Libertarianism Quotes - Page 15

• Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks.

  Thomas Sowell

  Years, Europe, Black

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• The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Men, Rights

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.203, Penguin

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• I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general government our foreign ones.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Home, Government

  "The Real Thomas Jefferson".

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• People who create things nowadays can expect to be prosecuted by highly moralistic people who are incapable of creating anything. There is no way to measure the chilling effect on innovation that results from the threats of taxation, regulation and prosecution against anything that succeeds. We'll never know how many ideas our government has aborted in the name protecting us.

  Joseph Sobran

  Ideas, Creating, Government

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• The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising.

  Toyotomi Hideyoshi

  Uprising, People, Elements

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• It rankles me when somebody tries to force somebody to do something.

  John Wayne

  Trying, Liberty, Libertarian

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• Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Country, Sacrifice, Contentment

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• The worst forms of tyranny, or certainly the most successful ones, are not those we rail against but those that so insinuate themselves into the imagery of our consciousness, and the fabric of our lives, as not to be perceived as tyranny.

  Michael Parenti

  Successful, Liberty, Fabric

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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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• It is indeed a singular thing that people wish to pass laws to nullify the disagreeable consequences that the law of responsibility entails. Will they never realize that they do not eliminate these consequences but merely pass them along to other people? The result is one injustice the more and one moral the less.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Responsibility, Law, People

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• There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal. Personally, I cannot imagine a more alarming situation.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Thinking, People, Liberty

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• The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit ... Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do ... He does not keep "protecting" you by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that.

  Lysander Spooner

  Taken, Responsibility, Liberty

  "No Treason" by Lysander Spooner, No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority, 1870.

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• Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will perform them.

  Lysander Spooner

  Men, Sick, Judging

  Lysander Spooner (1882). “Natural Law, Or, The Science of Justice: A Treatise on Natural Law, Natural Justice, Natural Rights, Natural Liberty, and Natural Society : Showing that All Legislation Whatsoever is an Absurdity, a Usurpation, and a Crime”

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• The program of liberalism if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Liberty, Libertarian, Economic

  "The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism".

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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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• Thou shall not steal, even by majority vote.

  Gary North

  Majority Vote, Liberty, Libertarian

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• We are going to tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Liberty, Libertarian, Taxes

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• [E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, Law, Long

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

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• Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think.

  Adolf Eichmann

  Thinking, Liberty, Needs

  "Why? New Eichmann Notes Try to Explain" by Roger Cohen, www.nytimes.com. August 13, 1999.

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• How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.

  Adolf Hitler

  Thinking, Government, People

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• There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Hands, Two, Mind Your Own Business

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

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• For the totalitarian mind, adherence to state propaganda does not suffice: one must display proper enthusiasm while marching in the parade.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mind, Liberty, Libertarian

  Noam Chomsky (1993). “Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture”, p.114, South End Press

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• I favor free trade in drugs for the same reason the Founding Fathers favored free trade in ideas: in a free society it is none of the government's business what ideas a man puts into his mind; likewise, it should be none of its business what drugs he puts into his body.

  Thomas Szasz

  Father, Men, Ideas

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• Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

  Seneca the Younger

  War, Law, Liberty

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• Show me a movement that doesn't hate somebody and I will join it at once.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Hate, Liberty, Movement

  Robert Anton Wilson (1992). “Right where You are Sitting Now: Further Tales of the Illuminati”, Ronin Publishing

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