimacy and low academic achievement.

  Walter E. Williams

  Years, Achievement, Crow

  120 Copy quote

• Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.

  Walter E. Williams

  Men, People, Fellow Man

  129 Copy quote

• I prefer a thief to a Congressman. A thief will take your money and be on his way, but a Congressman will stand there and bore you with the reasons why he took it.

  Walter E. Williams

  Bores You, Thieves, Way

  53 Copy quote

• Preaching doom and gloom has been beneficial to the political class. They use it to gain more power and control.

  Walter E. Williams

  Doom And Gloom, Class, Political

  Walter E. Williams (2013). “Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism: Controversial Essays”, p.91, Hoover Press

  12 Copy quote

• Three-fifths to two-thirds of the federal budget consists of taking property from one American and giving it to another. Were a private person to do the same thing, we'd call it theft. When government does it, we euphemistically call it income redistribution, but that's exactly what thieves do - redistribute income. Income redistribution not only betrays the founders' vision, it's a sin in the eyes of God.

  Walter E. Williams

  Eye, Two, Government

  "Bogus Right" by Walter E. Williams, econfaculty.gmu.edu. February 8, 2006.

  144 Copy quote

• When the history of the 20th century is finally written, one of its key features will be the wanton slaughter of more than 170 million people, not in war, but by their own government. The governments that led in this slaughter are the former USSR (65 million) and the Peoples Republic of China (35-40 million). The point to remember is that these governments were the idols of America's leftists. Part of the reason for these and other tyrannical successes was because the people were first disarmed.

  Walter E. Williams

  War, Idols, America

  127 Copy quote

• Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.

  Walter E. Williams

  Democracy, Liberty, Mob Rule

  103 Copy quote

• Here's Williams' roadmap out of poverty: Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen. Among both black and white Americans so described, the poverty rate is in the single digits.

  Walter E. Williams

  Jobs, Children, School

  78 Copy quote

• There are people in need of help. Charity is one of the nobler human motivations. The act of reaching into one's own pockets to help a fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else's pocket is despicable and worthy of condemnation.

  Walter E. Williams

  Motivation, Men, People

  143 Copy quote

• In keeping Americans ill-educated, ill-informed and constitutionally ignorant, the education establishment has been the politician's major and most faithful partner. It is in this sense that American education can be deemed a success.

  Walter E. Williams

  Faithful, Ignorant, Liberty

  64 Copy quote

• Powerful government tends to draw into it people with bloated egos, people who think they know more than everyone else and have little hesitance in coercing their fellow man. Or as Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek said, "in government, the scum rises to the top".

  Walter E. Williams

  Powerful, Men, Thinking

  105 Copy quote

• The global warming scare has provided a field day for politicians and others who wish to control our lives. After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet.

  Walter E. Williams

  Names, Law, Imagination

  15 Copy quote

• If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.

  Walter E. Williams

  Liberty, Economics, Persons

  Walter E. Williams (2015). “American Contempt for Liberty”, p.284, Hoover Institution Press

  107 Copy quote

• Despite the miracles of capitalism, it doesn't do well in popularity polls. One of the reasons is that capitalism is always evaluated against the non-existent, non-realizable utopias of socialism or communism. Any earthly system, when compared to a Utopia, will pale in comparison. But for the ordinary person, capitalism, with all of its warts, is superior to any system yet devised to deal with our everyday needs and desires.

  Walter E. Williams

  Miracle, Everyday, Desire

  93 Copy quote

• I believe in helping our fellow man in need. I believe that reaching into your own pockets to help someone in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into somebody else's pockets to help your fellow man in need is despicable. And, or those of us who are Christians, I'm very sure that when God gave Moses the commandment Thou Shalt Not Steal, he did not mean ...unless you get a majority vote in Congress.

  Walter E. Williams

  Christian, Believe, Mean

  31 Copy quote

• No matter how worthy the cause, it is robbery, theft, and injustice to confiscate the property of one person and give it to another to whom it does not belong.

  Walter E. Williams

  Giving, Religion, Liberty

  122 Copy quote

• Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We're working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we've fallen easy prey to charlatens, quacks, and hustlers.

  Walter E. Williams

  Mean, Government, Important

  19 Copy quote

• For the multiculturist/diversity crowd, culture, ideas, customs, arts and skills are a matter of racial membership where one has no more control over his culture than his race. That's a racist idea, but it's politically correct racism. It says that one's convictions, character and values are not determined by personal judgment and choices but genetically determined. In other words, as yesteryear's racists held: race determines identity.

  Walter E. Williams

  Art, Character, Race

  21 Copy quote

• The crucial question for any policy is not what, are its intentions, but what are its effects?

  Walter E. Williams

  Intention, Policy, Crucial

  12 Copy quote

• What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences. When you hear someone say that he doesn't trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he's really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one.

  Walter E. Williams

  Government, People, Decision

  11 Copy quote

• Always be suspicious of those who pretend to know it all, claim their way is the best way and are willing to force their way on the rest of us.

  Walter E. Williams

  Way, Know It All, Claims

  63 Copy quote

• We will not make inroads into the gun-violence problem until we acknowledge the underlying causes of youth behavior today, compared to yesterday. ... we must come to the realization that laws and regulations alone cannot produce a civilized society. It's morality that is society's first line of defense against uncivilized behavior.

  Walter E. Williams

  Gun, Law, Yesterday

  19 Copy quote

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