Quotations

Government, with its "laws and regulations more numerous than the hairs of an ox," is a vicious oppressor of the individual, and "more to be feared than fierce tigers. -- Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching”, 500 BC

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. -- Tacitus (a Roman Senator), 68 AD

Some men say the earth is flat.  Some men say the earth is round.  If it is flat, could Parliament make it round?  If it is round, could the King's command flatten it? -- Saint Thomas Moore, 1535

Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces. -- Etienne de La Boetie, "The Politics of Obedience", 1552

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages. -- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II, 1776

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1788

I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1800

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. -- Thomas Jefferson

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.  -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1808

The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else. -- Frédéric Bastiat, 1848

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone. -- Frédéric Bastiat, 1848

But how is this legal plunder to be identified?  Quite simply.  See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong.  See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. -- Frédéric Bastiat, 1848

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. -- Frederic Bastiat, 1850

We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress, we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. -- Colonel David Crockett, "Not Yours to Give", 1867

The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters and which of them shall be slaves. -- Lysander Spooner, "No Treason. No. 1", 1867

A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.  -- Lysander Spooner, "No Treason. No. 6", 1867

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist. -- Lysander Spooner, "No Treason. No. 6", 1867

…you will not make people wiser and better by taking liberty of action from them. A man can only learn when he is free to act. It is the consequences of his own actions, and the consequences of these same actions as he sees them in other persons, that teach him.  -- Auberon Herbert, "The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State", 1885

You tell me a majority has a right to decide as they like for their fellowmen. What majority? 21 to 20? 20 to 5? 20 to 1? But why any majority? What is there in numbers that can possibly make any opinion or decision better or more valid, or which can transfer the body and mind of one man into the keeping of another man?  -- Auberon Herbert, "The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State", 1885

Whatever party names we may give ourselves, this is the question always waiting for an answer, Do you believe in force and authority, or do you believe in liberty? -- Auberon Herbert, "The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State", 1885

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. -- Lord Acton, 1887

The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust. -- Lord Acton, 1887

It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others. -- Lord Acton, 1887

The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the laborer without wages. -- David Ricardo

There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man, requiring sustenance, is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying his desires. These are work and robbery, one’s own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others...I propose in the following discussion to call one’s own labor and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, the “economic means” for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the “political means.” -- Franz Oppenheimer, "The State", 1908

At first, the conquerors usually looted and murdered their victims and then went on to find others. After centuries, however, the conquering tribes decided to settle down among their victims; instead of killing them, they regularized and rendered the loot permanent, settling down to rule their victims on a long-​range basis. The annual tribute became “taxes,” and the land of the peasants was parceled out among the warlords to become subject of annual feudal rent. In this way, a state and a ruling class emerged from previously stateless societies...The conqueror in the first stage is like the bear, who for the purpose of robbing the beehive, destroys it. In the second stage he is like the beekeeper, who leaves the bees enough honey to carry them through the winter.  -- Franz Oppenheimer, "The State", 1908

Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it. -- Ludwig von Mises, from his family crest

All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.  -- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1922

There is simply no other choice than this: either to abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way. -- Ludwig von Mises, "Liberalism - In the Classical Tradition", 1927, Page 79.

We allow other parties to exist. However, the fundamental principle that distinguishes us from the West is as follows: one party rules, and all the others are in jail! -- Mikhail Tomsky, In the November 13, 1927 issue of the Russian newspaper "Trud" (Labor).

Everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.  -- Benito Mussolini, from a speech delivered to the Italian Chamber of Deputies on December 9, 1928.

Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. -- Mao Zedong, from a speech he delivered at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University in November 1938.

The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. -- Ludwig von Mises, "Bureaucracy", 1944.

The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule. -- F.A. Hayek, "The Road to Serfdom", 1944

Men in government, therefore, should be those who aim at making government as unnecessary as possible. Contraction, not expansion, should be the aim. -- Leonard E. Read, "Pattern for Revolt", 1948

A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings. -- Ludwig von Mises, 1949

They loathe capitalism because it has assigned to this other man the position, they themselves would like to have. -- Ludwig von Mises, "The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality", 1956.

Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. -- Ludwig Von Mises, “Human Action”, 1949.

Government is essentially the negation of liberty.  -- Ludwig Von Mises,  "Liberty and Property", 1958

I 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

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill

First, they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

When a self-governing people confer upon their government the power to take from some and give to others, the process will not stop until the last bone of the last taxpayer is picked bare. -- Howard E. Kershner

There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. -- Friedrich A. Hayek

A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers. -- Friedrich A. Hayek

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.  -- Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”, John Galt’s oath, 1957 

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions.  Liberty and responsibility are inseparable. -- Friedrich A. Hayek, 1960

Individual responsibility – facing the consequences of one’s actions – is a prerequisite for a free society.  -- Friedrich A. Hayek, “The Constitution of Liberty”, 1960

Planning other people's actions means to prevent them from planning for themselves, means to deprive them of their essentially human quality, means enslaving them. -- Ludwig von Mises, "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method”, 1962

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. -- Albert Camus

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue. -- Barry Goldwater, 1964

The natural tendency of government, once in charge of money, is to inflate and to destroy the value of the currency. – Rothbard, “What Has Government Done to Our Money?”, 1964

Either we believe that the State exists to serve the individual or that the individual exists to serve the state. -- Ayn Rand

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases while the citizens may act only by permission, which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history – the stage of rule by brute force. -- Ayn Rand, "The Virtue of Selfishness", 1964

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would 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, " God in the Dock", 1970

In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing. -- Carl Assar Eugén Lindbeck, 1971

The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonaggression axiom.” “Aggression” is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. -- Murray N. Rothbard, "For a New Liberty", pg. 27, 1973

Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State’s inhabitants, or subjects. -- Murray N. Rothbard, "The Ethics of Liberty", 1982

The idea of a strictly limited constitutional State was a noble experiment that failed, even under the most favorable and propitious circumstances. --  Murray N. Rothbard, "For a New Liberty", pg. 381, 1973

Hence, in education as well as in all other activities, the more that government decisions replace private decision-making, the more various groups will be at each other’s throats in a desperate race to see to it that the one and only decision in each vital area goes its own way. --  Murray N. Rothbard, "For a New Liberty", pg. 156, 1973

In trying freedom, in abolishing the State, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. -- Murray N. Rothbard, "For a New Liberty", pg. 295, 1973

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. -- Ronald Reagan

Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. -- Ronald Reagan, 1981

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. -- Friedrich A. Hayek, 1988

Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Truth is treason in the empire of lies. -- Dr. Ron Paul

The fewer things politicians control, the less it matters who controls the politicians. -- Dr. Mary Ruwart

The fact is that there is no such thing as a government of law and not people. The law is an amalgam of contradictory rules and counter-rules expressed in inherently vague language that can yield a legitimate legal argument for any desired conclusion. For this reason, as long as the law remains a state monopoly, it will always reflect the political ideology of those invested with decision making power. -- John Hasnas, "The Myth of the Rule of Law", 1995

A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. -- Milton Friedman

If you pay people not to work and tax them when they do, don't be surprised if you get unemployment. -- Milton Friedman

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. -- Milton Friedman

Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another. -- Milton Friedman

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.  -- Milton Friedman

A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom...On the other hand, a society that puts freedom first will, as a happy by-product, end up with both greater freedom and greater equality. -- Milton Friedman, "Free to Choose", pg. 148,  1980

Only a crisis, real or perceived, produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable. -- Milton Friedman

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics. -- Thomas Sowell

I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money. -- Thomas Sowell

When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination. -- Thomas Sowell

The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending. -- Thomas Sowell

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best. -- Thomas Sowell

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. -- Thomas Sowell