Liberalism Quotes - Page 31

• We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. A Republic cannot stand upon bayonets, and when the day comes when the wealth of the nation will be in the hands of a few, then we must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nations to the changed conditions.

  James Madison

  Wisdom, Country, Hands

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• Therefore those governing the State ought primarily to devote themselves to the service of individual groups and of the whole commonwealth, and through the entire scheme of laws and institutions to cause both public and individual well-being to develop spontaneously out of the very structure and administration of the state.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Wisdom, Law, Politics

  Catholic Church. Pope (1878-1903 : Leo XIII)., Pope Leo XIII (1987*). “On the Condition of Workers”

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• With reason, then, the common opinion of mankind, little affected by the few dissentients who have contended for the opposite view, has found in the careful study of nature, and in the laws of nature, the foundations of the division of property, and the practice of all ages has consecrated the principle of private ownership, as being pre-eminently in conformity with human nature, and as conducing in the most unmistakable manner to the peace and tranquility of human existence.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Wisdom, Views, Law

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• Kelso's proposals do promise to free us from our morbid dependency on economic health through armament manufacture; they promise a way out of the welfare mess, out of foodstamps and ship subsidies, out of perpetual inflation, and they suggest a means of doing these things without being too disruptive of the wealth of five percent of the population who own the rest of us.

  Nicholas von Hoffman

  Wisdom, Mean, Promise

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• Every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own. This is one of the chief points of distinction between man and the animal creation.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Wisdom, Men, Animal

  Pope Leo XIII (1990). “A Light in the Heavens: Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII”, p.145, TAN Books

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• It is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Wisdom, Rights, Confusion

  Pope Leo XIII (1990). “A Light in the Heavens: Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII”, p.148, TAN Books

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• The path the capitalist revolution will take faces in exactly the opposite direction from that taken by the communist revolution. It seeks to diffuse the private ownership of capital instead of abolishing it entirely. It seeks to make all men capitalists instead of preventing anyone from being a capitalist by making the State the only capitalist.

  Louis O. Kelso

  Wisdom, Taken, Men

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• We supported the cooperative movement among farmers. The movement was still young and stubbornly opposed to the commercial distributors. I believed it to be one of the most helpful undertakings, for according to my social theories any organization run by citizens for their own welfare is preferable to the same action by the government.

  Herbert Hoover

  Running, Wisdom, Government

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• But if not Kelso, then something else, because a free people must own the nation they live in.

  Nicholas von Hoffman

  Wisdom, People, Politics

  Nicholas Von Hoffman (1970). “Left at the post”, Crown

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• Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. But if unlimited or unbalanced power of disposing property, be put into the hands of those who have no property, France will find, as we have found, the lamb committed to the custody of the world. In such a case, all the pathetic exhortations and addresses of the national assembly to the people, to respect property, will be regarded no more than the warbles of the songsters of the forest.

  John Adams

  Hands, People, Liberty

  "Discourses on Davila : A Series of Papers on Political History first published in the Gazette of the United States". Book by John Adams, No. 13, 1805.

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• If "Thou shalt not covet," and "Thou shalt not steal," were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.

  John Adams

  Heaven, Politics, Stealing

  John Adams (2001). “The Political Writings of John Adams”, p.230, Regnery Publishing

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• There was one thing more than any other that turned this New York, liberal, Jewish, Columbia University graduate student away from modern liberalism: its use of moral equivalence to avoid confronting evil during the Cold War.

  Dennis Prager

  New York, War, Evil

  "Moral Equivalence and Muslim Violence" by Dennis Prager, www.realclearpolitics.com. September 2, 2010.

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• Every adult should be able to make as many effective decisions without fear or favor about as many aspects of her or his life as is compatible with the like freedom of every other adult. That belief is the original and only defensible meaning of liberalism.

  Judith N. Shklar

  Party, Decision, Political

  Judith N. Shklar, Bernard Yack (1996). “Liberalism Without Illusions: Essays on Liberal Theory and the Political Vision of Judith N. Shklar”, p.80, University of Chicago Press

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• Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables.

  John Adams

  Children, Land, Two

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.8

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• A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Life, Government, Political

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.25, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors.

  John Adams

  Real, Long, Liberty

  John Adams (2015). “The Works of John Adams Vol. 6: Defence of the Constitution IV, Discourses on Davila”, p.11, Jazzybee Verlag

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• This is a hallmark trait of the left. There is never any effort to elevate anybody. Liberalism is all about tearing down. Liberalism is all about lowering. It is all about destroying 'em.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Effort, Ems, Hallmark

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• If wealth is accumulated in the hands of a few, either by a feudal or a stock monopoly, it carries the power also; and a government becomes as certainly aristocratical, by a monopoly of wealth, as by a monopoly of arms. A minority, obtaining a majority of wealth or arms in any mode, becomes the government.

  John Taylor

  Government, Hands, Majority

  John Taylor (2013). “An Inquiry Into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States”, p.255, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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• Historically the great movements for human liberation have always been movements to change institutions and not to preserve them intact. It follows from what has been said that there have been movements to bring about a changed distribution of power to do - and power to think and to express thought is a power to do- so that there would be a more balanced, a more equal, even, and equitable system of human liberties.

  John Dewey

  Wisdom, Thinking, Distribution Of Power

  John Dewey (1987). “The Later Works, 1925-1953”, p.362, SIU Press

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• Ask any rich man of common prudence to which of the two sorts of people he has lent the greater part of his stock, to those who, he thinks, will employ it profitably, or to those who will spend it idly, and he will laugh at you for proposing the question.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Thinking, Two

  Adam Smith (1843). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations With a Life of the Author: Also a View of the Doctrine of Smith, Compared with that of the French Economists, with a Method of Facilitating the Study of His Works, from the French of M. Jariner”, p.144

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• A representative form of government rests nor more on political contributions than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission of property.

  Daniel Webster

  Wisdom, Government, Law

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• I shall oppose all slavery extension and all increase of slave representation in all places, at all times, under all circumstances, even against all inducements, against all supposed limitations of great interests, against all combinations, against all compromises.

  Daniel Webster

  Slavery, Politics, Compromise

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• When Socialism comes, it may be in such a form that we won't like it.

  William Morris

  Wisdom, May, Politics

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• It would seem, then, to be the part of political wisdom to found government on property; and to establish such distribution of property, by the laws which regulate its transmission and alienation, as to interest the great majority of society in the protection of the government.

  Daniel Webster

  Wisdom, Law, Government

  Daniel Webster (1848). “Speeches and Forensic Arguments”, p.207

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• Let him leave the imperial court, who wishes to be virtuous. Virtue and absolute power cannot coexist.

  Lucan

  Wisdom, Wish, Politics

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