Jim Rongstad's Homepage.
It's All About Freedom!
Quotes on Freedom (G thru M)
Listed below are quotes regarding various aspects of freedom, excluding education. The quotes are in alphabetical order by person/organization. This page contains quotes for persons/organizations G thru M. Click on the links below for other sections of quotes:
A thru F N thru S T thru Z Go to my page of Education Quotes.
You can always reach this site by using the URL: www.rongstad.com
I have started a blog. I'm not sure how much I'll actually post to it. I call the blog Preserving Freedom
G - M
"Property is individual man's life and all non-procreative derivatives of his life."
-- Andrew Galambos
"Freedom is the societal condition that exists when every individual has full (i.e. 100%) control over his own property."
-- Andrew Galambos
"There are those who create and those who destroy, and all of history is simply interplay between these two opposite directions with respect to property. One direction adds to property, and the other direction subtracts from property; one is positive, the other is negative."
-- Andrew Galambos
"A traffic jam is a collision between free enterprise and socialism. Free enterprise produces automobiles faster than socialism can build roads and road capacity."
-- Andrew Galambos
"The greatest fallacy in the entire history of the human species is the idea that it is necessary to employ coercion to eliminate disorder."
-- Andrew Galambos
"The concept of happiness is completely subjective and has no maximum. This is very important because if it were not for the fact that it has no maximum, then human motivation would have an end."
-- Andrew Galambos
"Politics and ideology are two entirely different things; one involves coercion and the other one involves ideas."
-- Andrew Galambos
"When there is no coercion involved, the gain of one person does not come from the loss of another."
-- Andrew Galambos
"A proper concept of government is a voluntary one."
-- Andrew Galambos
"The creation of Freedom is best served by the efficient and profitable defense of property."
-- Andrew Galambos
All Galambos quotes are from the website Bridge to Freedom.
"It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve."
-- Henry George
"No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom."
-- Mahatma Ghandi
"Coercion cannot but result in chaos in the end."
-- Mahatma Ghandi
"I do not regard capital to be enemy of labor."
-- Mahatma Ghandi
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
-- Mahatma Ghandi
"No charter of freedom will be worth looking at which does not ensure the same measure of freedom for the minorities as for the majority.
-- Mahatma Ghandi
"One who uses coercion is guilty of deliberate violence. Coercion is inhuman."
-- Mahatma Ghandi
"I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State has really lived for the poor."
-- Mahatma Ghandi
"The state represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the state is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence."
-- Mahatma Ghandi
Regarding ancient Athens:
"In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all - security, comfort and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again."
-- Edward Gibbon
"The era of resisting big government is never over."
-- Paul Gigot (1998)
"Why of course people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people
don't want war; neither in Russia, nor England, nor for that matter Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
-- Hermann Goering, German field marshal and Nazi party leader.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
-- Goethe
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
-- Barry Goldwater, Republican Presidential candidate in 1964
"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to
promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass
laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to
cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed
in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwanted financial
burden. ... And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my
constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed that their
main interest is liberty and in that cause I am doing the very best I
can."
-- Barry Goldwater, Republican Presidential candidate in 1964
"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."
-- Barry Goldwater (1964)
"The social model of the Bolsheviks failed, as will any model that denies individual rights, intellectual freedom, and freedom of competing political parties. Without these freedoms and rights, there is no motivation for people to work. Such a system cannot be sustained, especially in light of the technological revolution of the information era."
-- Mikhail Gorbachev, (1999) former Soviet Leader on the tenth anniversary of the toppling of the Berlin Wall
"The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, whether by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable."
-- Ulysses S. Grant - "Personal Memoirs" (1885)
"The so-called drug war has been with us for perhaps 75 years. The 'war' targets drug growers, sellers, buyers and users. Its chief weapon is the criminal law, vigorously enforced by vast numbers of state and federal agents, police and prosecutors. It has been a very successful war - gradually destroying our courts, our cities, our budgets, our morals, and other countries. It has failed in one respect only: it has had no inhibiting effect upon the traffic in drugs. Indeed, that traffic, as a direct result of our criminal laws has increased. It is time to consider some form of legalization."
-- Martin L. Haines, "Drug War: America's War of Self-Deception".
"Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the
people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped."
-- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers - Number 29
"Let me tell you how it will be. There's one for you, nineteen for me.
'Cause I'm the taxman."
-- George Harrison, (From song "Taxman" on The Beatles album Revolver 1966)
"They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here?"
-- Paul Harvey
"Past studies by and large confirm the prediction that higher minimum wages reduce employment opportunities and raise unemployment, particularly among teenagers, minorities and other low-skilled workers."
-- Masanori Hashimoto
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it."
-- John Hay (1872)
Friedrich Hayek: Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992) was an economist born in Austria. Emigrated to England were he was an economics professor at the University of London (1931-50) and then to the United States were he was an economics professor at the University of Chicago (1950-62). His most famous book is The Road to Serfdom (1944). Hayek shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics with Gunnar Myrdal.
"Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom."
-- F. A. Hayek, winner of Nobel Prize for Economics
"We have progressively abandoned that freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past."
-- F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944)
"The more the state "plans" the more difficult planning becomes for the individual."
-- F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944)
"Paradoxical as it may appear, it is probably true that a successful free society will always in a large measure be a tradition-bound society."
-- F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (1944)
"The principle of the separation of church and state is today widely misinterpreted to mean the exclusion of religion from public life. The Founders, to the contrary, thought a fastidious neutrality on the part of the state between denominations and faiths would strengthen the influence of faith in our culture."
-- Steven Hayward, senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, Religion & Liberty, January/February 2001
Henry Hazlitt:Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993) was an American journalist and editor. Author of 18 books, his most famous work is Economics in One Lesson (1946) which has sold nearly 1 million copies. I highly recommend this book to everyone
"The ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a further proof of the dictum that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it."
-- Henry Hazlitt
"The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."
-- Henry Hazlitt - Economics in One Lesson (1946)
"The "private sector" of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; and...the "public sector" is, in fact, the coercive sector."
-- Henry Hazlitt
"The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects -- his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity."
-- Henry Hazlitt
"We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation."
-- William Hazlitt
"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him."
-- Robert Heinlein
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
"Humiliating and Debasing Degradation"
"Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the
management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
-- Patrick Henry, June 9, 1788, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.
"We must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left to us!...Why stand we here idle? What is it that the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
-- Patrick Henry
"In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the 'collective' right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of 'the people' to keep and bear arms... The phrase 'the people' meant the same thing in the Second Amendment as it did in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments - that is, each and every free person."
-Stephen P. Holbrook
"I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature."
-- Sidney Hook
Jacob Hornberger: Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF). Mr. Hornberger holds a law degree from the University of Texas and was a trial attorney for 12 years. The FFF, which was founded in 1989, aims to advance liberty by influencing individuals to abandon the philosophy of socialism by presenting an uncompromising case for freedom.
Photo of Jacob Hornberger used with permission of the Future of Freedom Foundation.
"If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all."
-- Jacob Hornberger (1995)
"Three billion dollars have been spent on the 2000 presidential and congressional races, making this the most expensive election in history. People gripe and complain, but refuse to face the true nature of the problem. The problem is not that people are spending too much money to get their friends elected. The problem is the welfare state and the regulated society. Since the
1930s, the primary purpose of the U.S. government has been to seize money from one group of people (the taxpayers) in order to give it to another group of people (welfare recipients) and to regulate people's peaceful activities, primarily through various domestic wars. It stands to reason that people are going to fight to avoid being in the taxpaying and regulated group and to get into the welfare-recipient and unregulated group.
The answer is not to restrict people's ability to donate unlimited amounts of their own money to political candidates, and it's also not to tax people in order to have public funds subsidize political campaigns. The solution is to institutionally prohibit government officials from taxing
one person for the purpose of giving the money to another person and constitutionally prohibit governmental regulation of peaceful activity. Once government no longer has the powers to give people goodies and to do bad things to peaceful people, no one will care who's elected."
-- Jacob Hornberger (2000)
"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be carefully used and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
-- Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978, Democrat from Minnesota) quoted in "Know Your Lawmakers," Guns Magazine, February 1960.
"The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom -- they are the pillars of society."
-- Henrik Ibsen (1877)
"The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the facts in controversy."
-John Jay, 1st Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
Thomas Jefferson: Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third president of the United States and the author of the Declaration of Independence. He is one of the greatest advocates of individual liberty of all time. Jefferson was a man of varied interests and accomplishments. Jefferson was a philosopher, writer, educator, naturalist, politician, scientist, architect, inventor, farmer and musician.
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only; and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
-- Thomas Jefferson, in letter to Danbury Baptist Association, 1802.
"I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their
complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war."
-- Thomas Jefferson (1823)
"If you expect a nation to be ignorant and free, you expect what never was and can never be."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"Almighty God hath created the mind free."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"May it be to the world... to assume the blessings and security of self-government."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
--Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1791.
"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."
--Thomas Jefferson
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort,
to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
Thomas Jefferson
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. Papers, 12:356.
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
-- Thomas Jefferson , Autobiography
"A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
-- Thomas Jefferson , letter (to James Madison, 1787)
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
-- Thomas Jefferson , (1777)
"I have sworn on the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
-- Thomas Jefferson , (1800)
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"
-- Thomas Jefferson (1801)
"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none."
-- Thomas Jefferson (1801)
"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
-- Thomas Jefferson (1801)
"So I asked him which part of the reality of ending drug prohibition is it that worries him - is it the end of the drive-by shootings, the end of the gang warfare, or will he miss having schoolchildren terrorized out on the playground?"
-- Jo Jorgensen, Libertarian Party candidate for vice-president in 1996.
"...tax cuts are about making people, not government, more powerful."
-- Rep. John Kasich
"Politicians are the same all over: they promise to build a bridge even where there is no river."
-- Nikita Khrushchev (1960)
"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the
question,'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it
right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is
neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one
it is right."
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic."
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..."
-- Richard Henry Lee, 1787
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-- C. S. Lewis
"Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn reasonable and become your enemies. One quarter are afraid to stop and speak. And one quarter are killed and you die with them. The blessed final quarter keep you alive."
--Sinclair Lewis
"Libertarians believe the answer to America's political problems is the
same commitment to freedom that earned America its greatness: a
free-market economy and the abundance and prosperity it brings; a
dedication to civil liberties and personal freedom that marks this
country above all others; and a foreign policy of non-intervention,
peace, and free trade as prescribed by America's founders."
-- The Libertarian Party: A Short History, 2000
"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money."
-- G. Gordon Liddy
Abraham Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln(1809-1865), 16th president of the United States.
"I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."
-- Abraham Lincoln (1854)
"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."
-- John Locke
Of Church and State
" Although both Church and State are ordinances of God, yet they must not be commingled. Church and State have entirely different aims. By the Church, God would save men, for which reason the Church is called the "mother" of believers Gal. 4:26. By the State, God would maintain external order among men, "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty," 1 Tim. 2:2. It follows that the means which the Church and State employ to gain their ends are entirely different. The Church may not employ any other means than the preaching of the Word of God, John 18:11, 36; 2 Cor. 10:4. The State, on the other hand, makes laws bearing on civil matters and is empowered to employ for their execution also the sword and other corporal punishments, Rom. 13:4.
Accordingly we condemn the policy of those who would have the power of the State employed "in the interest of the Church" and who thus turn the Church into a secular dominion; as also of those who, aiming to govern the State by the Word of God, seek to turn the State into a Church."
-- A Brief Statement of the
Doctrinal Position of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted."
- James Madison (1751-1836)
"I believe that there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment than by violent and sudden usurpations."
- James Madison (1751-1836)
"Besides, the advantage of being armed forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the
people would certainly shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did."
--James Madison, Father of the U.S. Constitution and author of the Second Amendment.
"If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
-- James Madison
"It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of government is perfect, but what of the forms is least imperfect."
-- James Madison. From 1833 letter as quoted Cato Policy Report March/April 2001.
"When the people have formed a constitution, they retain those rights which they have not expressly delegated. It is a question whether what is thus retained can be legislated upon. Opinion are not the objects of legislation.... If we advert to the nature of republican government, we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people."
-- James Madison. Speech to Congress November 27, 1794 as quoted Cato Policy Report March/April 2001.
"A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home."
-- James Madison. Speech at the Constitutional Convention, June 6, 1787, as quoted Cato Policy Report March/April 2001.
"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."
-- James Madison. National Gazette essay, March 27, 1792, as quoted Cato Policy Report March/April 2001.
"The power to tax is the power to destroy."
-- John Marshall
"To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
--George Mason, Father of the Bill of Rights
..."I ask, sir, what is the militia. It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
--George Mason, Father of the Bill of Rights
"Power corrupts. But it does more than that. Power attracts the corrupt,
then corrupts them further."
-Don Matthews, economics professor at Coastal Georgia College
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too."
-- Somerset Maugham
"Those who would deny others the choice to eat meat, wear fur, drink coffee or simply eat extra large portions of food....While on any day each of us may identify with the restrictive nature of a given campaign, there is a much larger issue here. Where do we draw the line on dictating to each other? How many of these battles can we stand? Whose values should prevail."
-- George McGovern, former Democratic presidential candidate, New York Times August 14, 1997.
"Governments harangue about deficits to get more revenue so they can spend more."
-- Allan H. Meltzer
H. L. Mencken: Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956), was an American journalist and satirist. Mencken and George Jean Nathan edited the American Mercury from1924-33. At various times Mencken was a reporter, editor, literary critic and social critic.
"(Government in America) has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around
its operations the high dignity and impeccability of religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it
was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men."
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are."
-- H.L. Mencken
"Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."."
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule -
and both commonly succeed, and are right."
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
"A Progressive is one who is in favor of more taxes instead of less, more bureaus and jobholders, more paternalism and meddling, more regulation of private affairs and less liberty. In general, he would be inclined to regard the repeal of any tax as outrageous."
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), Baltimore Evening Sun January 19, 1926
"Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping, and unintelligent."
-- H. L. Mencken
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
-- H.L. Mencken
"Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."
-- John Stuart Mill, 19th-century economist and philosopher.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal
safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
-- John Stuart Mill
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."
-- John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty" 1859
"Useless laws weaken the necessary laws."
-- Montesquieu
Charles Murray: Charles Alan Murray (1943- ), is an American libertarian author. His works include Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (1984), In Pursuit: Happiness and Good Government (1989), The Bell Curve (1994) and What it Means to be a Libertarian (1997).
"If one constructs a system which systematically tries to care take of the feckless and the irresponsible, at the price of taking away a very important part of life from the vast majority who are responsible, I think it is not only appropriate to say that is politically immoral, that is the very definition of political immorality."
-- Charles Murray, author of What It Means to Be a Libertarian, at Cato Institute Policy Forum.
"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."
--Edward R. Murrow
“When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.
When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent.
When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don’t own a gun.
Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet.”
-- Lyle Myhr
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