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Famous Quotes
 
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The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
A classic since 1953 with over 20,000 quotes from over 3,000 authors.


Famous Last Words
Apt Observations, Pleas, Curses, Benedictions, Sour Notes, Bons Mots, and Insights from People on the Brink of Departure


Stretch Your Wings
Famous Black Quotations for the Young


American Quotations
An exhaustive collection of profound quotes from the founding fathers, presidents, statesmen, scientists, constitutions, court decisions


The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations


Last Words of Saints and Sinners
700 Final Quotes from the Famous, the Infamous, and the Inspiring Figures of History


America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations
Contains over 2,100 profound quotations from founding fathers, presidents, constitutions, court decisions and more


The Law
This 1850 classic is an absolute must read for anyone interested in law, justice, truth, or liberty. A most compelling and revolutionary look at The Law.


Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature (17th Edition)


The Stupidest Things Ever Said by Politicians
Rise up, America -- and laugh out loud at the greatest gaffes that no spin doctor could possibly fix!


The 776 Even Stupider Things Ever Said
Another great collection of stupidity


Quotable Quotes
Wit and Wisdom for All Occasions from America's Most Popular Magazine


The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time
You don't have to be a genius to sound like one. Here's a collection of the most profound and provocative wit and wisdom in the English language in two lines or less.


2,715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers, Writers & Raconteurs
Invaluable sampler of witticisms, epigrams, sayings, bon mots, platitudes and insights chosen for their brevity and pithiness.


Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts Funny Sayings
A stupendous collection of quotes, quips, epigrams, witticisms, and humorous comments for personal enjoyment and ready reference.


Quick Quips and Quotes; 532 Things I Wish I Had Said
Quick Quips and Quotes is the Ultimate Collection of one liners.


Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes
The ultimate anthology of anecdotes, now revised with over 700 new entries.


Quotations for Public Speakers
A Historical, Literary, and Political Anthology


Liberty - The American Revolution
This compelling series traces the events leading up to the war and America's fight for freedom.


Founding Fathers
The story of how these disparate characters fomented rebellion in the colonies, formed the Continental Congress, fought the Revolutionary War, and wrote the Constitution


Libertarianism: A Primer
David Boaz, director of the Cato Institute, has written a simple introduction to Libertarianism inteneded to appeal to disgruntled Democrats and Republicans everywhere.


The Libertarian Reader
Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao-Tzu to Milton Friedman


Thomas Paine: Collected Writings
All the classics: Common Sense / The Crisis / Rights of Man / The Age of Reason / Pamphlets, Articles, and Letters

 
Bertrand de JouvenelThe more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State. 
Estienne de la BoétieIt is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement. 
Estienne de la BoétieHowever, there is satisfaction in examining what they get out of all this torment, what advantage they derive from all the trouble of their wretched existence. Actually the people never blame the tyrant for the evils they suffer, but they do place responsibility on those who influence him; peoples, nations, all compete with one another, even the peasants, even the tillers of the soil, in mentioning the names of the favorites, in analyzing their vices, and heaping upon them a thousand insults, a thousand obscenities, a thousand maledictions. All their prayers, all their vows are directed against these persons; they hold them accountable for all their misfortunes, their pestilences, their famines; and if at times they show them outward respect, at those very moments they are fuming in their hearts and hold them in greater horror than wild beasts. This is the glory and honor heaped upon influential favorites for their services by people who, if they could tear apart their living bodies, would still clamor for more, only half satiated by the agony they might behold. For even when the favorites are dead those who live after are never too lazy to blacken the names of these people-eaters with the ink of a thousand pens, tear their reputations into bits in a thousand books, and drag, so to speak, their bones past posterity, forever punishing them after their death for their wicked lives. 
Étienne de la BoétieResolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. 
Jean de la BruyereA guilty man is punished as an example for the mob; an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen. 
Jean de la BruyereA wise man neither suffers himself to be governed, nor attempts to govern others. 
Madame Jeanne Marie Phlipon de La Platiere RolandO liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name! [Fr., O liberte! que de crimes on commet dans ton nom!] 
François Duc de La RochefoucauldEveryone complains of his memory, none of his judgment. 
François Duc de La RochefoucauldOur virtues are most frequently but vices disguised. 
François Duc de La RochefoucauldWe have all sufficient strength to endure the misfortunes of others. 
François Duc de La RochefoucauldOur repentance is not so much regret for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that may happen to us in consequence. 
François Duc de La RochefoucauldLove of justice in the generality of men is only the fear of suffering from injustice. 
François Duc de La RochefoucauldMost of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them. 
François Duc de La RochefoucauldNothing is given so profusely as advice. 
François Duc de La RochefoucauldHypocrisy is an homage that vice pays to virtue. 
François Duc de La RochefoucauldA true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire. 
Alphonse de LamartineRepublicanism and ignorance are in bitter antagonism. 
Alphonse de LamartineVoid of freedom, what would virtue be? 
Alphonse de LamartineAt twenty every one is republican. 
Emile Louis Victor de LaveleyeThere is in human affairs one order which is best. That order is not always the one which exists; but it is the order which should exist for the greatest good of humanity. God knows, it and will it: man's duty it is to discover and establish it. 
Salvador de MadariagaNo one has ever succeeded in keeping nations at war except by lies. 
Salvador De MadariagaHe is free who knows how to keep in his own hands the power to decide at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power. 
Salvador de MadariagaHe is free who knows how to keep in his own hand the power to decide, at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power. 
Joseph de MaistreEvery nation gets the government it deserves. 
Michel De MontaigneTo forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it. 
Michel De MontaigneIt is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration -- nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome. 
Michel de MontaigneA man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself. 
Michel de MontaigneI will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can. 
Michel de MontaigneLaws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other. 
Michel De MontaigneThose who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another's net. 
Michel de MontaigneI am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have. 
Michel De MontaigneA man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom. 
Michel De MontaigneIf falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field. 
Michel de MontaigneNot being able to govern events, I govern myself. 
Michel De MontaigneI quote others only the better to express myself. 
Michel de MontaigneThere is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thought under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. 
Michel de MontaigneI prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. 
Michel de MontaigneIf falsehood like truth had only one face, we would be in better shape. For we would take as certain the opposite of what the liar said. But the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and a limitless field. 
Michel De MontaigneOnce conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul. 
Michel De MontaigneI see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether things are so. 
Michel de MontaigneHe who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying. 
Charles de MontesquieuIt is unreasonable ... to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life. 
Charles de MontesquieuThe deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded. 
Charles de MontesquieuRepublics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty. [Fr., Les republiques finissent par le luxe; les monarchies, par la pauvrete.] 
Charles de MontesquieuIn the state of nature...all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law. 
Charles de MontesquieuThere is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. 
Charles de MontesquieuCountries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free. 
Louis Charles Alfred de MussetFew persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits. 
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de RobespierreThe most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies. 
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de RobespierreThe secret of liberty is to enlighten men, as that of tyranny is to keep them in ignorance. 
Guido De RuggieroThe evil of democracy is not the triumph of quantity, but the triumph of bad quality. 
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyI know of but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind. 
Antoine de Saint-ExupéryPeople haven't time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends. 
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyTrue, it is evil that a single man should crush the herd, but see not there the worse form of slavery, which is when the herd crushes out the man. 
Charles-Louis De SecondatThere is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. 
Charles-Louis de SecondatBut constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go. 
Charles-Louis de SecondatUseless laws weaken necessary laws. 
Charles-Louis de SecondatIn republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing. 
Charles-Louis de SecondatWhat orators lack in depth they make up for in length. 
Charles-Louis De SecondatThe deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded. 
Charles-Louis De SecondatWe ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character. 
Charles-Louis de SecondatThere is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. 
Vittorio de SicaMoral indignation is in most cases 2% moral, 48% indignation and 50% envy. 
Ithiel De Sola PoolIt is within the police power of the state to prohibit public use of fighting words that create a danger of breach of the peace, but simply to prohibit public use of fighting words is too broad. Those words may sometimes be used in situations where there is no danger. 
Alexis de TocquevilleIt [government] covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. 
Alexis de TocquevilleI know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men's hearts or where stronger scorn is expressed for the theory of permanent equality of property. 
Alexis de TocquevilleA man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him. 
Alexis de TocquevilleThe American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money. 
Alexis de TocquevilleWhere are we then? The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, whilst men without patriotism and without principles are the apostles of civilization and intelligence. Has such been the fate of the centuries which have preceded our own? and has man always inhabited a world like the present, where nothing is linked together, where virtue is without genius, and genius without honor; where the love of order is confounded with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a taste for law; where the light thrown by conscience on human actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true? 
Alexis de TocquevilleQuand donc je refuse d'obéir à une loi injuste, je ne dénie point à la majorité le droit de commander; j'en appelle seulement de la souveraineté du peuple à la souveraineté du genre humain. Il y a des gens qui n'ont pas craint de dire qu'un peuple, dans les objets qui n'intéressaient que lui-même, ne pouvait sortir entièrement des limites de la justice et de la raison, et qu'ainsi on ne devait pas craindre de donner tout pouvoir à la majorité qui le représente. Mais c'est là un langage d'esclave. 
Alexis de TocquevilleThe Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chooses to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disapprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right. 
Alexis de TocquevilleDemocracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. 
Alexis de TocquevilleAfter having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. 
Alexis de TocquevilleAll those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it. 
Alexis de TocquevilleWhen, after having examined in detail the organization of the Supreme Court, one comes to consider in sum the prerogatives that have been given it, one discovers without difficulty that a more immense judicial power has never been constituted in any people. 


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