Libertarian Quotes - Page 29

• What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing. —Archibald MacLeish

  Sheena Iyengar

  Freedom, Men, Choices

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• Our government, taxes, and ideas of freedom are already duplicates of the Old World. Our politicians determine how we should live our lives - and our individual liberties are sacrificed for the benefit of the Fatherland.

  Harry Browne

  Government, Ideas, Liberty

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• It does not matter whether you win or lose, what matters is whether I win or lose!

  Steven Weinberg

  Funny, Winning, What Matters

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• I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem.

  Ashleigh Brilliant

  Funny, Hilarious, Humorous

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• The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Happiness, Happy

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• Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Fear, Sheep

  Mark Skousen, Benjamin Franklin (2005). “The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”, p.108, Regnery Publishing

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• The enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and abiding practice of any western society.

  Robert Kennedy

  Freedom, Practice, Goal

  Robert F. Kennedy's Day of Affirmation Address at the University of Capetown, South Africa, www.mtholyoke.edu. June 6, 1966.

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• It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Average, Law

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• Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

  James Madison

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Rights

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.46

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• Laws are like sausages. You sleep far better the less you know about how they are made.

  Otto von Bismarck

  Freedom, Sleep, Law

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• Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Freedom, Law, Liberty

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan”, p.256, Simon and Schuster

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• You have not converted a man, because you have silenced him.

  John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn

  Freedom, Men, Political

  "On Compromise". Book by John Morley, 1874.

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• For your own good is a persuasive argument that will eventually make a man agree to his own destruction.

  Janet Frame

  Freedom, Men, Liberty

  Janet Frame (1980). “Faces in the water”

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• You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

  Jeannette Rankin

  Peace, Military, War

  Quoted in Hannah Josephson, Jeannette Rankin: First Lady in Congress (1974)

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• We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes.

  J. William Fulbright

  Power, Political, Politics

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• A caged canary is safe but not free.

  Walter E. Williams

  Liberty, Safe, Canaries

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• Almost all war making states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat - including men - from reluctant citizens.

  Charles Tilly

  Money, War, Mean

  Charles Tilly, Arthur L. Stinchcombe (1997). “Roads from Past to Future”, p.149, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Men love liberty because it protects them from control and humiliation by others, thus affording them the possibility of dignity; they loathe liberty because it throws them back on their own abilities and resources, thus confronting them with the possibility of insignificance.

  Thomas Szasz

  Men, Liberty, Dignity

  Thomas Szasz (2017). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.109, Routledge

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• Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority.

  William Howard Taft

  Rights, Self, People

  William Howard Taft, David Henry Burton (2002). “The Collected Works of William Howard Taft: Presidential messages to Congress”

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• The privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen - a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a life.

  William O. Douglas

  Taken, Government, Secret

  "Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. December 12, 1966.

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• Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in the world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Death, 4th Of July, Promise

  Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 13 Nov. 1789

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• Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.

  Oscar Ameringer

  Life, Witty, Art

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• That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Encouragement, Business

  Abraham Lincoln (2012). “The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)”, p.1330, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Agreement, Names, People

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1847). “Democracy in America”, p.419

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• Conservatives and liberals are kindred spirits as far as government spending is concerned. First, let's make sure we understand what government spending is. Since government has no resources of its own, and since there's no Tooth Fairy handing Congress the funds for the programs it enacts, we are forced to recognize that government spending is no less than the confiscation of one person's property to give it to another to whom it does not belong - in effect, legalized theft.

  Walter E. Williams

  Government, Giving, Liberty

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

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