Great Libertarian Quotes - Page 3

• Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention.

  Adam Smith

  Hands, Invisible Hand, Liberty

  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations vol. 2, bk. 4, ch. 2 (1776) See Adam Smith 1

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• The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State.

  Murray Rothbard

  Liberty, Libertarian, States

  Murray N. Rothbard (2015). “The Ethics of Liberty”, p.187, NYU Press

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• We have been living amidst one of the great revolutions of human history, and we hardly know it: the penetration of the State into every aspect of human life and society. Some people regard this as good and "progressive," others regard it as tyrannical; but either way, it's a fact, a transformation as great as, say, the Industrial Revolution. Absolutely nothing is now beyond the scope of State power.

  Joseph Sobran

  People, Liberty, Facts

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• I mean, I've always been a libertarian. Leave everybody alone. Let everybody else do what they want. Just stay out of everybody else's hair.

  Clint Eastwood

  Mean, Hair, Want

  "Dirty Harry comes clean". Interview with Jeff Dawson, www.theguardian.com. June 5, 2008.

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• No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than any [constitutional] provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.

  Roger Brooke Taney

  Men, Liberty, Doctrine

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• In our government-controlled schools we are taught that Lincoln was our greatest president because his war ended slavery and saved the Union. As usual, the other side of the story - the side that reflects poorly on the government - somehow gets lost.

  Richard J. Maybury

  War, School, Government

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• There's no greater service to this country than the defense of its freedom.

  Barry Goldwater

  Country, Liberty, Defense

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• The proliferation of bureaucrats and its invariable accompaniment, much heavier tax levies on the productive part of the population, are the recognizable signs, not of a great, but of a decaying society. Historians know that both phenomena were especially marked in the declining eras of the Roman Empire in the West and of its successor state, the Eastern or Byzantine Empire.

  William Henry Chamberlin

  Liberty, Population, Byzantine

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Inspirational, Humor, Government

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• When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.

  William O. Douglas

  Exercise, Rights, Hands

  "Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U.S. 395". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. April 27, 1953.

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• One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.

  Thomas Reed

  Libertarian Party, Evil, Liberty

  "Will It Be As Always?" by Henryk A. Kowalczyk, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 5, 2015.

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• Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Gun, British Rule In India

  Mahatma Gandhi, General Press (2014). “My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi”, p.681, GENERAL PRESS

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• Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Life, Sarcastic

  Quoted in Albert B. Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography (1912)

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• Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Inspirational, Funny, Money

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.24, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

  James Madison

  Country, Gun, Government

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• I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

  Will Rogers

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  In Saturday Review 25 Aug. 1962

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• Foreign aid goes from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

  Rand Paul

  Country, Rich Countries, People

  "Rand Paul: Foreign Aid Goes From Poor People In Rich Countries To Rich People In Poor Countries". www.realclearpolitics.com. April 3, 2013.

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• The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.

  Herbert Spencer

  Silly, Humor, Men

  'Essays' (1891) vol. 3 'State Tamperings with Money and Banks'

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• 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)

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

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Liberty, Libertarian, Basic Human Rights

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

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• Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

  Ronald Reagan

  Freedom, Military, Moving

  Remarks to state chairs of National White House Conference on Small Business, 15 Aug. 1986

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• There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Men, Thinking, Political

  "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". Novel by Robert A. Heinlein, 1966.

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  If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

  James Madison

  Inspirational, Freedom, Fear

  "The Last Enemy" by Rebecca Sato, www.pbs.org. November 11, 2010.

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• Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, Honesty, War

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

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• The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Yield

  Thomas Jefferson (2015). “Selected letters of Thomas Jefferson”, p.5, Lulu.com

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