 A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
Edward R. Murrow
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
Thomas Jefferson
1781
It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself.
Justice Casey Percell
The government was set to protect man from criminals – and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government.
Ayn Rand
No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words 'no' and 'not' employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.
Edmund A. Opitz
It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.
Calvin Coolidge
The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.
Thomas Jefferson
What the government gives, it must first take away.
John S. Coleman
What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.
Tom Clancy
Kudlow and Cramer 9/2/03
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Socialists like to tout their confiscation and redistribution schemes as noble and caring, but we should ask if theft is ever noble or caring.
Robert Hawes
Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.
Thomas Jefferson
Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to F. W. Gilmer, 1816
The intent of the Second Amendment is to arm the people to frighten government and to keep it in check.
Ted Lang
... an increase in the power of the State ... does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress...
Mohandas Gandhi
Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help...
Mohandas Gandhi
Private enterprise creates; government destroys. That is the great economic lesson of our times and all times.
Llewelyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
An inevitable consequence of socialism is the division of society into two groups: those who are consuming government 'services' and those who are paying for them.
Lee Robinson
The government's War on Poverty has transformed poverty from a short-term misfortune into a career choice.
Harry Browne
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government.
Edward Abbey
All the Congress, all the accountants and tax lawyers, all the judges, and a convention of wizards all cannot tell for sure what the income tax law says.
Walter B. Wriston
It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
Ayn Rand
The desire of businessmen for profits is what drives prices down unless forcibly prevented from engaging in price competition, usually by governmental activity.
Thomas Sowell
The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty.
Ludwig von Mises
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Charles de Secondat Montesquieu
There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.
Mark Twain
The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
1976
The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.
Milton Friedman
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
P. J. O'Rourke
1993
The Government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
Ronald Reagan
I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
Alexis de Tocqueville
I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Thomas Jefferson
If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.
Winston Churchill
A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
Benjamin Disraeli
1874
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
P. J. O'Rourke
1993
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Ronald Reagan
1986
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
P. J. O'Rourke
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
August 29, 1558
Liberals believe government should take people's earnings to give to poor people. Conservatives disagree. They think government should confiscate people's earnings and give them to farmers and insolvent banks. The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one's property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage.
Walter Williams
The plans differ; the planners are all alike…
Claude Frederic Bastiat
'Solve' and 'Problems' are not in the constitution.
Doug Newman
Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?
Martin Luther
Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Mao Zedong
1938
The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom – they are the pillars of society.
Henrik Ibsen
1877
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
Winston Churchill
1903
The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community.
David D. Boaz
1997
If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.
Thomas Sowell
1992
Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
Daniel Lloyd Webster
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
Albert Einstein
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