"Governments lie; bankers lie; even auditors sometimes lie: gold tells the truth."
—William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)
"The Treasury model of the economy has been pretty well wrong on everything for many years."
—William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)
"If people ignore the rules already, new regulations are not likely to deter them."
—William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)
"Freedom rests on a rational distrust of government; government will always use its power to benefit the incumbent administration."
—William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)
"Governments want to control information. To do this, they have elaborate systems for promoting themselves via propaganda departments and for ensuring confidentiality with official-secrets laws. There are good reasons for these: people need information, and national security deserves secrecy."
—William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)
"You've got to judge people, ultimately, by their actions rather than their words."
—William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)
"Electorally, the number of women who want to wear a burka is insignificant, yet it is important to defend such a minority against the tyranny of the majority."
—William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)
"Perhaps one day the world will end, giving the last group to predict it the satisfaction of being right - but as many have been wrong so far, it does not seem wise to make public policy on the back of these fears."
—William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)
"Press freedom has great virtues. It is not about irresponsible scandal-mongering, although that may be part of the picture. It is a means of revealing wrongdoing."
—William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)
"The E.U. is a backward-looking project based on an economic model of the 20th century."
—William Rees-Mogg (1928-2012)