Great Libertarian Quotes

• Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Inspirational, Humor, Government

  17 Copy quote
• 

  If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

  James Madison

  Inspirational, Freedom, Fear

  "The Last Enemy" by Rebecca Sato, www.pbs.org. November 11, 2010.

  197 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Country, Gun, Government

  39 Copy quote

• No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

  James Madison

  Freedom, War, Democracies Have

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

  89 Copy quote

  Show source

• War is the Health of the State.

  Randolph Bourne

  War, Liberty, Libertarian

  Randolph Silliman Bourne (1992). “The Radical Will: Selected Writings, 1911-1918”, p.382, Univ of California Press

  48 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  The Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

  Samuel Adams

  Gun, Strong Arms, People

  Debates of the Massachusetts Convention, 1788.

  85 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Freedom, Truth, Knowledge

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.216

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• Governments harangue about deficits to get more revenue so they can spend more.

  Allan H. Meltzer

  Government, Libertarian, Communism

  46 Copy quote

• Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Inspirational, Funny, Money

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.24, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  109 Copy quote

  Show source

• Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

  Ronald Reagan

  Freedom, Military, Moving

  Remarks to state chairs of National White House Conference on Small Business, 15 Aug. 1986

  78 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.

  Thomas Reed

  Libertarian Party, Evil, Liberty

  "Will It Be As Always?" by Henryk A. Kowalczyk, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 5, 2015.

  69 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

  Will Rogers

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  In Saturday Review 25 Aug. 1962

  100 Copy quote

  Show source

• The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.

  Herbert Spencer

  Silly, Humor, Men

  'Essays' (1891) vol. 3 'State Tamperings with Money and Banks'

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Life, Sarcastic

  Quoted in Albert B. Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography (1912)

  506 Copy quote

  Show source

• War is just one more big government program.

  Joseph Sobran

  War, Government, Liberty

  57 Copy quote

• Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, Honesty, War

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

  93 Copy quote

  Show source

• Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

  James Bovard

  Humor, Two, Democracies Have

  James Bovard (2016). “Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty”, p.333, St. Martin's Griffin

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Liberty, Libertarian, Basic Human Rights

  "The Liberty Manifesto". Speech delivered for the opening of the Cato Institute's headquarters in Washington, D.C., May 6, 1993.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Foreign aid goes from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

  Rand Paul

  Country, Rich Countries, People

  "Rand Paul: Foreign Aid Goes From Poor People In Rich Countries To Rich People In Poor Countries". www.realclearpolitics.com. April 3, 2013.

  68 Copy quote

  Show source

• When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, 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.

  William O. Douglas

  Exercise, Rights, Hands

  "Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U.S. 395". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. April 27, 1953.

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Gun, British Rule In India

  Mahatma Gandhi, General Press (2014). “My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi”, p.681, GENERAL PRESS

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Men, Thinking, Political

  "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". Novel by Robert A. Heinlein, 1966.

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Yield

  Thomas Jefferson (2015). “Selected letters of Thomas Jefferson”, p.5, Lulu.com

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Government, Political

  Letter to Archibald Stewart, 23 Dec. 1791

  76 Copy quote

  Show source