MEMORABLE QUOTES
The following are some quotes that I have run across that I have
decided to share. At the very least, they should be something to get you
thinking.
-
"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary
evil, and in its worst state, and intolerable one" - Thomas Paine
-
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield
and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
-
"Give me a lever long enough and I shall move the earth."
- Archimedes
-
"As libertarians, we must know the know before we can
walk the walk - much less teach the know." - Rankin
-
"Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings
is justice." - H. L. Mencken
- "It is a fortunate thing for rulers that men do not
think." - Adolph Hitler
-
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending
too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas
Jefferson
-
"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always
depend on the support of Paul." - George Bernard Shaw
-
"Nothing is more permanent as a temporary government
program." - Milton Friedman
-
"Government can do something for the people only in
proportion as it can do something to the people." - Thomas Jefferson
-
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption
of power. 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."
-
"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
-
"If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly,
you are not free at all." - Jacob Hornberger
-
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin
Franklin
-
"The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address
is 286 words, there are 1,322 words in the Declaration of Independence,
but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words."
- National Review
-
"[Libertarianism] is the supreme form of generosity;
it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence the
noblest cry that has ever resounded on this planet. It announces the determination
to share existence with the enemy, more that that, with an enemy which
is weak. It was incredible that the human species should have arrived at
so noble an attitude, so paridoxical, so refined, so anti-natural. Hence
it is not to be wonder at that this same humanity should soon appear anxious
to get rid of it. It is a discipline too difficult and complex to take
firm root on earth." - Jose Ortega y Gasset
-
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely." - Lord Acton
-
"Public services are never better performed than when
their reward comes in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned
to the diligence employed in performing them." - Adam Smith
-
"Few discoveries are more irritating than those which
expose the pedigree of ideas." - Lord Acton
-
"What has always made the state a hell on earth has
been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven." - F. Holderlin
-
"The control of the production of wealth is the control
of human life itself" - Hilaire Belloc
-
"The finest opportunity ever given to the world was
thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom."
- Lord Acton
Return
to the Young Libertarian Pages