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

 
George Bernard ShawIt is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind. 
George Bernard ShawThe fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one. 
George Bernard ShawMy schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself. 
George Bernard ShawI also made it quite clear that Socialism means equality of income or nothing, and that under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well. 
George Bernard ShawDemocracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. 
George Bernard ShawWhether you think Jesus was God or not, you must admit he was a first-rate political economist. 
George Bernard ShawIt is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind. 
George Bernard ShawA life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. 
George Bernard ShawThe more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. 
George Bernard ShawA fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. 
Henry Wheeler ShawLiberty, like chastity, once lost, can never be regained in its original purity. 
Hartley ShawcrossThere comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience. 
Harry ShearerIf absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure? 
Percy Bysshe Shelley[A]nd obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men and of the human frame, A mechanized automaton. 
Percy Bysshe ShelleyThere is no real wealth but the labor of man. 
Percy Bysshe ShelleyTruth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind. 
Percy Bysshe ShelleyPower, like a desolating pestilence,\\ Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,\\ Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,\\ Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame,\\ A mechanized automaton. 
Morris SheppardThere is as much chance of repealing the 18th Amendment as there is for a humming-bird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail. 
Richard Brinsley SheridanGive them a corrupt House of Lords, give them a venal House of Commons, give they a tyrannical Prince, give them a truckling court, and let me have but an unfettered press. I will defy them to encroach a hair’s breadth upon the liberties of England. 
Alan ShermanA committee is a group of individuals who all put in a perfectly good color, and it comes out gray. 
John ShermanThe few who could understand the system will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favours, that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of the people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests. 
Roger ShermanThe Government made by a number of Sovereign States. 
Roger ShermanIf the president alone was vested with the power of appointing all officers, and was left to select a council for himself, he would be liable to be deceived by flatterers and pretenders to patriotism. 
Roger ShermanThe Executive should be able to repel and not to commence war. 
Roger ShermanThe Executive should be able to repel and not to commence war. 
William Tecumseh ShermanI hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast. 
William Tecumseh ShermanWar is cruelty, and you cannot refine it. 
William Tecumseh ShermanI am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell. 
William Tecumseh ShermanThere will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them. 
William Tecumseh ShermanI will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected. 
Leo ShestovHeretics were often most bitterly persecuted for their least deviation from accepted belief. It was precisely their obstinacy about trifles that irritated the righteous to madness. Why can they not yield on so trifling a matter? 
Nelson ShieldsOur ultimate goal -- total control of handguns in the United States -- is going to take time... The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced... The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of handguns and all handgun ammunition -- except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors -- totally illegal. 
Nelson ShieldsI'm convinced that we have to have federal legislation to build on. We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily -- given the political realities -- going to be very modest. Of course, it's true that politicians will then go home and say, 'This is a great law. The problem is solved.' And it's also true that such statements will tend to defuse the gun-control issue for a time. So then we'll have to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen that law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal -- total control of handguns in the United States -- is going to take time. My estimate is from seven to ten years. The problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get them all registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition -- except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors -- totally illegal. 
Nelson Turner Shields, IIIThe first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition ... totally illegal. 
Edward A. ShilsThe obsessive fear of secrets culminates in the denial of the right of private difference, which is the denial of the right of others to possess a sphere of privacy. 
Edward A. ShilsThe peculiar idea of moral infection in the consequence of association with individuals of indelible wickedness leads to the notion of “guilt by association.” 
Edward A. ShilsA free society can exist only when public spirit is balanced by an equal inclination of men to mind their own business. 
William L. ShirerTo combat socialism Bismarck put through between 1883 and 1889 a program for social security far beyond anything known in other countries. It included compulsory insurance for workers against old age, sickness, accident and incapacity, and though organized by the State it was financed by employers and employees. It cannot be said that it stopped the rise of the Social Democrats or the trade unions, but it did have a profound influence on the working class in that it gradually made them value security over political freedom and caused them to see in the State, however conservative, a benefactor and a protector. Hitler, as we shall see, took full advantage of this state of mind. In this, as in other matters, he learned much from Bismarck. “I studied Bismarck’s socialist legislation,” Hitler remarks in Mein Kampf (p. 155), “in its intention, struggle and success.”  
Solomon ShortTruth never tranquilizes. The defining property of truth is its ability to disturb. Jesus only told half the story. The truth 'will' set you free. But, first it's going to piss you off. 
Richard ShortwayThe cold, hard facts of magazine publishing mean that those who advertise get editorial coverage. 
General David M. ShoupI believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own -- and if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans. 
Laurence H. ShoupThe planning of UN can be traced to the “secret steering committee” established by Secretary [of State Cordell] Hull in January 1943. All of the members of this secret committee, with the exception of Hull, a Tennessee politician, were members of the Council on Foreign Relations. They saw Hull regularly to plan, select, and guide the labors of the [State] Department’s Advisory Committee. It was, in effect, the coordinating agency for all the State Department’s postwar planning. 
Laurence H. ShoupCouncil [Council on Foreign Relations] leaders believed that blueprints for a new world order were necessary and, furthermore, that this was exactly the kind of activity the Council had been created to undertake. 
George ShultzThe minute you start talking about what you're going to do if you lose, you have lost. 
Algernon SidneyThe only ends for which governments are constituted, and obedience rendered to them, are the obtaining of justice and protection; and they who cannot provide for both give the people a right of taking such ways as best please themselves, in order to their own safety. 
Algernon SidneyNay, all laws must fall, human societies that subsist by them be dissolved, and all innocent persons be exposed to the violence of the most wicked, if men might not justly defend themselves against injustice by their own natural right, when the ways prescribed by publick authority cannot be taken. 
Algernon Sidney[T]here is a difference between lions and asses; and he is a fool who knows not that swords were given to men, that none might be slaves, but such as know not how to use them. 
Algernon SidneyIf vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established. 
Eli SiegelWhen truth is divided, errors multiply. 
Johann SigurjonssonIf we were all to be judged by our thoughts, the hills would be swarming with outlaws. 
Igor SikorskyThe work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind forward. 
John SilberThe reduction of political discourse to sound bites is one of the worst things that’s happened in American political life. 
Ignazio SiloneLiberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying “No” to any authority -- literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political. 
Simmons v. U.S.We find it intolerable that one constitutional right should have to be surrendered in order to assert another. 
William Gilmore SimmsThe only rational liberty is that which is born of subjection, reared in the fear of God and the love of man. 
William Gilmore SimmsHe who would acquire fame must not show himself afraid of censure. The dread of censure is the death of genius. 
Julian SimonAll of us necessarily hold many casual opinions that are ludicrously wrong simply because life is far too short for us to think through even a small fraction of the topics that we come across. 
Julian SimonThe world's problem is not too many people, but lack of political and economic freedom. 
Julian SimonNot understanding the process of a spontaneously-ordered economy goes hand-in-hand with not understanding the creation of resources and wealth. 
Dr. Sidney Simon (False)We do not need any more preaching about right or wrong. The old 'thou shall nots' simply are not relevant... Values clarification is a method for teachers to change the values of children without getting caught. 
Alan Simpson... good people doing good things. But let me tell you, you'll never find it if you just follow the Washington media. You'll never know the good. All you get is controversy, crap and confusion. 
Alan K. SimpsonThere is no 'slippery slope' toward loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step down must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders. 
Homer SimpsonIt takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen. 
Richard E. Sincere, Jr.In a free society, standards of public morality can be measured only by whether physical coercion -- violence against persons or property -- occurs. There is no right not to be offended by words, actions or symbols. 
Malcolm SinclairOur whole monetary system is dishonest, as it is debt-based... We did not vote for it. It grew upon us gradually but markedly since 1971 when the commodity-based system was abandoned. 
Upton SinclairIt's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it. 
Isaac Bashevis SingerYou must believe in free will; there is no choice. 
Isaac Bashevis SingerWe know what a person thinks, not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions. 
New SisyphusThe New York Times, CBS and the BBC all had to fire lead personnel over the fact that they just damn well made stuff up out of whole cloth in service to an obviously partisan political agenda. 
Dame Edith SitwellI am not eccentric. It’s just that I’m more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish. 
B. F. SkinnerSociety attacks early when the individual is helpless. 
Jerome H. SkolnickWhether or not legislation is truly moral is often a question of who has the power to define morality. 
Mark SkousenToday’s political leaders demonstrate their low opinion of the public with every social law they pass. They believe that, if given the right to chose, the citizenry will probably make the wrong choice. Legislators do not think any more in terms of persuading people; they feel the need to force their agenda on the public at the point of a bayonet and the barrel of a gun, in the name of the IRS, the SEC, the FDA, the DEA, the EPA, or a multitude of other ABCs of government authority. 
Mark SkousenNo one spends someone else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. 
Mark SkousenIn a free society, individuals have the right to do right or wrong, as long as they don’t threaten or infringe upon the rights or property of others. 


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 1999-2025