Libertarian Quotes - Page 12

• I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

  James Madison

  Government, Liberty, Politics

  "Time Magazine: We Don't Need No Stinking Constitution" by Larry Elder, www.realclearpolitics.com. July 7, 2011.

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man exists for his own sake and not to add a laborer to the State.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Sake, Add

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.21, University of Georgia Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes as common as the grass.

  Laozi

  Letting Go, Desire, Liberty

  7 Copy quote

• The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Liberty, Slave

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1978). “The old régime and the French Revolution”, Peter Smith Pub Inc

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• The strength of the Constitution, lies in the will of the people to defend it.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Lying, People, Liberty

  15 Copy quote

• Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple stupid behavior.

  Dee Hock

  Educational, Stupid, Intelligent

  84 Copy quote

• 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

  63 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion.

  Ayn Rand

  Liberty, Principles, Essentials

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.43, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

  Oscar Wilde

  Civilization, Needs, Expanding

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  Philosophy, Political, Liberty

  "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" by Robert Nozick, (p. 169), 1974.

  84 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whenever we depart from voluntary cooperation and try to do good by using force, the bad moral value of force triumphs over good intentions.

  Milton Friedman

  Trying, Liberty, Triumph

  Milton Friedman, William Richard Allen (1983). “Bright promises, dismal performance: an economist's protest”, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• In every State, the government is nothing but a permanent conspiracy on the part of the minority against the majority, which it enslaves and fleeces.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Government, Liberty, Majority

  90 Copy quote

• Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Freedom, Government, Principles

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

  Blaise Pascal

  Inspirational, Sad, Religious

  Pensees no. 894 (1670 ed.)

  176 Copy quote

  Show source

• We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.

  William J. Clinton

  Gun, Rights, Government

  Clinton, William J. (1994). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1993”, p.223, Best Books on

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am interested in politics so that one day I will not have to be interested in politics.

  Ayn Rand

  One Day, Liberty, Politics

  9 Copy quote

• When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.

  Donald James

  Truth, Lying, Democracies Have

  31 Copy quote

• An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Government, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Not only can no one predict the future, we don't understand the present - and there isn't even any certainty about the past.

  Harry Browne

  Past, Liberty, Certainty

  8 Copy quote
• 

  The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

  Bertrand Russell

  Education, Confidence, Wisdom

  585 Copy quote

• Politicians are always interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Dog, Freedom, People

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.58, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Liberty, Intriguing

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.146, Vintage

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.

  Norman Thomas

  Freedom, Names, Usa

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  170 Copy quote

  Show source

• In almost all matters, the real question should be: why are we letting government handle this?

  Harry Browne

  Letting Go, Real, Government

  32 Copy quote

• It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be tomorrow.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, Law, People

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.79, Rowman & Littlefield

  11 Copy quote

  Show source