Property Rights Quotes

• The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

  James Madison

  Rights, Government, Liberty

  James Madison (1999). “Writings”

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• The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.

  John Locke

  Government, Libertarian Party, People

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• The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Essentials, Denial

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.465, Penguin

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• Good intentions will always be pleaded, for every assumption of power; but they cannot justify it ... It is hardly too strong to say, that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or pretended.

  Daniel Webster

  Strong, Real, Gun

  Daniel Webster (1854). “The speeches of Daniel Webster and his master-pieces”, p.282

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• Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Ideas, Numbers

  Ayn Rand (1990). “The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought”, p.243, Penguin

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• Freedom and Property Rights are inseparable. You can't have one without the other.

  George Washington

  Inspirational, Success, Rights

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  Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.

  Samuel Adams

  Rights, Liberty, Together

  Samuel Adams (1946). “Samuel Adams: selections from his writings”

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• Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Rights, Conflict, Humans

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• So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community.

  William Blackstone

  Law, Community, Violation

  William Blackstone (2016). “The Oxford Edition of Blackstone's: Commentaries on the Laws of England: Book I: Of the Rights of Persons”, p.206, Oxford University Press

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• Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Rights, Politics, Conservative

  Calvin Coolidge (1924). “Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings”

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• Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

  James Madison

  Men, Political, Liberty

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.478

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• Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution . .

  William Howard Taft

  Presidential, Important, Liberty

  William Howard Taft, William Taft “Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence and Its Perils”, Transaction Publishers

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• Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.

  John Adams

  Real, Liberty, Mankind

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• Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

  Thomas Sowell

  Real, Exercise, Numbers

  "Is Reality Optional?". Book by Thomas Sowell, 1993.

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• Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

  Ayn Rand

  Rights, Property

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.394, Penguin

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• Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into the hands... and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and... provide for their own safety and security.

  John Locke

  Ambition, Hands, People

  John Locke (1947). “Two Treatises of Government: With a Supplement, Patriarcha, by Robert Filmer”, p.233, Simon and Schuster

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• Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

  Thomas Paine

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  The American Crisis, 12 Sept. 1777

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• The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.

  John Locke

  Men, Reason Why, Preservation

  John Locke (1821). “Two treatises of government”, p.377

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• To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government Debt, Independence, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Jean M. Yarbrough (1963). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.242, Hackett Publishing

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• I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Money, Hands

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• Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

  C. S. Lewis

  Peace, War, Government

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Law Courts, Government, Libertarian Party

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Change, Happiness

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

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• This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Freedom, 4th Of July

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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