Liberty Quotes - Page 26

• We're told cars are wasteful. Wasteful of what? Oil did a lot of good sitting in the ground for millions of years. We're told cars should be replaced with mass transportation. But it's hard to reach the drive-through window at McDonald's from a speeding train. And we're told cars cause pollution. A hundred years ago city streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind of pollution do you want? Would you rather die of cancer at eighty or typhoid fever at nine?

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Horse, Cancer, Mcdonalds

  "Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut" by P. J. O'Rourke, (1st edition ed.), New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996.

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• When politics are used to allocate resources, the resources all end up being allocated to politics.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Political, Libertarian, Resources

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• When democratic governments create economic calamity, free markets get the blame.

  Jack Kemp

  Government, Libertarian, Blame

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• What pays under capitalism is satisfying the common man, the customer. The more people you satisfy, the better for you.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Men, People, Libertarian

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• Our government, taxes, and ideas of freedom are already duplicates of the Old World. Our politicians determine how we should live our lives - and our individual liberties are sacrificed for the benefit of the Fatherland.

  Harry Browne

  Government, Ideas, Benefits

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• He who disdains the fall in infant mortality and the gradual disappearance of famines and plagues may cast the first stone upon the materialism of the economists.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Fall, May, Stones

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Human Action”, p.241, Lulu Press, Inc

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• There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another ... All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim.

  Emma Goldman

  Mean, Purpose, Tactics

  Emma Goldman (2003). “My Disillusionment in Russia”, p.260, Courier Corporation

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• The freedom of speech and the freedom of the press have not been granted to the people in order that they may say things which please, and which are based upon accepted thought, but the right to say the things which displease, the right to say the things which convey the new and yet unexpected thoughts, the right to say things, even though they do a wrong.

  Samuel Gompers

  Order, People, Freedom Of Speech

  Samuel Gompers (1967). “Seventy Years of Life and Labour: An Autobiography”

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• To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves: such a prohibition ought to fill them with disdain.

  Claude Adrien Helvetius

  Book, Reading, Libertarian

  "A Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties & His Education", Vol. I by Claude Adrien Helvetius, translated by W. Hooper, 1777.

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• What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition.

  Learned Hand

  Government, Different Faces, Political

  Learned Hand (1968). “The art and craft of judging: the decisions of Judge Learned Hand”

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• At the heart of that western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man...is the touchstone of value, and all society, all groups, and states, exist for that person's benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any western society.

  Robert Kennedy

  Heart, Men, Practice

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

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• If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Views, Numbers, Minorities

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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• The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.

  P.D. Ouspensky

  Country, Law, Numbers

  "A New Model of the Universe: Principles of the Psychological Method in Its Application to Problems of Science, Religion and Art". Book by P.D. Ouspensky, 1931.

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• There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.

  Antonin Scalia

  Freedom, Order, Political

  "Opinion By Scalia Opposes Broad View Of Police Power" by Stuart Taylor Jr., www.nytimes.com. March 4, 1987.

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• I emphasize the reply that the liberty which a citizen enjoys is to be measured, not by the nature of the governmental machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, but by the relative paucity of the restraints it imposes on him.

  Herbert Spencer

  Citizens, Libertarian, Machinery

  "The man versus the state: with six essays on government, society, and freedom".

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• The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it need not be honored when it's invalid on its face.

  Potter Stewart

  Needs, Speech, Libertarian

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• Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority.

  William Howard Taft

  Rights, Self, People

  William Howard Taft, David Henry Burton (2002). “The Collected Works of William Howard Taft: Presidential messages to Congress”

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• Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.

  Clarence Thomas

  Respect, Government, Law

  Concurring in Adarand v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 1995.

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• Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from.

  Thomas Sowell

  Baby, Years, Six Year Olds

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• A vote is "wasted" when someone fails to vote their conscience.

  Jesse Ventura

  Libertarian, Vote, Failing

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• It is a free market that makes monopolies impossible.

  Ayn Rand

  Libertarian, Impossible, Monopoly

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.66, Penguin

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• In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. - Manifesto of the Communist Party

  Karl Marx

  Party, May, Libertarian

  Karl Marx (2015). “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, p.18, Booklassic

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• The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.

  William Safire

  Honesty, Integrity, Character

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• A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.

  L. Neil Smith

  Believe, Principles, May

  "What Libertarians Believe" by L. Neil Smith and Rylla Cathryn Smith, www.ncc-1776.org. January 4, 2009.

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• Nobody can be trusted with unlimited power. The more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom.

  Rudolph Rummel

  Trust, People, Libertarian

  "Rudolph Rummel Talks About the Miracle of Liberty and Peace". The Freeman Interview, fee.org. July 1, 1997.

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