Libertarian Quotes - Page 29

• Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

  Noah Webster

  Army, Gun, Power

  Noah Webster (1787). “An Examination Into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia: With Answers to the Principal Objections that Have Been Raised Against the System”, p.43

  166 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sometimes just being still is the best thing you can do for yourself.

  Silas House

  Graduation, Just Being, Sometimes

  Silas House (2010). “Eli the Good”, p.96, Candlewick Press

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

  John Quincy Adams

  Peace, America, Independence

  Friedrich von Gentz, John Quincy Adams, Richard Loss (1800). “The origin and principles of the American Revolution compared with the origin and principles of the French Revolution: a facsimile reproduction”, Academic Resources Corp

  67 Copy quote

  Show source

• Gravity. It's not just a good idea; it's the law!

  Adam Savage

  Law, Ideas, Pilots

  18 Copy quote

• the average man does not want to be free. he simply wants to be safe.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Men, Average

  31 Copy quote

• What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing. —Archibald MacLeish

  Sheena Iyengar

  Freedom, Men, Choices

  20 Copy quote

• It does not matter whether you win or lose, what matters is whether I win or lose!

  Steven Weinberg

  Funny, Winning, What Matters

  70 Copy quote

• I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem.

  Ashleigh Brilliant

  Funny, Hilarious, Humorous

  26 Copy quote

• The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Happiness, Happy

  62 Copy quote

• Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Fear, Sheep

  Mark Skousen, Benjamin Franklin (2005). “The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”, p.108, Regnery Publishing

  231 Copy quote

  Show source

• The enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and abiding practice of any western society.

  Robert Kennedy

  Freedom, Practice, Goal

  Robert F. Kennedy's Day of Affirmation Address at the University of Capetown, South Africa, www.mtholyoke.edu. June 6, 1966.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Average, Law

  9 Copy quote

• Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

  James Madison

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Rights

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.46

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• Laws are like sausages. You sleep far better the less you know about how they are made.

  Otto von Bismarck

  Freedom, Sleep, Law

  14 Copy quote

• Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Freedom, Law, Liberty

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan”, p.256, Simon and Schuster

  98 Copy quote

  Show source

• You have not converted a man, because you have silenced him.

  John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn

  Freedom, Men, Political

  "On Compromise". Book by John Morley, 1874.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• For your own good is a persuasive argument that will eventually make a man agree to his own destruction.

  Janet Frame

  Freedom, Men, Liberty

  Janet Frame (1980). “Faces in the water”

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

  Jeannette Rankin

  Peace, Military, War

  Quoted in Hannah Josephson, Jeannette Rankin: First Lady in Congress (1974)

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes.

  J. William Fulbright

  Power, Political, Politics

  5 Copy quote

• Almost all war making states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat - including men - from reluctant citizens.

  Charles Tilly

  Money, War, Mean

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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen - a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a life.

  William O. Douglas

  Taken, Government, Secret

  "Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. December 12, 1966.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in the world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Death, 4th Of July, Promise

  Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 13 Nov. 1789

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.

  Oscar Ameringer

  Life, Witty, Art

  70 Copy quote

• That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Encouragement, Business

  Abraham Lincoln (2012). “The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)”, p.1330, Jazzybee Verlag

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses.

  Winston Churchill

  Real, Patriotic, Loss

  21 Copy quote