Liberty Quotes - Page 24

• Collectivism doesn't work because it's based on a faulty economic premise. There is no such thing as a person's "fair share" of wealth. The gross national product is not a pizza that must be carefully divided because if I get too many slices, you have to eat the box. The economy is expandable and, in any practical sense, limitless.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Libertarian, Wealth, Limitless

  10 Copy quote

• The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced. If the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt, people must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

  Taylor Caldwell

  Government, People, Arrogance

  "A Pillar of Iron". Book by Taylor Caldwell, 1965.

  198 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's always someone telling you not to do something. The main thing is just to ignore them.

  Tim Robbins

  Libertarian, Libertarianism

  15 Copy quote

• Perhaps the removal of trade restrictions throughout the world would do more for the cause of universal peace than can any political union of peoples separated by trade barriers.

  Frank Chodorov

  Political, World, Unions

  Frank Chodorov (1959). “The Rise & Fall of Society”, p.54, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• Not only can no one predict the future, we don't understand the present - and there isn't even any certainty about the past.

  Harry Browne

  Past, Libertarian, Certainty

  7 Copy quote

• Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Believe, Men, Libertarian Party

  Michel de Montaigne, William Hazlitt, Orlando Williams Wight (1866). “Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising his essays, journey into Italy, and letters”, p.357

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• People never believe in volcanoes until the lava actually overtakes them.

  George Santayana

  Believe, Volcanoes, People

  George Santayana (2002). “The Works of George Santayana: The letters of George Santayana. 1921-1927. Vol. 5. Book 3”, p.138, MIT Press

  77 Copy quote

  Show source

• A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know where it is today.

  Robert E. Lee

  Yesterday, History, Libertarian

  824 Copy quote

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

  Noam Chomsky

  Mind, Libertarian, Enthusiasm

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

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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, Needs, Looks

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

  153 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Libertarian, Taxes, Libertarianism

  7 Copy quote

• Thou shall not steal, even by majority vote.

  Gary North

  Majority Vote, Libertarian, Stealing

  14 Copy quote

• Public works are not accomplished by the miraculous power of a magic wand. They are paid for by funds taken away from the citizens.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Taken, Magic, Gold

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

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• [S]tatism is but socialized dishonesty; it is feathering the nests of some with feathers coercively plucked from others - on the grand scale. There is no moral difference between the act of a pickpocket and the progressive income tax or any other social program.

  Leonard Read

  Differences, Income, Nests

  50 Copy quote

• The present struggle seems less about abolishing big government than about who gets to use it.

  William Greider

  Struggle, Government, Use

  7 Copy quote

• The era of big government is over.

  William J. Clinton

  Government, Presidential, Libertarian

  State of the Union Address, 23 Jan. 1996

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Dog, Stupid, Boys

  221 Copy quote

• You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.

  Harry Browne

  Libertarian Party, Government, Giving

  13 Copy quote

• Once upon a time, government budgets were balanced, our money was sound, the streets were safe, and taxes imposed by all levels of government took less than 10% of our income.

  Harry Browne

  Government, Once Upon A Time, Income

  8 Copy quote

• Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.

  Arthur Miller

  People, Mind, Politics

  "Why I Wrote 'The Crucible'". The New Yorker, October 21, 1996.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• A government is not legitimate merely because it exists.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Government, Political, Libertarian

  Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (1988). “Political and moral dimensions”, p.435, Transaction Publishers

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• A government debt is a government claim against personal income and private property - an unpaid tax bill.

  Hans F. Sennholz

  Government Debt, Income, Libertarian

  48 Copy quote

• Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible and reasonable - as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Taken, Crowds, Libertarian

  8 Copy quote

• The real issue is control. The Internet is too widespread to be easily dominated by any single government. By creating a seamless global economic zone, anti-sovereign and unregulatable, the Internet calls into question the very idea of a nation-state.

  John Perry Barlow

  Real, Ideas, Creating

  8 Copy quote

• Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. Bankruptcies and losses concentrate the mind on prudent behavior.

  Allan H. Meltzer

  Loss, Mind, Libertarian

  12 Copy quote