Libertarianism Quotes - Page 5

• 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.

  59 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

  Honore de Balzac

  Liberty, Giants, Libertarian

  52 Copy quote

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Inspirational, Humor, Government

  19 Copy quote

• Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.

  Allan Bloom

  Learning, Cynical, Political

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.56, Simon and Schuster

  9 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

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free.

  Harry Browne

  Children, Fighting, Government

  68 Copy quote

• Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

  Edmund Burke

  Freedom, Carpe Diem, Law

  Speech at the Guildhall, Bristol, England, 6 Sept. 1780

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

  James F. Cooper

  Freedom, Men, Democracies Have

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can only be free if I am free.

  Clarence Darrow

  Freedom, Liberty, Libertarian

  Clarence Darrow (2012). “Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom”, p.140, University of Chicago Press

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment.

  Philip K. Dick

  Moving, Errors, Car

  1977 A Scanner Darkly, author's note.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.

  William O. Douglas

  Government, Libertarian Party, America

  "The Court years, 1939-1975: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas‎". Book by William O. Douglas, 1980.

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Peace, Freedom, Rights

  Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1960). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954”, p.219, Best Books on

  89 Copy quote

  Show source

• No nation was ever ruined by trade.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Business, Liberty, Libertarian

  Benjamin Franklin, William-Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of (the Same), Continued to the Time of His Death by William Temple Franklin. - London, H. Colburn 1818”, p.157

  12 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.

  Milton Friedman

  Government, Years, Political

  188 Copy quote

• Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

  Milton Friedman

  Government, Liberty, Libertarian

  Quoted in Cleveland Plain Dealer, 27 Oct. 1993

  99 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Milton Friedman

  Power, Liberty, Libertarian

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

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Differences, People, Liberty

  "Individualism: True and False" by Friedrich Hayek, 1945.

  174 Copy quote

  Show source

• They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here?

  Paul Harvey

  Gun, Liberty, Cuba

  129 Copy quote

• Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

  Milton Friedman

  Freedom, Liberty, Libertarian

  Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman (2002). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.15, University of Chicago Press

  142 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every friend of freedom... must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.

  Milton Friedman

  Army, Jail, Alcohol

  "An Open Letter to Bill Bennett". Milton Friedman, The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 1989.

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave.

  Ayn Rand

  Freedom, Men, Liberty

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.380, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.

  Unknown

  Government, Liberty, Libertarian

  199 Copy quote
• 

  A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.

  Thomas Paine

  Trust, Men, Accountability

  Thomas Paine, Bruce Kuklick (2000). “Paine: Political Writings”, p.100, Cambridge University Press

  294 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.

  Milton Friedman

  Hate, Color, People

  "Why Government Is the Problem". Book by Milton Friedman, February 1, 1993.

  106 Copy quote

  Show source

• The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Race, People, Desire

  "Time Enough for Love" by Robert A. Heinlein, Ace, (p. 352), August 1988.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source