Liberty Quotes - Page 23

• Law! What do I care about the law? Ain't I got the power?

  Cornelius Vanderbilt

  Law, Care, Libertarian

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• If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Views, Numbers, Minorities

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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• The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.

  P.D. Ouspensky

  Country, Law, Numbers

  "A New Model of the Universe: Principles of the Psychological Method in Its Application to Problems of Science, Religion and Art". Book by P.D. Ouspensky, 1931.

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• Does America really need 70 percent of the world's lawyers? Is it healthy for our economy to have 18 million lawsuits coursing through our system annually?

  Dan Quayle

  America, Healthy, Doe

  "Address by Quayle On Justice Proposals Irks Bar Association". Vice President Dan Quayle's address to the American Bar Association, www.nytimes.com. August 14, 1991.

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• Liberty, then, is the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

  Josiah Warren

  Individual, Sovereignty, Individual Liberty

  "Equitable commerce: a new development of principles as substitutes for laws and governments, for the harmonious adjustment and regulation of the pecuniary, intellectual, and moral intercourse of mankind, proposed as elements of new society".

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• If liberty has any meaning it means freedom to improve.

  Philip Wylie

  Freedom, Mean, Ifs

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• As so often before, liberty has been wounded in the house of its friends. Liberty in the wild and freakish hands of fanatics has once more, as frequently in the past, proved the effective helpmate of autocracy and the twin-brother of tyranny.

  Otto Hermann Kahn

  Brother, Freedom, Past

  Otto Hermann Kahn (1918). “Frenzied Liberty: The Myth of "a Rich Man's War"”

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• Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.

  Lord Acton

  Spiritual, Wisdom, Religious

  "Faith in Freedom: Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices". Book by Thomas Stephen Szasz, 2004.

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• What, then is law [government]? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Government, Law, Organization

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• Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Natural, Sanctions, Civil Liberties

  Alexander Hamilton, John Church Hamilton (1850). “The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc”, p.61

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• Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness... We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives.

  John Dickinson

  Kings, Taken, Rights

  John Dickinson (2009). “The Writings of John Dickinson”, p.262, Applewood Books

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• People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Security And Freedom, People, Trade

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• The illegal drug trade is the financial engine that fuels many terrorist organizations around the world, including Osama bin Laden.

  Dennis Hastert

  Organization, Drug, Fuel

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• The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Grace, Superstitions

  Letter to Roger C.Weightman, 24 June 1826.

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• The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 2: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.268

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• None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Together, Civil Rights, Chance

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• No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Equality, Men, Rights

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.278

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• There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Government, Community, May

  "Southey's Colloquies on Society". Book by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1830.

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• Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.

  Thurgood Marshall

  Men, Giving, Freedom Of Speech

  Thurgood Marshall, Mark V. Tushnet (2001). “Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions, and Reminiscences”, p.11, Chicago Review Press

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• Democracy is the road to socialism.

  Karl Marx

  Historical, Democracy, Libertarian

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• Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

  Guy de Maupassant

  War, Patriotic, Eggs

  Guy de Maupassant (1926*). “The Novels and Tales of Guy de Maupassant”

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• Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

  H. L. Mencken

  Auctions, Politics, Election

  "Prejudices: First Series". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1919.

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• The era of big government is over.

  William J. Clinton

  Government, Presidential, Libertarian

  State of the Union Address, 23 Jan. 1996

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• Any president that lies to the American people should have to resign.

  William J. Clinton

  Lying, Should Have, People

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• 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, Libertarian, Certainty

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