Libertarian Quotes - Page 15

• To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all laws into contempt.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Men, Law, Contempt

  Address to the Tenth National Women's Rights Convention on Marriage and Divorce, New York City, on May 11, 1860. "Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker". Book edited by Ellen Carol DuBois and Richard Cándida Smith, 2007.

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• The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Men, Issues

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• Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Freedom, Liberty, Bites

  Cicero, Marcus Tullius Cicero (2006). “De Officiis Or on Duties on Obligations”, p.145, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid.

  Epictetus

  Fall, Wish, Desire

  Epictetus (2009). “The Enchiridion, or Handbook: With A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus”, p.172, The Floating Press

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• The individual is the true reality of life. A cosmos in himself, he does not exist for the State, nor for that abstraction called "society," or the "nation," which is only a collection of individuals.

  Emma Goldman

  Reality, Liberty, Doe

  Emma Goldman (1998). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”

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• The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Important, Liberty, Economics

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• Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (adminstrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Liberty, Slavery

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• The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Freedom, Lying, Government

  Douglas MacArthur (1965). “Duty, Honor, Country: A Pictorial Autobiography”

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• Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Freedom, Exercise, Rights

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• Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark.

  Walter Lippmann

  Freedom, Liberty, Source

  Walter Lippmann (1934). “The method of freedom”

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• We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Liberty, Want, Economics

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.30, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works

  Frederic Bastiat

  Should Have, Trying, Liberty

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• Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Mean, Suffering, Liberty

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• Going to war accelerated the move from indirect to direct rule. Almost any state that makes war finds that it cannot pay for the effort from its accumulated reserves and current revenues. Almost all war-making states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat - including men - from reluctant citizens who have other uses for their resources.

  Charles Tilly

  War, Moving, Mean

  Charles Tilly, Arthur L. Stinchcombe (1997). “Roads from Past to Future”, p.149, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The laws of economics tell us that the expansion of the central state can't go on forever. Its limit is reached when the looted turn on the looters. And that's beginning to happen. More than six decades of hard work for American liberty beginning with the Old Right opposition to the Roosevelt Revolution and continuing with the Mises Institute, is beginning to bear fruit.

  Llewellyn Rockwell

  Hard Work, Law, Forever

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• The leviathan state, that monster devouring civilization in this century, is in the throes of death. This is not a wish or a prediction, but a conclusion drawn from a broad look at the trends of the last decade and a half, which, if we take the right steps, can continue on into the next century. What has happened around the world - nations states collapsing, markets outwitting planners, citizens rising up against government masters - can and is happening here at home.

  Llewellyn Rockwell

  Home, Rising Up, Government

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• So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many many other evils ... the quarrel between North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.

  Charles Dickens

  Lying, Party, Struggle

  Charles Dickens (1862). “All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal”, p.330

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• The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects ... what they thus lost they have never got back.

  H. L. Mencken

  War, People, Liberty

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• I expect to see trade wars, foreign policy disasters, a few race riots, a decrease in personal liberty, higher taxes, higher inflation and probably, economic collapse. The silver lining is, secession will probably become more feasible.

  Charley Reese

  War, Race, Liberty

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• The error is in the assumption that the General Government is a party to the constitutional compact. The States ... formed the compact, acting as sovereign and independent communities.

  John C. Calhoun

  Party, Independent, Errors

  JOHN C. CALHOUN (1855). “REPORTS AND PUBLIC LETTERS”, p.73

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• When politicians say "I'm in politics," it may or may not be possible to trust them, but when they say, "I'm in public service," you know you should flee.

  Albert J. Nock

  Liberty, May, Politician

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• A society based on the freedom to choose is better than a society based on the principles of socialism, communism and coercion.

  Milton Friedman

  Liberty, Principles, Coercion

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• Political leaders in capitalist countries who cheer the collapse of socialism in other countries continue to favor socialist solutions in their own. They know the words, but they have not learned the tune.

  Milton Friedman

  Country, Cheer, Leader

  Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.9, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise.

  Harry Browne

  Insecure, Political, Promise

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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, Liberty

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