Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes
 

 Click on the name to open the full quote and the details about the quote's origin. Quotes are also grouped by Category and Author.  
 


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

 
Howard BealeSo, you listen to me. Listen to me! Television is not the truth. Television's a god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business... We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness. You maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion. 
Charles Austin BeardOne of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence. 
Charles Austin BeardThe Rockefeller Foundation and the Council on Foreign Relations … intend to prevent, if they can, a repetition of what they call in the vernacular “the debunking journalistic campaign following World War I.” Translated into precise English, this means that the Foundation and the Council do not want journalists or any other persons to examine too closely and criticize too freely the official propaganda and official statements relative to “our basic aims and activities” during World War II. In short, they hope that, among other things, the policies and measures of Franklin D. Roosevelt will escape in the coming years the critical analysis, evaluation and exposition that befell the policies and measures of Woodrow Wilson and the Entente Allies after World War I. 
Pierre-Augustin BeaumarchaisAs long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything. 
Pierre-Augustin BeaumarchaisProvided I do not write about the government, or about religion, or politics, or morals, or those in power, or public bodies, or the Opera, or the other state theatres, or about anybody who is active in anything, I can print whatever I want. 
Cesare BeccariaThe laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator? and does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty? It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons. 
Cesare BeccariaFalse is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. 
Cesare BeccariaThe punishment of death is the war of a nation against a citizen whose destruction it judges to be necessary or useful. 
Cesare BeccariaFor a punishment to be just it should consist of only such gradations of intensity as suffice to deter men from committing crimes. 
Cesare BeccariaA principal source of errors and injustice are false ideas of utility. For example: that legislator has false ideas of utility who considers particular more than general conveniencies, who had rather command the sentiments of mankind than excite them, who dares say to reason, 'Be thou a slave;' who would sacrifice a thousand real advantages to the fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience; who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it. 
Cesare BeccariaFalse is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty... and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree. 
Günter BechlyIf a theory and its proponents stubbornly refuse falsification by an ever increasing body of substantial conflicting evidence, the theory degenerates into a textbook example of dogmatic pseudo-science. The neo-Darwinian theory of macroevolution has failed on all fronts, from mathematical feasibility, to theoretical plausibility and explanatory power, to empirical support. 
Joan BeckWe used to be a free people. Now we are hedged in by millions of laws. Harassed by a plague of opportunistic lawyers. Harmed by regulations meant for our protection. Unnecessarily taxed to pay for a suffocating bureaucracy. Drowning in petty paperwork. Stifled by “rights” that rarely benefit anyone. 
Samuel BeckettWe are all born mad. Some remain so. 
Henry BecqueThe defect of equality is that we only desire it with our superiors. 
Hugo Adam BedauGovernment should allow persons to engage in whatever conduct they want to, no matter how deviant or abnormal it may be, so long as (a) they know what they are doing, (b) they consent to it, and (c) no one -- at least no one other than the participants -- is harmed by it. 
Edward BeecherWe are more especially called upon to maintain the principles of free discussion in case of unpopular sentiments or persons, as in no other case will any effort to maintain them be needed. 
Rev. Henry Ward BeecherThere are three schoolmasters for everybody that will employ them - the senses, intelligent companions, and books. 
Rev. Henry Ward BeecherMake men large and strong and tyranny will bankrupt itself in making shackles for them. 
Rev. Henry Ward BeecherLiberty is the soul's right to breathe and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight. 
Rev. Henry Ward BeecherA bird in a cage is not half a bird. 
Rev. Henry Ward BeecherThe worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government. 
Rev. Henry Ward BeecherThe tidal wave of God's providence is carrying liberty throughout the globe. 
Rev. Henry Ward BeecherThere is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what the winds are to oceans...and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast. 
Lyman BeecherNo great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy. 
Paul BegalaStroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool. 
Clive BellOnly reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open. 
Bell v. HoodHistory is clear that the first ten amendments to the Constitution were adopted to secure certain common law rights of the people, against invasion by the Federal Government. 
Rev. Francis BellamyI pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands; one Nation, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all. 
Cardnial Robert BellarmineTo assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. 
Henry BellmonIn a recent conversation with an official at the Internal Revenue Service, I was amazed when he told me that 'If the taxpayers of this country ever discover that the IRS operates on 90% bluff the entire system will collapse' . 
Hilaire BellocThe control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself. 
Hilaire Belloc[Heresy is] the dislocation of a complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein. 
Hilaire BellocNever could an increase of comfort or security be a sufficient good to be bought at the price of liberty. 
Saul BellowOpen discussion of many major public questions has for some time now been taboo. We can’t open our mouths without being denounced as racists, misogynists, supremacists, imperialists or fascists. As for the media, they stand ready to trash anyone so designated. 
Max Victor BelzI don't want my children fed or clothed by the state, but if I had to choose, I would prefer that to their being educated by the state. 
Ernest BennPolitics is the art of looking for trouble,finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.  
Roy T. BennettPursue what catches your heart, not what catches your eyes. 
W. Lance BennettPerhaps the most obvious political effect of controlled news is the advantage it gives powerful people in getting their issues on the political agenda and defining those issues in ways likely to influence their resolution. 
Ezra Taft BensonIf America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers – normally good Americans, but Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free, Americans who have been lulled away into a false security. 
Ezra Taft BensonYou cannot do wrong and feel right. It is impossible! 
Jeremy BenthamNo power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion. 
Jeremy BenthamAs to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends. 
Jeremy BenthamAmong the several cloudy appellatives which have been commonly employed as cloaks for misgovernment, there is none more conspicuous in this atmosphere of illusion than the word Order. 
Jeremy BenthamAs to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, for it is impossible to tell where it ends. 
Bernard BerensonGovernments last as long as the undertaxed can defend themselves against the overtaxed. 
Raoul BergerUsurpation, the exercise of power not granted, is not legitimized by repetition. 
David BerglandThe average taxpayer in Germany or Japan pays less for the defense of his country than the average taxpayer in America pays for the defense of Germany or Japan. 
Henri-Louis BergsonThink like a man of action, act like a man of thought. 
Lavrentii Pavlovich BeriaGiven a short time with a psycho-politician you can alter forever the loyalty of a soldier in our hands or a statesman or a leader in his own country, or you can destroy his mind... (more) 
George BerkeleyHe who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave. 
Sir William BerkeleyI thank God, we have not free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years. For learning has brought disobedience, and heresy and sects into the world; and printing has divulged them and libels against the government. God keep us from both! 
Mark BerleyPolitical correctness is really a subjective list put together by the few to rule the many -- a list of things one must think, say, or do. It affronts the right of the individual to establish his or her own beliefs. 
Mark BerleyPurveyors of political correctness will, in the final analysis, not even allow others their judgments... They celebrate “difference,” but they will not allow people truly to be different -- to think differently, and to say what they think. 
Isaiah BerlinInjustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance -- these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible. 
Isaiah BerlinConformities are called for much more eagerly today than yesterday... skeptics, liberals, individuals with a taste for private life and their own inner standards of behavior, are objects of fear and derision and targets of persecution for either side... in the great ideological wars of our time. 
Isaiah BerlinThose who have ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be free to choose, and not to be chosen for, is an unalienable ingredient in what makes human beings human. 
Isaiah BerlinAll forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate. 
Isaiah BerlinThe first people totalitarians destroy or silence are men of ideas and free minds. 
Isaiah BerlinBut to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you – the social reformers – see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them. 
Georges BernanosJustice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice? Let us rather call it injustice, but of a sly effective order, based entirely on cruel knowledge of the resistance of the weak, their capacity for pain, humiliation and misery. 
Georges BernanosCivilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses. 
Georges BernanosThe first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means. 
Edward BernaysThe conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. 
Edward BernaysThe conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. 
Edward L. BernaysThe conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. 
Edward L. BernaysIn almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business or in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind. 
Edward L. BernaysIf we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.  
Edward L. BernaysThose who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. 
David K. BerninghausenIn order to get the truth, conflicting arguments and expression must be allowed. There can be no freedom without choice, no sound choice without knowledge. 
Andrew BernsteinFor the first time in history, the rational and the good are fully armed in the battle against evil. Here we finally find the answer to our paradox; now we can understand the nature of the social power held by evil. Ultimately, the evil, the irrational, truly has no power. The evil men’s control of morality is transient; it lives on borrowed time made possible only by the errors of the good. In time, as more honest men grasp the truth, evil’s stranglehold will be easily broken. 
Andrew BernsteinAltruism demands that an individual serve others, but doesn’t stipulate whether those others should be one’s family, or the homeless, or society as a whole. Collectivism states that, in politics, society comes first and the individual must obey.  Collectivism is the application of the altruist ethics to politics. 
Andrew BernsteinStatism – the subordination of the individual to the state --  leads inevitably to the most hideous oppression. 
Andrew BernsteinCollectivism is the political theory that states that the will of the people is omnipotent, an individual must obey; that society as a whole, not the individual, is the unit of moral value. ... Collectivism is the application of the altruist ethics to politics. 
Carl BernsteinI would not be fooled by the old myth that reporting is about objectivity. Deciding what is news is the most subjective of acts and it is probably the most important thing that we do. 


Daily Quotes
Ready to be inspired?
Sign up for a daily dose of Liberty Quotes!
Leave us your email address to subscribe.
Email:

Here's the Daily Quote history.

Quotes
Here's our full collection of famous quotations.

Categories
Browse quotes by category.

Authors
Browse quotes by Author or Speaker.








(c) Copyright 1999-2024