Libertarian Quotes - Page 35

• Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Integrity, Men

  "A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing". Book edited by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

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• There cannot be a good tax nor a just one; every tax rests its case on compulsion.

  Frank Chodorov

  Liberty, Cases, Taxes

  Frank Chodorov (1947). “Taxation is Robbery ...”

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• You can't say you love your country and hate your government.

  William J. Clinton

  Country, Hate, Love You

  "The Clinton presidency - in quotes". news.bbc.co.uk. January 15, 2001.

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• I can spend your money better than you can.

  William J. Clinton

  Liberty, Better Than You, I Can

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• Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn't even get out of committee.

  F. Lee Bailey

  Government, Usa, Rights

  "Newsweek" Magazine, April 17, 1967.

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• Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.

  Milton Friedman

  Power, Liberty, Good Intentions

  Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.201, University of Chicago Press

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• The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Faith, Freedom, Acceptance

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Glorious Thoughts of Gandhi: Being a Treasury of about Ten Thousand Valuable and Inspiring Thougths of Mahatma Gandhi, Classified Under Four Hundred Subjects”

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• Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.

  Christina Rossetti

  Inspirational, Work, Women

  Christina Georgina Rossetti, Maria Keaton (2004). “Prose Works of Christina Rossetti”, Thoemmes Pr

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• A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. - Second Amendment to the Constitution An armed society is a polite society.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Gun, Libertarian Party, Assault Weapons

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• I am unable to accept the idea that I should be an obedient subject of a gang of corrupt, unprincipled thugs who pontificate about freedom while enslaving the population.

  John Pugsley

  Thug, Ideas, Liberty

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• The public school system: "Usually a twelve year sentence of mind control. Crushing creativity, smashing individualism, encouraging collectivism and compromise, destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting it instead into meek subservience to authority."

  Walter Karp

  Crush, Creativity, School

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• Given man's nature, freedom will always be in jeopardy, and the only question that need concern each of us is if and how well we took our stand in its defense during the short period of time when we were potentially a part of the struggle.

  Benjamin A. Rogge

  Struggle, Men, Ifs And

  Benjamin A. Rogge (1979). “Can Capitalism Survive?”, Liberty Fund

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• There are many farm handouts; but let's call them what they really are: a form of legalized theft. Essentially, a congressman tells his farm constituency, "Vote for me. I'll use my office to take another American's money and give it to you."

  Walter E. Williams

  Office, Giving, Liberty

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• What is so bad about big government? My indictment of big government is that it is bad because it attacks liberty, prosperity, progress, harmony, and morality. Thanks to big government, we have significantly less of all of those good things than we would if we had been able to keep government right-sized. Big government is cancerous. Like a cancer, it hurts the body and tends to spread, doing more and more harm as it grows. It is time for some radical surgery.

  George Leef

  Hurt, Cancer, Government

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• The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest "functionaire" possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose desecration it depends whether and how I am allowed to live or to work.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Liberty, May, Neighbor

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• There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse.

  Thomas Sowell

  Political, Liberty, Libertarianism

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• I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Atmosphere, Storm, Littles

  Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.1135, Library of America

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• The state is a force incarnate. Worse, it is the silly parading of force. It never seeks to prevail by persuasion. Whenever it thrusts its finger into anything it does so in the most unfriendly way. Its essence is command and compulsion.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Silly, Essence, Liberty

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• There never was a good war or a bad revolution.

  Edward Abbey

  Veterans Day, Peace, War

  Edward Abbey (1998). “The Fool's Progress: An Honest Novel”, p.140, Macmillan

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• We should distinguish at this point between "government" and "state" ... A government is the consensual organization by which we adjudicate disputes, defend our rights, and provide for certain common needs ... A state on the other hand, is a coercive organization asserting or enjoying a monopoly over the use of physical force in some geographic area and exercising power over its subjects.

  David Boaz

  Exercise, Rights, Government

  David Boaz (1997). “Libertarianism: A Primer”, p.208, Simon and Schuster

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• Americans have the mistaken viewpoint that Lady Liberty is only a peacetime luxury who is ill-equipped to fight the nasties. Therefore, they reason, we need an equally nasty Big Brother. Americans have forgotten that Lady Liberty is one ferocious mother when protecting her children.

  Mary Ruwart

  Mother, Brother, Children

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• The prospect of a government that treats all its citizens as criminal suspects is more terrifying than any terrorist. And even more frightening is a citizenry that can accept the surrender of its freedoms as the price of "freedom".

  Joseph Sobran

  Government, Liberty, Criminals

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• Public Schools too often fail because they are shielded from the very force that improves performance and sparks innovation in nearly every other human enterprise - competition.

  Bob Lutz

  School, Competition, Innovation

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• The American experiment has come and gone. Whatever freedoms the people still might have as their own, are monitored and registered and taxed at virtually every turn.

  Jeff Baxter

  People, Liberty, Gone

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• Painful as it may be to hear it, there's nothing special about the people of this country that sets them apart from the other people of the world. It is the Bill of Rights, and only the Bill of Rights, that keeps us from becoming the world's biggest banana republic. The moment we forget that, the American Dream is over.

  Alexander Beresford Hope

  Dream, Country, Rights

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