Libertarian Quotes - Page 21

• 

  It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.

  George MacDonald

  Power, Men, People

  132 Copy quote

• I'm furious about the Women's Liberationists. They keep getting up on soap-boxes and proclaiming that women are brighter than men. That's true, but it should be kept very quiet or it ruins the whole racket.

  Anita Loos

  Women, Justice, Diversity

  Quoted in the Observer, 30 Dec1973.

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.

  Murray Bookchin

  Thinking, Visionaries, Acid

  Murray Bookchin (1992). “Urbanization without cities: the rise and decline of citizenship”, Black Rose Books Ltd

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• My personal credo as a libertarian conservative: I think all attempts to reform your fellow-citizens or tell them how to live their lives are arrogant and tyrannical. THAT'S why I oppose Leftism. I want people to be free to manage their own lives. Reform is just authoritarianism. People are not playthings for anybody's theories or obsessions.

  John Ray

  Thinking, People, Reform

  5 Copy quote

• If the right to vote were expanded to seven year olds … its policies would most definitely reflect the ‘legitimate concerns’ of children to have ‘adequate’ and ‘equal’ access to ‘free’ french fries, lemonade and videos.

  Hans-Hermann Hoppe

  Funny, Children, Rights

  Hans-Hermann Hoppe (2011). “DemocracyThe God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order”, p.95, Transaction Publishers

  91 Copy quote

  Show source

• The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital.

  Murray Bookchin

  Earth, Spirit, Anarchist

  65 Copy quote

• All our rights are gradually eroded as government gets bigger.

  John Stossel

  Rights, Erosion, Government

  FaceBook post by John Stossel from Mar 29, 2013

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?

  Robert Nozick

  Strong, Rights, What If

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  83 Copy quote

  Show source

• The evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. It's outstandingly different in quality and quantity.

  Antony Flew

  Christian, Religious, Miracle

  Gary R. Habermas, Antony Flew, David J. Baggett (2009). “Did the Resurrection Happen?: A Conversation with Gary Habermas and Antony Flew”, p.85, InterVarsity Press

  73 Copy quote

  Show source

• The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Government, Political, Democracy

  "The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao Tzu to". Book by David Boaz, 1997.

  127 Copy quote

  Show source

• It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

  C. S. Lewis

  Libertarian Party, Democracies Have, Government

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.324, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  63 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)

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Law Courts, Government, Libertarian Party

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

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

  George Washington

  Freedom, War, Fire

  71 Copy quote

• It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

  Murray Rothbard

  Ignorance, Discipline, People

  "The Speech Pope Francis Should Have Given" by Lawrence W. Reed, fee.org. September 24, 2015.

  103 Copy quote

  Show source

• To argue against any breach of liberty from the ill use that may be made of it, is to argue against liberty itself, since all is capable of being abused.

  George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton

  Liberty, Use, May

  6 Copy quote

• Good intentions will always be pleaded, for every assumption of power; but they cannot justify it ... It is hardly too strong to say, that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or pretended.

  Daniel Webster

  Strong, Real, Gun

  Daniel Webster (1854). “The speeches of Daniel Webster and his master-pieces”, p.282

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren

  Ayn Rand

  Government, Criminals, Cracks

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.334, Hamilton Books

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Liberty, Arbitrary

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.69, Knopf

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.

  John Adams

  Libertarian Party, Liberty, Majority

  69 Copy quote

• Contrary to popular opinion, the Constitution was not - and is not - a grant of rights to the citizenry. Instead, the Constitution is a "barbed-wire entanglement" designed to interfere with, restrict, and impede government officials in the exercise of political power.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Exercise, Rights, Government

  31 Copy quote

• Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.

  John Locke

  Freedom, War, People

  John Locke (1947). “Two Treatises of Government: With a Supplement, Patriarcha, by Robert Filmer”, p.233, Simon and Schuster

  196 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves.

  Bertrand Russell

  Foolish Man, Wisest Man, Thought Provoking

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

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• For an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Gun, Men, Strong Arms

  20 Copy quote

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

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Liberty, Basic Human Rights, Damn

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

  8 Copy quote

  Show source