Famous Quotes / Quotations about Liberty

Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty

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... we conclude that the [Federal] Reserve Banks are not federal ... but are independent privately owned and locally controlled corporations... without day to day direction from the federal government. -- 9th Circuit Court

No slaves shall keep any arms whatever, nor pass, unless with written orders from his master or employer, or in his company, with arms from one place to another. -- A Bill Concerning Slaves

Under every government the [last] resort of the people, is an appeal to the sword; whether to defend themselves against the open attacks of a foreign enemy, or to check the insidious encroachments of domestic foes. Whenever a people ... entrust the defence of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens. -- A Framer

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -- Edward Abbey

The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state controlled police and the military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy... If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government—and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws. -- Edward Abbey

The key to wisdom is this -- constant and frequent questioning ... for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth. -- Peter Abelard

The limitations imposed by democratic political practices makes it difficult to conduct our foreign affairs in the national interest. -- Dean Acheson

There is simply no escaping the fact that the fate of the Constitution is in our hands -- as voters, representatives, justices. If we allow ourselves to abuse the tradition of higher lawmaking, the very idea that the Constitution can be viewed as the culminating expression of a mobilized citizenry will disintegrate. After all, the American Republic is no more eternal than the Roman -- and it will come to an end when American citizens betray their Constitution’s fundamental ideals and aspirations so thoroughly that existing institutions merely parody the public meanings they formerly conveyed. -- Bruce Ackerman

There is simply no escaping the fact that the fate of the Constitution is in our hands -- as voters, representatives, justices. If we allow ourselves to abuse the tradition of higher lawmaking, the very idea that the Constitution can be viewed as the culminating expression of a mobilized citizenry will disintegrate. After all, the American Republic is no more eternal than the Roman -- and it will come to an end when American citizens betray their Constitution’s fundamental ideals and aspirations so thoroughly that existing institutions merely parody the public meanings they formerly conveyed -- Bruce Ackerman

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

Learn as much by writing as by reading. -- Lord Acton

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Lord Acton

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. -- Lord Acton

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.... -- Lord Acton

I cannot accept, your canon that we are to judge pope and king unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Lord Acton

Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being. -- Lord Acton

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities. -- Lord Acton

Government by idea tends to take in everything, to make the whole of society obedient to the idea. Spaces not so governed are unconquered, beyond the border, unconverted, a future danger. -- Lord Acton

Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. -- Lord Acton

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. -- Lord Acton

Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. -- Lord Acton

The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks. -- Lord Acton

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. -- Lord Acton

Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. -- Lord Acton

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime... -- Lord Acton

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. -- Lord Acton

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. -- Abigail Adams

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. -- Abigail Adams

I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life....Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe. -- Abigail Adams

Failure seems to be regarded as the one unpardonable crime, success as the all-redeeming virtue, the acquisition of wealth as the single worthy aim of life. Ten years ago such revelations as these of the Erie Railway would have sent a shudder through the community, and would have placed a stigma on every man who had had to do them. Now they merely incite others to surpass by yet bolder outrages and more corrupt combinations. -- Charles Francis Adams

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. -- Douglas Adams

The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. -- Douglas Adams

To err is human; to forgive, infrequent. -- Franklin P. Adams

When the political columnists say 'Every thinking man' they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to 'Every intelligent voter' they mean everybody who is going to vote for them. -- Franklin P. Adams

I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way. -- Franklin P. Adams

There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel. -- Franklin P. Adams

Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory. -- Franklin P. Adams

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts. -- Henry Brooks Adams

I would rather starve and rot and keep the privilege of speaking the truth as I see it, than of holding all the offices that capital has to give from the presidency down. -- Henry Brooks Adams

Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds. -- Henry Brooks Adams

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself. -- Henry Brooks Adams

The freedom now desired by many is not freedom to do and dare but freedom from care and worry. -- James Truslow Adams

You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments: rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the universe. -- John Adams

We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. -- John Adams

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation. -- John Adams

The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations ... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution. -- John Adams

Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty. -- John Adams

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more. -- John Adams

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have... a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers. -- John Adams

Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty. -- John Adams

The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole car-loads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity. -- John Adams

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. -- John Adams

The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain. -- John Adams

(Quotes on 'Republic') -- John Adams

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. -- John Adams

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. -- John Adams

Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. -- John Adams

Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice. -- John Adams

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. -- John Adams

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. -- John Adams

Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it. -- John Adams

There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state. -- John Adams

Society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases. -- John Adams

If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more or less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend. -- John Adams

All good government is and must be republican. But at the same time, you can or will agree with me, that there is not in lexicography a more fraudulent word... Are we not, my friend, in danger of rendering the word republican unpopular in this country by an indiscreet, indeterminate, and equivocal use of it? [...] Whenever I use the word republic with approbation, I mean a government in which the people have collectively, or by representation, an essential share in the sovereignty... the republican forms in Poland and Venice are much worse, and those of Holland and Bern very little better, than the monarchical form in France before the late revolution. -- John Adams

Were I to define the British constitution, therefore, I should say it is a limited monarchy, or a mixture of the three forms of government commonly known in the schools [monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical] ... And it is [the] reservation of fundamentals, of the right of giving instructions, and of new elections, which creates a popular check, upon the whole government which alone secures the constitution from becoming an aristocracy, or a mixture of monarchy and aristocracy only. -- John Adams

[I] never understood [what a republican government was and] I believe no other man ever did or ever will. -- John Adams

no good government but what is republican... the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.' -- John Adams

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. -- John Adams

Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good. -- John Adams

The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes. -- John Adams

Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell. -- John Adams

-- John Adams

We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated. Adieu. -- John Adams

-- John Adams

A native American who cannot read or write is as rare an appearance...as a comet or an earthquake. -- John Adams

It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives. -- John Adams

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. -- John Adams

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. -- John Adams

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. -- John Adams

We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. -- John Adams

When I went home to my family in May, 1770, from the town meeting in Boston, which was the first I had ever attended, and where I had been chosen in my absence, without any solicitation, one of their representatives, I said to my wife, "I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare your mind for your fate." She burst into tears, but instantly cried out in a transport of magnanimity, "Well, I am willing in this cause to run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, if you are ruined." These were times, my friend, in Boston, which tried women's souls as well as men's. -- John Adams

Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil. -- John Adams

Let us disappoint the Men who are raising themselves upon the ruin of this Country. -- John Adams

If a majority are capable of preferring their own private interest, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that of the nation collectively, some provision must be made in the constitution, in favor of justice, to compel all to respect the common right, the public good, the universal law, in preference to all private and partial considerations... And that the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of history... To remedy the dangers attendant upon the arbitrary use of power, checks, however multiplied, will scarcely avail without an explicit admission some limitation of the right of the majority to excercise sovereign authority over the individual citizen... In popular governments [democracies], minorities [individuals] constantly run much greater risk of suffering from arbitrary power than in absolute monarchies... -- John Adams

I answered that the die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon. Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country was my unalterable determination. -- John Adams

Were I to define the British constitution, therefore, I should say, it is a limited monarchy, or a mixture of the three forms of government commonly known in the schools, reserving as much of the monarchical splendor, the aristocratical independency, and the democratical freedom, as are necessary that each of these powers may have a control, both in legislation and execution, over the other two, for the preservation of the subject's liberty. -- John Adams

Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark"... If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference? -- John Adams

Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil. -- John Adams

The nature of the encroachment upon American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer; it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity and frugality become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole of society. -- John Adams

Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defence of the country, the over-throw of tyranny, or in private self-defense. -- John Adams

Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps, I could not surrender if I would. Nor is there anything in the common law of England ... inconsistent with that right. -- John Adams

Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark"... If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference? -- John Adams

[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few. -- John Adams

The truth is that neither then nor at any former time, since I had attained my maturity in Age, Reading and reflection had I imbibed any general Prejudice against Kings, or in favour of them. It appeared to me then as it has done ever since, that there is a State of Society in which a Republican Government is the best, and in America the only one... -- John Adams

We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest. -- John Adams

Elections, especially of representatives and counselors, should be annual, there not being in the whole circle of the sciences a maxim more infallible than this, “where annual elections end, there slavery begins.” These great men ... should be (chosen) once a year -- Like bubbles on the sea of matter bourne, they rise, they break, and to the sea return. This will teach them the great political virtues of humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey. -- John Adams

Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps, I could not surrender if I would. Nor is there anything in the common law of England inconsistent with that right. -- John Adams

Major Greene this evening fell into some conversation with me about the Divinity and satisfaction of Jesus Christ. All the argument he advanced was, "that a mere creature or finite being could not make satisfaction to infinite justice for any crimes," and that "these things are very mysterious." Thus mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity. -- John Adams

Spent an hour in the beginning of the evening at Major Gardiner's, where it was thought that the design of Christianity was not to make men good riddle-solvers, or good mystery-mongers, but good men, good magistrates, and good subjects, good husbands and good wives, good parents and good children, good masters and good servants. The following questions may be answered some time or other, namely, — Where do we find a precept in the Gospel requiring Ecclesiastical Synods? Convocations? Councils? Decrees? Creeds? Confessions? Oaths? Subscriptions? and whole cart-loads of other trumpery that we find religion incumbered with in these days? -- John Adams

-- John Adams

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected, in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. -- John Quincy Adams

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. -- John Quincy Adams

Law logic -- an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else. -- John Quincy Adams

Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation. -- John Quincy Adams

Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom. -- John Quincy Adams

[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. -- John Quincy Adams

All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals. -- John Quincy Adams

The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy. -- John Quincy Adams

Always stand on principle, even if you stand alone. -- John Quincy Adams

But the indissoluble link of union between the people of the several States of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the RIGHT, but in the HEART. If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it !) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other, when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bonds of political association - will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies ; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship with each other than to be held together by constraint. Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect Union, by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the center. -- John Quincy Adams

Posterity -- you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. -- John Quincy Adams

Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this: The communist seeing the rich man and his fine home says, “No man should have so much.” The capitalist seeing the same thing says, “All men should have as much.” -- Phelps Adams

If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave. -- Samuel Adams

The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. -- Samuel Adams

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. -- Samuel Adams

A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security. -- Samuel Adams

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. -- Samuel Adams

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. -- Samuel Adams

He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man...The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people. -- Samuel Adams

And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions. -- Samuel Adams

All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should. -- Samuel Adams

Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum. -- Samuel Adams

It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions. -- Samuel Adams

How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words! -- Samuel Adams

If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin. -- Samuel Adams

Were the talents and virtues which heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? Or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose and law, that they should as nearly as possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of Providence be equally enjoyed by all? -- Samuel Adams

No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders. -- Samuel Adams

Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble and expense at the price of their own posterity's liberty! -- Samuel Adams

How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words! -- Samuel Adams

Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom," it is a very serious consideration ... that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event. -- Samuel Adams

If our Trade be taxed, why not our Lands, or Produce in short, everything we possess? They tax us without having legal representation. -- Samuel Adams

A standing army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the liberties of the people. Such power should be watched with a jealous eye. -- Samuel Adams

It is always dangerous to the liberties of the people to have an army stationed among them, over which they have no control ... The Militia is composed of free Citizens. There is therefore no danger of their making use of their Power to the destruction of their own Rights, or suffering others to invade them. -- Samuel Adams

A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty Is worth a whole eternity in bondage. -- Joseph Addison

A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous. -- Alfred Adler

Dogma is the convictions of one man imposed authoritatively upon others. -- Felix Adler

Through the rapid proliferation of laws reaching every corner of human existence, “the government is manufacturing more criminals now than ever before.” The list of illegal activities includes more minutiae than one would think possible. Beer-makers are barred from listing alcohol content on bottles, and liquor distilleries cannot advertise on TV. Filling one’s own prairie pothole can land a property owner in jail, as can protecting private property from unlawful intruders. Placing handbills in neighbors’ mailboxes is strictly prohibited, and attempting to sell nectarines of an improper size is a federal offense. Companies are no longer allowed to give salaried professionals partial days off without pay, and in Texas it is a crime to call oneself an interior designer without the government’s permission. It is perhaps easier to recount all that remains legal than all that is now prohibited. -- Jonathan H. Adler

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men. -- Mortimer Adler

Do you think someone who is about to rape you is going to stop and think about a condom? -- Eli Adorno

Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny. -- Aeschylus

Time as he grows old teaches all things. -- Aeschylus

Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might. -- Aeschylus

Words are the physicians of the mind diseased. -- Aeschylus

Only when man's life comes to its end in prosperity can one call that man happy. -- Aeschylus

I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope -- Aeschylus

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered. -- Aeschylus

For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends. -- Aeschylus

I would far rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil. -- Aeschylus

Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth. -- Aesop

Vices are their own punishment. -- Aesop

It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow. -- Aesop

The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction. -- Aesop

The smaller the mind the greater the conceit. -- Aesop

The gods help them that help themselves. -- Aesop

Any excuse will serve a tyrant. -- Aesop

Familiarity breeds contempt. -- Aesop

Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything. -- Aesop

Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties. -- Aesop

Do not count your chickens before they are hatched. -- Aesop

Self-conceit may lead to self-destruction. -- Aesop

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. -- Aesop

While I see many hoof marks going in, I see none coming out. It is easier to get into the enemy's toils than out again. -- Aesop

Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own. -- Aesop

Union gives strength. -- Aesop

I will have nought to do with a man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath. -- Aesop

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. -- Aesop

A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety. -- Aesop

Appearances often are deceiving. -- Aesop

Slow and steady wins the race. -- Aesop

We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified. -- Aesop

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. -- Aesop

People often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves. -- Aesop

Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find - nothing. -- Aesop

-- Aesop

Better to starve free than be a fat slave. -- Aesop

I bid him look into the lives of men as though into a mirror, and from others to take an example for himself. -- Publius Terentius Afer

In fact, nothing is said that has not been said before. -- Publius Terentius Afer

Charity begins at home. -- Publius Terentius Afer

Moderation in all things. -- Publius Terentius Afer

Fortune helps the brave. -- Publius Terentius Afer

I have everything, yet have nothing; and although I possess nothing, still of nothing am I in want. -- Publius Terentius Afer

Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet. -- African Proverb

Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped. -- African Proverb

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. -- Herbert Sebastien Agar

The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands. -- Spiro Agnew

Every time I criticize what I consider to be excesses or faults in the news business, I am accused of repression, and the leaders of various media professional groups wave the First Amendment as they denounce me. That happens to be my amendment, too. It guarantees my free speech as it does their freedom of the press… There is room for all of us – and for our divergent views – under the First Amendment. -- Spiro Agnew

If you've seen one city slum, you've seen them all. -- Spiro Agnew

From a “pragmatic” point of view, political philosophy is a monster, and whenever it has been taken seriously, the consequence, almost invariably, has been revolution, war, and eventually, the police state. -- Henry David Aiken

That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression. -- Alabama, Declaration of Rights Article I Section 35

Flowers don't open to the clock but to the sunshine spontaneous;for modern humans that manner of instinct is now extraneous. -- Astrid Alauda

People have become as processed as food. -- Astrid Alauda

The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks. -- Thomas Bailey Aldrich

We now have so many regulations that everyone is guilty of some violation. -- Donald Alexander

Chief among the spoils of victory is the privilege of writing the history. -- Mark Alexander

It is precisely this clinging to victimhood as a means of demonstrating one’s virtue and advancing one’s well-being that has led us into a society in which welfare and quotas are “civil rights,” government handouts are “entitlements,” and payment to girls having babies out of wedlock are “compassionate,” while hard-working, ambitious people are “greedy,” punishment of crime is “oppression,” and an independent thinker who stands for courage and self-reliance is dismissed as an “Uncle Tom.” -- J. Tucker Alford

It is precisely this clinging to victimhood as a means of demonstrating one’s virtue and advancing one’s well-being that has led us into a society in which welfare and quotas are “civil rights,” government handouts are “entitlements,” and payment to girls having babies out of wedlock are “compassionate,” while hard-working, ambitious people are “greedy,” punishment of crime is “oppression,” and an independent thinker who stands for courage and self-reliance is dismissed as an “Uncle Tom.” -- J. Tucker Alford

The man who has no imagination has no wings. -- Mohammed Ali

The man who views the world at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life. -- Mohammed Ali

For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act? -- Dante Alighieri

Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds. -- Dante Alighieri

Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips, but few in their mind. -- Dante Alighieri

A free and open society is an ongoing conflict, interrupted periodically by compromises. -- Saul Alinsky

Liberty cannot be caged into a charter or handed on ready-made to the next generation. Each generation must recreate liberty for its own times. Whether or not we establish freedom rests with ourselves. -- Florence Ellinwood Allen

We believe the picture painters of the mass media are artfully creating landscapes for us which deliberately hide the real picture. In this book we will show you how to discover the "hidden picture" in the landscapes presented to us daily through newspapers, radio and television. -- Gary Allen

After the insiders have established the United Socialist States of America (in fact if not in name), the next step is the Great Merger of all nations of the world into a dictatorial world government. … The Insiders’ code word for the world superstate is “new world order,” a phrase often used by Richard Nixon. The Council on Foreign Relations states in its Study No. 7: “The U.S. must strive to: A. BUILD A NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER.” … A world government has always been the object of the Communists. -- Gary Allen

Our life is what our thoughts make it. A man will find that as he alters his thoughts toward things and other people, things and others will alter towards him. -- James Allen

The burning of an author’s books, imprisonment for opinion’s sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time. -- Joseph Allen

Congress is continually appointing fact-finding committees, when what we really need are some fact-facing committees. -- Roger Allen

We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice. -- Woody Allen

If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank. -- Woody Allen

The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep. -- Woody Allen

I call the mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master [and] receives new truth as an angel from Heaven. -- Woody Allen

The artist, viewing his fellows through his personal vision, has through the ages attempted to portray what he sees and to present his understanding of it. Censorship in his case has perpetrated heavy and sometimes reprehensible blunders. -- Hollis Alpert

History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse. -- Eric Alterman

Freedom of thought and freedom of speech in our great institutions are absolutely necessary for the preservation of our country. The moment either is restricted, liberty begins to wither and die... -- John Peter Altgeld

I’ve always felt that a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic. -- Lisa Alther

The ultimate right to keep and bear arms belongs to “the people,” not the “states.” As the language of the Tenth Amendment shows, these two are of course not identical and when the Constitution means “states” it says so. Thus, ... “the people” at the core of the Second Amendment are the same “people” at the heart of the Preamble and the First Amendment, namely Citizens.... Nowadays, it is quite common to speak loosely of the National Guard as “the state militia,” but ... the “militia” is identical to “the people” in the core sense described above. -- Akhil Reed Amar

It is the duty of the officials to prevent or suppress the threatened disorder with a firm hand instead of timidly yielding to threats…. Surely a speaker ought not to be suppressed because his opponents propose to use violence. It is they who should suffer from their lawlessness, not he. -- American Bar Association

I shall not counsel or maintain any suit or proceeding which shall appear to me to be unjust, nor any defense except such as I believe to be honestly debatable under the law of the land. -- American Bar Association

Liberty is always unfinished business. -- American Civil Liberties Union

There are many Americans who fear for their lives. They know that at some point, they will have to protect themselves, their own families, and their own property. Should these people be disarmed? No, we don’t need to disarm our loyal citizens, our friends, and our neighbors. -- American Federation of Police

The International government of the United Nations, stripped of its legal trimming, then, is really the International Government of the United States and the Soviet Union acting in unison. -- American Jewish Committee’s Magazine

Daniel Webster, James Otis, and Sir Edward Coke all pointed out that the mere fact of enactment does not and cannot raise mere statutes to the standing of law. Not everything can be considered the Law of the Land. -- American Jurisprudence (Second)

No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law, and no courts are bound to enforce it. -- American Jurisprudence, 2nd Edition

We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture. -- American Library Association

Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access of all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored. -- American Library Association

The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack… These actions apparently arise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. -- American Library Association

Why is Intellectual Freedom Important? Intellectual freedom is the basis of our democratic system. We expect our people to be self-governors. But to do so responsibly, our citizenry must be well informed. Libraries provide the ideas and information, in a variety of formats, to allow people to inform themselves. -- American Library Association

We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. -- American Library Association

The invisible Money Power is working to control and enslave mankind. It financed Communism, Fascism, Marxism, Zionism and Socialism. All of these are directed to making the United States a member of World Government. -- American Mercury Magazine

[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country. -- Fisher Ames

Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism. -- Fisher Ames

Mr. Madison has introduced his long expected amendments... The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people. -- Fisher Ames

Liberty, equality -- bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble is protection and kindness. -- Henri-Frédéric Amiel

The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms. -- Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Philosophy means the complete liberty of the mind, and therefore independence of all social, political or religious prejudice... It loves one thing only... truth. -- Henri Frederic Amiel

The test of every religious, political, or educational system, is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious. If it injures the conscience it is criminal. -- Henri Frederic Amiel

Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means to push back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty. -- Henri Frederic Amiel

The USA was founded in the name of democracy, equality and individual freedom, but is failing to deliver the fundamental promise of protecting rights for all. -- Amnesty International

If the legislature clearly misinterprets a Constitutional provision, the frequent repetition of the wrong will not create a right. -- Amos v. Mosley

Early in 1979, I and several other young nurses from my ward were summoned to a mass meeting. All sixty-odd of us were young married women who had not yet been sterilized. Secretary Wang arrived and took up a position in front of the assembly. His round little face, normally the picture of conviviality, was set in an expression of the utmost gravity. 'Today we have a matter of extreme urgency,' he began, 'a toudeng dashi, to discuss. It concerns the population of the motherland. The People's Republic of China has within its borders nearly a billion people, or one-fifth of the world's population. This is a big burden for the people's government. ... Having children is not a question that we can afford to let each family, each household, decide for itself. ... It is a question that should be decided at the national level. China is a socialist country. This means that the interests of the individual must be subordinated to the interests of the state. Where there is conflict between the interests of the state in reducing population and the interests of the individual in having children, it must be resolved in favor of the state.' -- Chi An

Indeed, the U.N. is the main Soviet espionage center in this country. -- Jack Anderson

I'm not apologising, I'm saying I'm sorry, which is quite different. -- Jessica Anderson

Paradise is just like where you are right now, only much better. -- Laurie Anderson

When a government takes over a people’s economic life it becomes absolute, and when it has become absolute it destroys the arts, the minds, the liberties and the meaning of the people it governs. -- Maxwell Anderson

The Original Sin which brought us to the brink of bankruptcy and dictatorship was the Federal Income Tax Amendment and its illegitimate child, Federal Aid. -- Tom Anderson

Our lives improve only when we take chances -- and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. -- Walter Truett Anderson

The intellectually stifling results of censorship -- while deplorable in any setting -- would be all the more abominable if allowed to exist within the college environment. -- William M. Anderson, Jr.

I don't like the income tax. Every time we talk about these taxes we get around to the idea of 'from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs'. That's socialism. It's written into the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him. -- T. Coleman Andrews

The one who throws the stone forgets; the one who is hit remembers forever. -- Angolan Proverb

The modern Banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banks can in fact inflate, mint and unmint the modern ledger-entry currency. -- Major L. L. B. Angus

The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don’t adjust! Revolt against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz

All and everybody, this is my claim, fifty feet on the gulch, cordin to Clear Creek District Law, backed up by shotgun amendments. -- Anonymous Gold Miner

There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others. -- Harry J. Anslinger

Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death. -- Harry J. Anslinger

Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men. -- Harry J. Anslinger

You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother. -- Harry J. Anslinger

...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races. -- Harry J. Anslinger

Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing. -- Harry J. Anslinger

Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind. -- Harry J. Anslinger

I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand. -- Susan B. Anthony

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. -- Susan B. Anthony

Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less. -- Susan B. Anthony

A man should be upright, not be kept upright. -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect. -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them. -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer. -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Change your thoughts and you change your world. -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them. -- Saint Thomas Aquinas

Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do. -- Saint Thomas Aquinas

The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing. -- Saint Thomas Aquinas

In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign.... Secondly, a just cause.... Thirdly ... a rightful intention. -- Saint Thomas Aquinas

If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship he would keep it in port forever. -- Thomas Aquinas

Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you. -- Yassir Arafat

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. -- Gaius Petronius Arbiter (False)

The first step to truly living a good and fearless life, is accepting responsibility for your actions. Accepting what part you had in any situation. Difficult, to say the least, but liberating. -- Jann Arden

No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny. -- Hannah Arendt

Thus far of the leadership of the National Council of Churches of Christ in America, we have found over 100 persons in leadership capacity with either communist-front records or records of service to communist causes. The aggregate affiliations of the leadership, instead of being in the hundreds as first indicated, is now, according to the latest count, into the thousands, and we have yet to complete our check, which would certainly suggest, on the basis of authoritative sources of this committee, that the statement that there is infiltration of fellow travelers in churches and educational institutions is a complete understatement. -- Richard Arens

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner. -- Aristophanes

Under every stone lurks a politician. -- Aristophanes

The wise learn many things from their enemies. -- Aristophanes

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god. -- Aristotle

To the size of the state there is a limit, as there is to plants, animals and implements, for none of these retain their facility when they are too large. -- Aristotle

Dignity does not come in possessing honors, but in deserving them. -- Aristotle

Man is by nature a political animal. -- Aristotle

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. -- Aristotle

The basis of a democratic state is liberty. -- Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. -- Aristotle

A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments. -- Aristotle

Education is the best provision for old age. -- Aristotle

Men regard it as their right to return evil for evil -- and if they cannot, feel they have lost their liberty. -- Aristotle

The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice. -- Aristotle

It makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man, or a bad man defrauded a good man, or whether a good or bad man has committed adultery: the law can look only to the amount of damage done. -- Aristotle

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. -- Aristotle

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. -- Aristotle

It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle

Democracy arose from men thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal in all respects -- Aristotle

The three aims of the tyrant are, one, the humiliation of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody; two, the creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not to be overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another -- and this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good; they are under the idea that their power is endangered by them, not only because they will not be ruled despotically, but also because they are too loyal to one another and to other men, and do not inform against one another or against other men -- three, the tyrant desires that all his subjects shall be incapable of action, for no one attempts what is impossible and they will not attempt to overthrow a tyranny if they are powerless. -- Aristotle

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. -- Aristotle

It is the greatest inequality to try to make unequal things equal. -- Aristotle

Both Oligarch and Tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms. -- Aristotle

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. -- Aristotle

What is common to many is least taken care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than what they possess in common with others. -- Aristotle

What then, is he protected in the right to keep and thus use? Not every thing that may be useful for offense or defense, but what may properly be included or understood under the title of “arms,” taken in connection with the fact that the citizen is to keep them, as a citizen. Such, then as are found to make up the usual arms of the citizen of the country, and the use of which will properly train and render him efficient in defense of his own liberties, as well as of the State. Under this head, with a knowledge of the habits of our people, and of the arms in the use of which a soldier should be trained, we hold that the rifle, of all descriptions, the shot gun, the musket and repeater, are such arms, and that, under the Constitution, the right to keep such arms cannot be infringed or forbidden by the legislature. -- Arkansas Supreme Court

Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision. -- Dick Armey

The people themselves, not their government, should be trusted with spending their own money and making their own decisions. -- Richard Armey

[T]he tax code has been piling up, year after year, a symbol of everything gone wrong in America, of arrogant rulers and lost freedom, just waiting for us to pick the whole thing up and heave it away. It has to happen. Free people can put up with such laws only for so long. -- Richard Armey

Government is saying to the average citizen every January 1: 'For the next five months you’ll be working for us, for goals we shall determine. Is that clear? After May 5 you may look after your own needs and ambitions, but report back to us next January. Now move along.' ... If nearly half of what you make is spent by someone else, that means that half your work time is spent working for someone else. Call me a radical, but I think that comes dangerously close to being a form of indentured servitude. -- Richard Armey

...[W]e insist on the principle that no danger or crisis, foreign or domestic, will be solved by Americans surrendering more of their constitutional liberties, in the foolish hope that a bigger government will provide greater security. -- Larry P. Arnn

But each day brings its petty dust Our soon-chok'd souls to fill, And we forget because we must, And not because we will. -- Matthew Arnold

The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next. -- Matthew Arnold

Believe me, it is not failing to speak out with promptitude and energy that is the matter with you; it is having nothing consistent or valuable to say. -- Matthew Arnold

[The US has] developed two coordinate governing classes: the one, called ‘business,' building cities, manufacturing and distributing goods, and holding complete and autocratic power over the livelihood of millions; the other, called ‘government,' concerned with preaching and exemplification of spiritual ideals, so caught in a mass of theory, that when it wished to move in a practical world it had to do so by means of a sub rosa political machine. -- Thurman Arnold

It is a part of the function of “law” to give recognition to ideas representing the exact opposite of established conduct. Most of the complications arise from the necessity of pretending to do one thing, while actually doing another. -- Thurman Arnold

The spectacle of a judge pouring over the picture of some nude, trying to ascertain the extent to which she arouses prurient interests, and then attempting to write an opinion which explains the difference between that nude and some other nude has elements of low comedy. -- Thurman Arnold

Why is it that millions of children who are pushouts or dropouts amount to business as usual in the public schools, while one family educating a child at home becomes a major threat to universal public education and the survival of democracy? -- Stephen Arons

To those who scare peace loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies and pause to America’s friends. -- John Ashcroft

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. -- Isaac Asimov

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. -- Isaac Asimov

Politically popular speech has always been protected: even the Jews were free to say ‘Heil Hitler.’ -- Isaac Asimov

What a pity, when Christopher Columbus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it. -- Margot Asquith

"Parent choice'' proceeds from the belief that the purpose of education is to provide individual students with an education. In fact, educating the individual is but a means to the true end of education, which is to create a viable social order to which individuals contribute and by which they are sustained. "Family choice'' is, therefore, basically selfish and anti-social in that it focuses on the "wants'' of a single family rather than the "needs'' of society. -- Association of California School Administrators

The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching. -- Assyrian Tablet

Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent. -- Nancy Astor

Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. -- Clement Atlee

The use of “religion” as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time. -- Margaret Atwood

Political history is far too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villains from fiction. -- W. H. Auden

Liberty is from God; liberties, from the devil. -- Berthold Auerbach

Give me chastity and self-restraint, but do not give it yet. -- Saint Augustine

Near our vineyard there was a pear tree laden with fruit that was not attractive in either flavor or form. One night, when I [at the age of sixteen] had played until dark on the sandlot with some other juvenile delinquents, we went to shake that tree and carry off its fruit. From it we carried off huge loads, not to feast on, but to throw to the pigs, although we did eat a few ourselves. We did it just because it was forbidden. -- Saint Augustine

Put no faith in salvation through the political order. -- Augustine of Hippo

I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. -- Caesar Augustus

The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution in spirit, the forces which had produced inequities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance, and fear. -- Aung San Suu Kyi

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius

Once the government becomes the supplier of people's needs, there is no limit to the needs that will be claimed as a basic right. -- Lawrence Auster

Let me point this out now. Your income tax is 100 percent voluntary tax, and your liquor tax is 100 percent enforced tax. Now, the situation is as different as night and day. Consequently, your same rules just will not apply... -- Dwight E. Avis

The only path to the final defeat of imperialism and the building of socialism is revolutionary war. -- Bill Ayers

The whole subject of civilians carrying guns for self defense is discussed too much in the wrong places -- ACLU cocktail parties, gun club gatherings -- all placid atmospheres far removed from the terrifying reality of violent confrontation with the lawless. It should be discussed in prisons, where professional criminals are remarkably candid about their avoidance of armed citizens who can fight back. It should be discussed in rape crises centers. Ask a woman who has been raped, whether she ever wished she had a gun when it happened ... and whether she had bought one since. Her reply is likely to be “yes” to at least the first, and often to both. Talk to the bereaved who lost their loved ones to the streets. Talk to those who have been violated in their homes. Ask them how they feel about passive non-resistance. And when you have attuned yourself to the haunting fear that lives with them forever after their nightmare, you will be ready to talk with someone else who was in their place, but survived unscathed because they were armed. The contrast will be striking. These survivors don’t put notches on their pistols, and they don’t brag about what they had to do... The taking of a human life, no matter what the circumstances, is an unnatural act, an emotionally shattering experience that leaves its own scars forever. But none of those people regret what they did, and to a man, their first reaction was to go home to their wife and children and hug them, tightly and wordlessly. -- Massad Ayoob

There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go. -- Richard Bach

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts. -- Richard Bach

Men prefer to believe what they prefer to be true. -- Francis Bacon

So when any of the four pillars of government, are mainly shaken, or weakened (which are religion, justice, counsel, and treasure), men had need to pray for fair weather. -- Francis Bacon

...for that nothing doth more hurt in a state, than that cunning men pass for wise. -- Francis Bacon

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. -- Francis Bacon

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. -- Francis Bacon

Knowledge is power. -- Sir Francis Bacon

It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty, or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self. -- Sir Francis Bacon

Knowledge and human power are synonymous. -- Sir Francis Bacon

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they see nothing but sea. -- Sir Francis Bacon

For whatever deserves to exist deserves also to be known, for knowledge is the image of existence, and things mean and splendid exist alike. -- Sir Francis Bacon

A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out. -- Sir Francis Bacon

One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say: That laws were like cobwebs, where the small flies are caught and the great break through. -- Sir Francis Bacon

Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man’s knowledge. -- Sir Francis Bacon

The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies. -- Sir Francis Bacon

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is. -- Sir Francis Bacon

If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him. -- Sir Francis Bacon

A just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war. -- Sir Francis Bacon

There are in fact four very significant stumblingblocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge. -- Roger Bacon

How bad do things have to get before you do something? Do they have to take away all your property? Do they have to license every activity that you want to engage in? Do they have to start throwing you on cattle cars before you say “now wait a minute, I don’t think this is a good idea.” How long is it going to be before you finally resist and say “No, I will not comply. Period!” Ask yourself now because sooner or later you are going to come to that line, and when they cross it, you’re going to say well now cross this line; ok now cross that line; ok now cross this line. Pretty soon you’re in a corner. Sooner or later you’ve got to stand your ground whether anybody else does or not. That is what liberty is all about. -- Michael Badnarik

If I give you a forty five percent chance at lethal injection, a fifty percent chance at the electric chair, and a five percent chance for escape which are you going to vote for? The electric chair, because you're likely to win? -- Michael Badnarik

Allow me to dispel a myth. People in the Middle East do not hate us for our freedom. They do not hate us for our lifestyle. They hate us because we have spent many years attempting to force them to emulate our lifestyle. The US government overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran and replaced him with the Shah. The US government gave weapons, intelligence and money to Saddam Hussein. The US government also helped Libyan Col. Qaddafi come to power, propped up the Saudi monarchy and the Egyptian regime, and gave assistance to Osama bin Laden. Most Americans have forgotten these events. But the people of the Middle East will always remember. It was because of American troops in Saudi Arabia, lethal sanctions on Iraq, support for states in serious violation of International Law, and siding with Israel in its dispute with the Palestinians that terrorist leaders were able to recruit those individuals who caused 3,000 Americans to pay the ultimate price on September 11, 2001. -- Michael Badnarik

I have the right to do whatever I wish with my property. If I own a pile of wood, I can set fire to it even if it is currently nailed together in the shape of a barn. Cigarettes may not be healthy for me in the long run, but I have the freedom to smoke them anyway. Drinking alcohol may or may not have negative side effects, but even if it does, the government has no authority to prohibit you from consuming it, even if it is "in your own best interest." Since when do we let the government decide what is or isn't good for us? What the hell does Congress know about nutrition, anyway? (For that matter, what does Congress know about the Constitution?) If the government can use force whenever something is "in our best interest" then government should force everyone to wake up at 6am every morning for calisthenics in the front yard. Fast food establishments should be torn down and replaced with bars that serve carrot juice and alfalfa sprouts, since - "it's in your best interest." This paternalistic attitude that "the government knows best" and that you are merely a helpless child is insulting and reprehensible. Hitler used the same attitude to persuade the Germans to subjugate themselves to the "Fatherland." -- Michael Badnarik

Letting a maximum number of views be heard regularly is not just a nice philosophical notion. It is the best way any society has yet discovered to detect maladjustments quickly, to correct injustices, and to discover new ways to meet our continuing stream of novel problems that rise in a changing environment. -- Ben H. Bagdikian

In the US, voters cast ballots for individual candidates who are not bound to any party program except rhetorically, and not always then. Some Republicans are more liberal than some Democrats, some libertarians are more radical than some socialists, and many local candidates run without any party identification. No American citizen can vote intelligently without knowledge of the ideas, political background, and commitments of each individual candidate. -- Ben H. Bagdikian

So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience tells them it is wrong. -- Walter Bagehot

A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness. -- Walter Bagehot

Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt. -- Walter Bagehot

The freedom to share one’s insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes. -- Carl Friedrich Bahrdt

Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn't even get out of committee. -- F. Lee Bailey

The freedom allowed in the United States to all sorts of inquiry and discussion necessarily leads to a diversity of opinion, which is seen not only in there being different denominations, but different opinions also in the same denomination. -- Robert Baird

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. -- Russell Baker

Intellectual slavery, of whatever nature it may be, will always have as a natural result both political and social slavery. -- Mikhail A. Bakunin

The right to unite freely and to separate freely is the first and most important of all political rights. -- Mikhail A. Bakunin

Liberty means that a man is recognized as free and treated as free by those who surround him. -- Mikhail A. Bakunin

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it. -- Mikhail A. Bakunin

The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. -- James Baldwin

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. -- James Baldwin

Freedom is not something that can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be. -- James Baldwin

The power of authority is never more subtle and effective than when it produces a psychological “atmosphere” or “climate” favorable to the life of certain modes of belief, unfavorable, and even fatal, to the life of others. -- Arthur Balfour

Weary the path that does not challenge. Doubt is an incentive to truth and patient inquiry leadeth the way. -- Hosea Ballou

The oppression of any people for opinion’s sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important. -- Hosea Ballou

Madison, agreeing with the journal of the convention, records that the grant of power to emit bills of credit was refused by a majority of more than four to one. The evidence is perfect; no power to emit paper money was granted to the legislature of the United States. -- George Bancroft

[E]conomic liberty and creative entrepreneurship are the basis of any solution to today’s social and economic difficulties. Blaming business, setting wages, and attempting to run the economy by decree from Washington only exacerbates the problems. Consider the minimum wage. It seems so simple: Tell business to pay its workers more. But a hike in the minimum wage is essentially a tax, punishing precisely those companies that hire workers with the least skills. -- Doug Bandow

[R]eal charity doesn’t mean giving away someone else’s money. -- Doug Bandow

The history of the welfare state is the history of public enterprise pushing out private organization. The impact was largely unintentional, but natural and inevitable. Higher taxes left individuals with less money to give; government’s assumption of responsibility for providing welfare shriveled the perceived duty of individuals to respond to their neighbors’ needs; and the availability of public programs gave recipients an alternative to private assistance, one which did not challenge recipients to reform their destructive behavior. -- Doug Bandow

Gun control has proved to be a grievous failure, a means of disarming honest citizens without limiting firepower available to those who prey on the law-abiding. Attempting to use the legal system to punish the weapon rather than the person misusing the weapon is similarly doomed to fail. -- Doug Bandow

Being paid by the government to shelve books in a library, whether as an employee or as an Americorps member, is no more laudable or valuable than being paid by Crown Books to stock bookshelves in a bookstore. A host of private-sector jobs provide enormous public benefits—consider health care professionals, medical and scientific researchers, entrepreneurs, inventors, and artists. Many of these people earn less than they could in alternative work; they have chosen to serve in their own way. Yet government programs that equate public employment with service to society effectively denigrate service through private employment. -- Doug Bandow

The Internal Revenue Service is everything the so-called tax protesters said it was; nonresponsive, unable to withstand scrutiny, tyrannical, and oblivious to the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. -- Joseph Banister

Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it. -- Tallulah Bankhead

Cocaine habit forming? Of course not. I ought to know, I've been using it for years. -- Tallulah Bankhead

I'm a foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, "I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right." -- Tallulah Bankhead

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom. -- Imamu Amiri Baraka

Freedom all solace to man gives: He lives at ease that freely lives. -- John Barbour

Self-defense is a part of the law of nature; nor can it be denied the community, even against the king himself. -- William Barclay

The tree of liberty could not grow were it not watered with the blood of tyrants. -- Bertrand Barere de Vieuzac

In terms of altering sociological patterns, free speech, rather than being the enemy, is a long-tested and worthy ally. To deny free speech in order to engineer social changes in the name of accomplishing a greater good for one sector of our society erodes the freedoms of all. -- Sarah Evans Barker

To permit every interest group, especially those who claim to be victimized by unfair expression, their own legislative exceptions to the First Amendment so long as they succeed in obtaining a majority of legislative votes in their favor demonstrates the potentially predatory nature of what defendants seek through this Ordinance. -- Sarah Evans Barker

What I'd like to see police do is deal with important issues and not these sorts of victimless crimes when society is riddled with problems. -- Alderman Rodney Barket

I have great sympathy for the oppressed but I do not expect them to be morally superior to the oppressors. I merely expect them to be oppressed. -- Jerome Barkow

[Individual disarmament] palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind; an habitual disuse of physical force totally destroys the moral; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression. -- Joel Barlow

I don't believe medical discoveries are doing much to advance human life. As fast as we create ways to extend it we are inventing ways to shorten it. -- Christiaan Barnard

Youth will be served, every dog has his day and mine has been a fine one. -- George Barrow

The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and time again that they have the management skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club. -- Dave Barry

As a taxpayer, you are required to be fully in compliance with the United States Tax Code, which is currently the size and weight of the Budweiser Clydesdales. -- Dave Barry

No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously. -- Dave Barry

The best way to understand this whole issue is to look at what the government does: it takes money from some people, keeps a bunch of it, and gives the rest to other people. -- Dave Barry

The contagious people of Washington have stood firm against diversity during this long period of increment weather. -- Mayor Marion Barry

I am making this trip to Africa because Washington is an international city, just like Tokyo, Nigeria or Israel. As mayor, I am an international symbol. Can you deny that to Africa? -- Mayor Marion Barry

I promise you a police car on every sidewalk. -- Mayor Marion Barry

What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary? -- Mayor Marion Barry

If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very, very low crime rate. -- Mayor Marion Barry

A man must pay the fiddler. In my case it so happened that a whole symphony orchestra often had to be subsidized. -- John Barrymore

The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free – which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state. -- Alan Barth

Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions. -- Alan Barth

Character assassination is at once easier and surer than physical assault; and it involves far less risk for the assassin. It leaves him free to commit the same deed over and over again, and may, indeed, win him the honors of a hero in the country of his victims. -- Alan Barth

Democrats will play the old Washington game of calling reductions in the rate of growth of spending for any program a 'cut'. -- Bruce Bartlett

Freedom is not caprice but room to enlarge. -- Cyrus Augustus Bartol

What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage. -- Bruce Barton

Nothing did more to spur the boom in stocks than the decision made by the New York Federal Reserve bank, in the spring of 1927, to cut the rediscount rate. Benjamin Strong, Governor of the bank, was chief advocate of this unwise measure, which was taken largely at the behest of Montagu Norman of the Bank of England....At the time of the Banks action I warned of its consequences....I felt that sooner or later the market had to break. -- Bernard Baruch

Taxation with representation ain't so hot either. -- Gerald Barzan

Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve... 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 the other persons to whom it doesn't 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. Then abolish that law without delay ... No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic. -- Frederic Bastiat

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

The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended. -- Frederic Bastiat

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. -- Frederic Bastiat

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. -- Frederic Bastiat

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. -- Frederic Bastiat

The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else. -- Frederic Bastiat

By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others. -- Frederic Bastiat

No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate). -- Frederic Bastiat

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. -- Frederic Bastiat

There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because the law makes them so. -- Frederic Bastiat

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is... 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. Then abolish this law without delay ... If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system. -- Frederic Bastiat

Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter -- by peaceful or revolutionary means -- into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it. -- Frederic Bastiat

Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general. -- Frederic Bastiat

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. -- Frederic Bastiat

Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways; hence, there are an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, bonuses, subsidies, incentives, the progressive income tax, free education, the right to employment, the right to profit, the right to wages, the right to relief, the right to the tools of production, interest free credit, etc., etc. And it the aggregate of all these plans, in respect to what they have in common, legal plunder, that goes under the name of socialism. -- Frederic Bastiat

Society is composed of men, and every man is a FREE agent. Since man is free, he can choose; since he can choose, he can err; since he can err, he can suffer. I go further: He must err and he must suffer; for his starting point is ignorance, and in his ignorance he sees before him an infinite number of unknown roads, all of which save one lead to error. -- Frederic Bastiat

The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness, independence, personal dignity, all vanish. -- Frederic Bastiat

A Fatal Tendency of Mankind. Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing. But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. This is no rash accusation. Nor does it come from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals of history bear witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass migrations, religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in commerce, and monopolies. This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man -- in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain. -- Frederic Bastiat

What, then, is the law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. ... since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force -- for the same reason -- cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individual groups. ... But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense. -- Frederic Bastiat

If every person has the right to defend -- even by force -- his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right -- its reason for existing, its lawfulness -- is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force -- for the same reason -- cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups. -- Frederic Bastiat

They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority. -- Frederic Bastiat

All you have to do, is to see whether the law takes from some what belongs to them in order to give it to others to whom it does not belong. We must see whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen and to the detriment of others, an act which that citizen could not perform himself without being guilty of a crime. Repeal such a law without delay. ... [I]f you don’t take care, what begins by being an exception tends to become general, to multiply itself, and to develop into a veritable system. -- Frederic Bastiat

The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its purpose is to protect persons and property.... If you exceed this proper limit -- if you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, or artistic -- you will then be lost in uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it on you. -- Frederic Bastiat

As long as the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting to gain access to the legislature as well as fighting within it. -- Frederic Bastiat

[Natural rights are] moral claims to those spheres of action which are necessary for the welfare of the individual and the development of his personality. -- M. Searle Bates

Why don’t we just legalize drugs? ... The day that it is legalized in the United States, it will lose value. And if it loses value, there will be no profit. But as long as the U.S. citizenry doesn’t rise up to do something, they will pass this life fighting and fighting. -- Jorge Batille

-- O. A. Battista

The devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist! -- Charles Baudelaire

The crucial point is precisely there: in this total counter-meaning to Good and Evil in Western philosophy, the philosophy of Enlightenment. We naively believe that the progress of the Good, its rise in all domains (sciences, techniques, democracy, human rights) correspond to a defeat of Evil. Nobody seems to understand that Good and Evil rise simultaneously, and in the same movement. The triumph of the One does not produce the erasure of the Other. -- Jean Baudrillard

What's right with America is a willingness to discuss what's wrong with America. -- Harry C. Bauer

The [Supreme] Court during the past decade let police obtain search warrants on the strength of anonymous tips. It did away with the need for warrants when police want to search luggage, trash cans, car interiors, bus passengers, fenced private property and barns. -- Dan Baum

The Supreme Court is steadily eroding the protections against police excess promised by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. -- Dan Baum

The country's first drug ban explicitly targeted the opium of "the heathen Chinee." Cocaine was first banned in the south to prevent an uprising of hopped-up "cocainized Negroes." -- Dan Baum

It's gotten to where defense attorneys in federal drug cases can do their clients about as much good as Dr. Kevorkian can do his -- quietly shepherd them through to the least painful end. -- Dan Baum

Religious liberty is the chief cornerstone of the American system of government, and provisions for its security are embedded in the written charter and interwoven in the moral fabric of its laws. -- Thomas Y. Bayard

Members of society must obey the law because they personally believe that its commands are justified. -- Judge David Bazelon

My own view rests on the premise that nullification can and should serve an important function in the criminal process ... The doctrine permits the jury to bear on the criminal process a sense of fairness and particularized justice ... The drafters of legal rules cannot anticipate and take account of every case where a defendant’s conduct is “unlawful” but not blameworthy, any more than they can draw a bold line to mark the boundary between an accident and negligence. It is the jury -- as spokesmen for the community’s sense of values -- that must explore that subtle and elusive boundary. ... I do not see any reason to assume that jurors will make rampantly abusive use of their power. Trust in the jury is, after all, one of the cornerstones of our entire criminal jurisprudence, and if that trust is without foundation we must reexamine a great deal more than just the nullification doctrine. -- Chief Judge David L. Bazelon

Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not. -- Elias Root Beadle

One 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 Beard

The 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. -- Charles Austin Beard

As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything. -- Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais

False 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. -- Cesare Beccaria

The punishment of death is the war of a nation against a citizen whose destruction it judges to be necessary or useful. -- Cesare Beccaria

For a punishment to be just it should consist of only such gradations of intensity as suffice to deter men from committing crimes. -- Cesare Beccaria

False 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 Beccaria

We 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. -- Joan Beck

We are all born mad. Some remain so. -- Samuel Beckett

The defect of equality is that we only desire it with our superiors. -- Henry Becque

Government 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. -- Hugo Adam Bedau

We 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. -- Edward Beecher

There are three schoolmasters for everybody that will employ them - the senses, intelligent companions, and books. -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government. -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

Make men large and strong and tyranny will bankrupt itself in making shackles for them. -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

Liberty is the soul's right to breathe and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight. -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

There 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. -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

A bird in a cage is not half a bird. -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

The tidal wave of God's providence is carrying liberty throughout the globe. -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

No great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy. -- Lyman Beecher

Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool. -- Paul Begala

Only 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. -- Clive Bell

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands; one Nation, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all. -- Rev. Francis Bellamy

To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. -- Cardnial Robert Bellarmine

In 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' . -- Henry Bellmon

[Heresy is] the dislocation of a complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein. -- Hilaire Belloc

Never could an increase of comfort or security be a sufficient good to be bought at the price of liberty. -- Hilaire Belloc

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself. -- Hilaire Belloc

Open 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. -- Saul Bellow

I 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. -- Max Victor Belz

Politics is the art of looking for trouble,finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy. -- Ernest Benn

Perhaps 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. -- W. Lance Bennett

You cannot do wrong and feel right. It is impossible! -- Ezra Taft Benson

If 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 Benson

Among 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 Bentham

No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion. -- Jeremy Bentham

As to the evil which results from censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends. -- Jeremy Bentham

Governments last as long as the undertaxed can defend themselves against the overtaxed. -- Bernard Berenson

Usurpation, the exercise of power not granted, is not legitimized by repetition. -- Raoul Berger

The 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. -- David Bergland

Given 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) -- Lavrentii Pavlovich Beria

He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave. -- George Berkeley

I 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! -- Sir William Berkeley

Political 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 Berley

Purveyors 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. -- Mark Berley

Conformities 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 Berlin

Those 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 Berlin

All 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 Berlin

The first people totalitarians destroy or silence are men of ideas and free minds. -- Isaiah Berlin

But 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. -- Isaiah Berlin

Injustice, 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 Berlin

Justice 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 Bernanos

Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses. -- Georges Bernanos

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means. -- Georges Bernanos

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. -- Edward Bernays

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the [public] 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 Bernays

In order to get the truth, conflicting arguments and expression must be allowed. There can be no freedom without choice, no sound choice without knowledge. -- David K. Berninghausen

The whole point of the liberal revolution that gave rise to the 1960’s was to free us from somebody else’s dogma, but now the same people…are striving to impose on others a secularized religion…disguising it behind innocuous labels like ‘diversity training’ and ‘respect for difference.' -- Richard Bernstein

It's never over 'till it's over. -- Yogi Berra

If you don't know where you're going, when you get there you'll be lost. -- Yogi Berra

Even Napoleon had his Watergate. -- Yogi Berra

But how shall we educate men to goodness, to a sense of one another, to a love of truth? And more urgently, how shall we do this in a bad time? -- Daniel Berrigan

I don't know a more irreligious attitude, one more utterly bankrupt of any human content, than one which permits childred to be destroyed. -- Daniel Berrigan

If your library is not ‘unsafe’, it probably isn’t doing its job. -- John Berry

Food is Power. We use it to change behavior. Some may call that bribery. We do not apologize. -- Catherine Bertini

Tolerance is the eager and glad acceptance of the way along which others seek the truth. -- Sir Walter Besant

No Gulag, evidently, can deter the advocates of state power from believing in their own virtue and in the morality of the power they exercise. We are all Hobbesians now. Virtue is presumed to reside in the state. Its reliance on compulsion is seen as fulfilling, no undermining, morality. Our communicators, oddly employed in the private sector, work tirelessly to ensure that state control is maintained, our taxes stay high, the official message is promoted. The people know, and can only know, a tiny fraction of what Leviathan does, and what they know is what these partisans tell them. -- Tom Bethel

No government has ever commanded the resources at the disposal of our ungodly Leviathan, which consumes about 25 percent of the product of the world’s richest country. It is driven by a voracious alliance of government’s own employees, and those who receive benefits from the state. At least 90 million Americans either depend directly on government handouts or jobs, and each private worker must support not only himself and his family, but also carry a government worker on his shoulders. -- Tom Bethel

It is wrong to take half or more of what people earn; wrong to force some people to pay for the support of others, threatening them with jail if they refuse (are in “noncompliance”). -- Tom Bethel

If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander. -- Mary McLeod Bethune

If liberty is worth keeping and free representative government worth saving, we must stand for all American fundamentals—not some, but all. All are woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. We cannot hold fast to some only, and abandon others that, for the moment, we find inconvenient. If one American fundamental is prostrated, others in the end will surely fall. -- Albert J. Beveridge

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. -- Albert J. Beveridge

A newspaper has three things to do. One is to amuse, another is to entertain and the rest is to mislead. -- Ernest Bevin

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. -- Ambrose Bierce

As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind... Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. -- Ambrose Bierce

Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. -- Ambrose Bierce

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling. -- Ambrose Bierce

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. -- Ambrose Bierce

Optimism: The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. ... It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious. -- Ambrose Bierce

Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third. -- Ambrose Bierce

Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. -- Ambrose Bierce

Heathen, n. A benighten creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel. -- Ambrose Bierce

Vote: The instrument and symbol of a free man's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country. -- Ambrose Bierce

The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff. -- Ambrose Bierce

An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. -- Ambrose Bierce

Diplomacy: The patriotic art of lying for one's country. -- Ambrose Bierce

Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it. -- Ambrose Bierce

History is an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools. -- Ambrose Bierce

Blessings of the state, blessings of the masses. ... Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents, and be happy. -- Big Brother

Let us revise our views and work from the premise that all laws should be for the welfare of society as a whole and not directed at the punishment of sins. -- John Biggs, Jr.

Our U.S. government each year spends roughly 30 percent more money than it takes in. It took 39 Presidents and 200 years to accumulate a debt of $1 trillion dollars. But it has taken only the past 12 years for that debt to triple to more than $5.9 trillion. Interest payments on the deficit alone add up to more than what our government pays for unemployment compensation, veteran's benefits, postal operations, housing, education, and highways combined. Saddled with this tremendous burden, it is impossible for our businesses to invest, harder for families to afford homes and medical care, and difficult for the United States to play its role in matters of national and international economic security. -- James Bilbray

The freedom of speech, and debates or proceedings in Parliament, ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament. -- The English Bill Of Rights

The trouble with most folks isn't so much their ignorance, as knowing so many things that ain't so. -- Josh Billings

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread. -- Josh Billings

Under our form of government, the legislature is not supreme ... like other departments of government, it can only exercise such powers as have been delegated to it, and when it steps beyond that boundary, its acts, like those of the most humble magistrate in the state who transcends his jurisdiction, are utterly void. -- Billings v. Hall

Intellectual and cultural freedom is the most important single precondition for the breakdown of the kinds of tyrannical and totalitarian systems that periodically threaten us. -- James Billington

The Federal Reserve Bank is nothing but a banking fraud and an unlawful crime against civilization. Why? Because they "create" the money made out of nothing, and our Uncle Sap Government issues their "Federal Reserve Notes" and stamps our Government approval with NO obligation whatever from these Federal Reserve Banks, Individual Banks or National Banks, etc. -- H. L. Birum, Sr.

A good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious. Suspicion marks the real difference between the man who wants to write honest history and the one who’d rather write a good story. -- Jim Bishop

The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. -- Jim Bishop

A national government is a government of the people of a single state or nation, united as a community by what is termed the “social compact,’ and possessing complete and perfect supremacy over persons and things, so far as they can be made the lawful objects of civil government. A federal government is distinguished from a national government by its being the government of a community of independent and sovereign states, united by compact. -- Black's Law Dictionary

Militia: The body of citizens in a state, enrolled for discipline as a military force, but not engaged in actual service except in emergencies, as distinguished from regular troops or a standing army. -- Black's Law Dictionary, 3rd Edition

Liberty, whether natural, civil, or political, is the lawful power in the individual to exercise his corresponding rights. It is greatly favored in law. -- Henry Campbell Black

The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

I am for the First Amendment from the first word to the last. I believe it means what it says. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

Compelling a man by law to pay his money to elect candidates or advocate law or doctrines he is against differs only in degree, if at all, from compelling him by law to speak for a candidate, a party, or a cause he is against. The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

What finally emerges from the ‘clear and present danger’ cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished…It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

The layman’s constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn’t like is unconstitutional. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

Freedom to publish means freedom for all and not for some. Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the constitution but freedom to continue to prevent others from publishing is not. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

Compelling a man by law to pay his money to elect candidates or advocate law or doctrines he is against differs only in degree, if at all, from compelling him by law to speak for a candidate, a party, or a cause he is against. The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

The interest of the people lies in being able to join organizations, advocate causes, and make political “mistakes” without being subjected to governmental penalties. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

Without deviation, without exception, without any ifs, buts, or whereases, freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they express, or the words they speak or write. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the First Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

It is my belief that there are “absolutes” in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what the words meant and meant their prohibitions to be "absolutes." -- Justice Hugo L. Black

Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize the oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all... It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

The United States has a system of taxation by confession. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

[I]t is true that [the provisions of the Bill of Rights] were designed to meet ancient evils. But they are the same kind of human evils that have emerged from century to century whenever excessive power is sought by the few at the expense of the many. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

The first ten amendments were proposed and adopted largely because of fear that Government might unduly interfere with prized individual liberties. The people wanted and demanded a Bill of Rights written into their Constitution. The amendments embodying the Bill of Rights were intended to curb all branches of the Federal Government in the fields touched by the amendments—Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

... any broad unlimited power to hold laws unconstitutional because they offend what this Court conceives to be the ‘conscience of our people’ ... was not given by the Framers, but rather has been bestowed on the Court by the Court. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes. I fear to see the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights as its point of departure in interpreting and enforcing that Bill of Rights. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice. I have no fear of constitutional amendments properly adopted, but I do fear the rewriting of the Constitution by judges under the guise of interpretation. -- Justice Hugo L. Black

By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech. -- Harry A. Blackmun

That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution. -- Sir William Blackstone

The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights. -- Sir William Blackstone

It is better ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer. -- Sir William Blackstone

And, lastly, to vindicate these rights, when actually violated and attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and, lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self preservation and defense. -- Sir William Blackstone

[Self-defense is] justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the laws of society. -- Sir William Blackstone

Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery. -- Lawana Blackwell

What a government of limited powers needs, at the beginning and forever, is some means of satisfying the people that it has taken all steps humanly possible to stay within its powers. That is the condition of its legitimacy, and its legitimacy, in the long run, is the condition of its life. -- Charles L. Black, Jr.

I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance. -- Reuben Blades

Where there is money there is no art. -- William Blake

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. -- William Blake

A truth that's told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent. -- William Blake

I think the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average high school child acquires a high school education, and this militates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history. When I was one of the editors of The Nation in the twenties, I wrote an editorial explaining that golf and intelligence were the two primary reasons that men did not attend church. Perhaps today I would say golf and a high school diploma. -- Paul Blanchard

To ignore the evidence, and hope that it cannot be true, is more an evidence of mental illness. -- William Blase

Freedom of religion means the right of the individual to choose and to adhere to whichever religious beliefs he may prefer, to join with others in religious associations to express these beliefs, and to incur no civil disabilities because of his choice… -- Joseph L. Blau

The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes. -- Lady Marguerite Blessington

Protectionism is a misnomer. The only people protected by tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions are those engaged in uneconomic and wasteful activity. Free trade is the only philosophy compatible with international peace and prosperity. -- Dr. Walter Block

Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially, the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts. The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity, but the one that removes awareness of other possibilities. -- Alan Bloom

Q. What is meant by the term “constitution”? A. A constitution embodies the fundamental principles of a government. Our constitution, adopted by the sovereign power, is amendable by that power only. To the constitution all laws, executive actions, and judicial decisions must conform, as it is the creator of the powers exercised by the departments of government. Q. Why has our Constitution been classed as “rigid”? A. The term “rigid” is used in opposition to “flexible” because the provisions are in a written document which cannot be legally changed with the same ease and in the same manner as ordinary laws. The British constitution, which is unwritten, can, on the other hand be changed overnight by an act of Parliament. ... Q. Where, in the Constitution, is there mention of education? A. There is none; education is a matter reserved for the States. ... Q. Does the Constitution give us our rights and liberties? A. No, it does not, it only guarantees them. The people had all their rights and liberties before they made the Constitution. The Constitution was formed, among other purposes, to make the people’s liberties secure -- secure not only as against foreign attack but against oppression by their own government. They set specific limits upon their national government and upon the States, and reserved to themselves all powers that they did not grant. The Ninth Amendment declares: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” -- Sol Bloom

Government should not tell you what to do unless there's a compelling public purpose. -- Michael Bloomberg

A free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought. -- Leon Blum

When we think of the past, we forget the fools and remember the sage. We reverse the process for our own time. -- George Boas

Maybe that's because guns are sold at a profit, while schools are provided by the government. -- David Boaz

American [public] schools are failing because they are organized according to a bureaucratic, monopolistic model; their organizing principle is basically the same as that of a socialist economy. -- David Boaz

Power always corrupts, and the power of government to tell people how to live their lives or to transfer money from those who earn it to others is always a temptation to corruption. Taxes and regulations reduce people’s incentive to produce wealth, and government transfer programs reduce people’s incentive to work, to save, and to help family and friends in case of sickness, disability, or retirement. ...[I]t is nonetheless clear that government enterprises are less efficient, less innovative, and more wasteful than private firms.... [C]ompare what it’s like to call American Express versus the IRS to correct problems. Or compare a private apartment building with public housing. -- David Boaz

The real reason to abolish departments like Energy and Education is not to promote efficiency, nor even to save taxpayers’ money. It is that many agencies perform functions that are not Federal responsibility. The founders delegated to the Government only strictly defined authority in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution. Search the entire Constitution, and you will find no authorization for Congress to subsidize the arts, finance and regulate education or invest tax revenues in energy research. -- David Boaz

The median family of four ... paid $4,722 in federal taxes last year. That’s enough to pay for a new curtain for the secretary of commerce’s office, to bribe a farmer not to plant 38 acres with corn ... seven weeks of salary for a Customs man assigned to save us from the terror of high-quality, low priced foreign TV sets, or the subsidy on 6,000 bushels of wheat to prop up the Soviet regime. Surely civilization would collapse without such essential services. -- Alan Bock

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. -- William Boetcker

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness. -- Niels Bohr

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Niels Bohr

Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return. -- Nicolas Boileau-Despraux

In the whole history of law and order, the biggest step was taken by primitive man when...the tribe sat in a circle and allowed only one man to speak at a time. An accused who is shouted down has no rights whatever. -- Curtis Bok

Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of people would die for Him. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

Not one cent should be raised unless it is in accord with the law. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

It is an approved maxim in war, never to do what the enemy wishes you to do, for this reason alone, that he desires it. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

I want a situation without censorship, because I do not want to be responsible for whatever they may say. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

From the rostrum of the United Nations, we shall convince the colonial and semicolonial people to liberate themselves and to spread the Communist theory all over the world. -- Soviet General Bondarenko

The entire world economy rests on the consumer; if he ever stops spending money he doesn't have on things he doesn't need -- we're done for. -- Bill Bonner

Whose service is perfect freedom. -- Book of Common Prayer

We must abandon the prevalent belief in the superior wisdom of the ignorant. -- Daniel Boorstin

How many Catholic schools do you think teach the students to question the authority of the Pope? Do you believe Christian schools teach students to question or challenge the authority of Jesus Christ? Do military schools teach the cadets to challenge the authority of superior officers? Well, why should we then expect government schools to teach children to question the authority of government? -- Neal Boortz

Government schools will teach children that government is wonderful. -- Neal Boortz

This kind of rhetoric should be familiar to any who lived through the McCarthy era of the 1950s. It allows for no differences, not agreement to disagree, among adults or children. -- David Booth

No more fatuous chimera has ever infested the brain than that you can control opinions by law or direct belief by statute, and no more pernicious sentiment ever tormented the heart than the barbarous desire to do so. The field of inquiry should remain open, and the right of debate must be regarded as a sacred right. -- William E. Borah

Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense -- the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen. -- William E. Borah

Who could impose such socialistic confiscatory rates? -- William E. Borah

Social Security is an unfunded pay-as-you-go system, fundamentally flawed and analogous in design to illegal pyramid schemes. Government accounting creates the illusion of a trust fund, but in fact, excess receipts are spent immediately. The government’s own actuaries predict the system will be bankrupt by 2030, but Social Security could face financial crisis as early as 2014. Moreover, Social Security’s relatively poor rate of return makes the program an increasingly worse investment for today’s young worker. ... The system design itself is fundamentally flawed and cannot be repaired. It must instead be replaced by one derived from free markets and operated by free citizenry making individual economic decisions in their own self-interest. ... Reform is long overdue. If we fail to act soon, our children will either inherit a bankrupt system or be forced to pay an impossibly high level of taxes. Only private pensions with individual property rights to accumulate fund balances can create a secure pension system. Chile, which privatized its system in 1981, provides evidence of such a system’s effectiveness. -- Karl Borden

If a state militia guarantee rather than an individual right of citizens to keep and bear arms were the purpose of the second Amendment, it would have been totally unnecessary and irrelevant to include any guarantee of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” since by its very nature a militia is necessarily an armed force and without arms it would be impossible to carry out its constitutional functions of suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions. -- Bernard J. Bordonet

Bureaucracy is the epoxy that greases the wheels of progress. -- Dr. Jim Boren

Every bureaucrat has a constitutional right to fuzzify, profundify and drivelate. It's a part of our freedom of speech...If people can understand what is being said in Washington, they might want to take over their own government again. -- Dr. Jim Boren

When in charge, ponder... When in trouble, delegate... When in doubt, mumble. -- Dr. Jim Boren

Public apathy is more powerful than public opinion. There's more of it. -- Dr. Jim Boren

Reality is not always probable, or likely. -- Jorge Luis Borges

Censorship is the mother of metaphor. -- Jorge Luis Borges

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges

As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness. Habit is a powerful force, and we no longer feel as intensely as we once would have [the] constriction of our liberties that would have been utterly intolerable a mere half century ago. -- Judge Robert Bork

[A] society deadened by a smothering network of laws while finding release in moral chaos is not likely to be either happy or stable. -- Robert Bork

I don't think the Constitution is studied almost anywhere, including law schools. In law schools, what they study is what the court said about the Constitution. They study the opinions. They don't study the Constitution itself. -- Robert Bork

Only the suppressed word is dangerous. -- Ludwig Börne

A functioning police state needs no police. -- William Borroughs

This country is not pro-American. It is United States property. -- Juan Bosch

Who lies for you will lie against you. -- Bosnian Proverb

[It is] a natural Right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the [English] Bill of rights, to keep arms for their own defense; and as Mr. Blackstone observes, it is to be made use of when the sanctions of Society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression. -- Boston Evening Post

When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover that check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money. -- Boston Federal Reserve Bank

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience. -- James Boswell

Firearms, especially long guns, occupy a noble place in Canadian history since they are no doubt responsible for the exploitation of a vast and wild territory that had long remained untouched. From 1534 until 1979 (!), the importance of firearms remained uncontested. More than a simple tool of everyday life, they became truly a phenomenon of civilization. At all times and whoever he was, the Canadian was directly in contact with firearms, and he cannot be imagined otherwise. Even today, this symbol of liberty remains intimately related to wide, open spaces, and to a tolerant society. It is the distinctive mark of today's and yesterday's America. Here, in New France, let's repeat it, it is not only soldiers and nobles who have the possibility or privilege to bear arms. Century-old Canadian customs recognize equally to everybody the legal and moral right to acquire a firearm and to use it freely and noncoercively. -- Russel Bouchard

Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow. -- Elias Boudinot

Ideas are to literature what light is to painting. -- Paul Bourget

War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society these irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. -- Randolph Bourne

War is the health of the State. -- Randolph Bourne

Every ambitious would-be empire clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie, and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it! ... If America ever does seek Empire, and most nations do, then planned reforms in our domestic life will be abandoned, States Rights will be abolished -- in order to impose a centralized government upon us for the purpose of internal repudiation of freedom, and adventures abroad. The American Dream will then die -- on battlefields all over the world -- and a nation conceived in liberty will destroy liberty for Americans and impose tyranny on subject nations. -- George S. Boutwell

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. -- James Bovard

As we learned from the Clinton administration and much of the media, a machine gun in the hands of a federal agent is now a symbol of benevolence and concern for a child's well-being. -- James Bovard

The first step in saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it, and how we will continue to lose it unless fundamental political changes occur. -- James Bovard

Subsidies entail politicians’ taking the citizen’s paycheck and then using it to buy his submission. -- James Bovard

To blindly trust government is to automatically vest it with excessive power. To distrust government is simply to trust humanity - to trust in the ability of average people to peacefully, productively coexist without some official policing their every move. The State is merely another human institution - less creative than Microsoft, less reliable than Federal Express, less responsible than the average farmer husbanding his land, and less prudent than the average citizen spending his own paycheck. -- James Bovard

Its contempt for citizens ... is so routine, and so unlimited, that the agency has become a kind of Frankenstein, running wild and terrorizing Americans at will. The IRS hypocritically requires mistake-free returns when its own books are in shambles. It demands exorbitant sums of money without regard to the accuracy of its claims. It doesn’t hesitate to use every possible maneuver to get what it wants, sometimes destroying businesses -- and lives -- in the process. -- James Bovard

No-knock police raids destroy Americans’ right to privacy and safety. People’s lives are being ruined or ended as a result of unsubstantiated assertions by anonymous government informants. ... Unfortunately, no-knock raids are becoming more common as federal, state, and local politicians and law enforcement agencies decide that the war on drugs justified nullifying the Fourth Amendment. ... No-knock raids in response to alleged narcotics violations presume that the government should have practically unlimited power to endanger some people’s lives in order to control what others ingest. -- James Bovard

Assault weapons laws resemble hate speech laws. Hate speech laws usually begin by targeting a few words that almost no one approves. Once the system for controlling and punishing “hate speech” is put into place, there is little or nothing to stop it from expanding to punish more and more types of everyday speech. Similarly, once an assault weapons law is on the books, there is little to prevent politicians from vastly increasing the number of weapons banned under the law. The main effect of banning assault weapons is to give government an excuse to arrest and imprison millions of Americans while doing little or nothing to reduce crime. America has a limited number of police, and politicians must decide who the real public enemies are. If Mr. Clinton signs an assault weapons ban, it could signal the start of an attack on gun owners’ constitutional rights that could far surpass all previous gun bans. -- James Bovard

Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians. -- Chester Bowles

The task of weaning various people and groups from the national nipple will not be easy. The sound of whines, bawls, screams and invective will fill the air as the agony of withdrawal pangs finds voice. -- Linda Bowles

The government expands at will, based on what might be charitably called flimsy constitutional reasoning and less charitably and more accurately called arrogant judicial tyranny. Government authority these days rarely comes from the Constitution as written but from the last carefully crafted misinterpretation of it. This is called legal precedent. -- Linda Bowles

The cause of freedom is the cause of God. -- William Lisle Bowles

This [audit] was made extremely difficult because [IRS] existing Systems were not designed to provide reliable financial information... on their operations. -- Charles A. Bowsher

Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful. Better a thousand fold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people. -- Charles Bradlaugh

If special honor is claimed for any, then heresy should have it as the truest servitor of human kind. -- Charles Bradlaugh

In a small Swiss city sits an international organization so obscure and secretive....Control of the institution, the Bank for International Settlements, lies with some of the world's most powerful and least visible men: the heads of 32 central banks, officials able to shift billions of dollars and alter the course of economies at the stroke of a pen. -- Keith Bradsher

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish. -- Anne Bradstreet

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. -- Anne Bradstreet

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish. -- Anne Bradstreet

Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed. -- Sarah Brady (False)

I honestly believe that sound commercialism is the best test of true value in art. People work hard for their money and if they won’t part with it for your product the chances are that your product hasn’t sufficient value. An artist or writer hasn’t any monopoly .... If the public response to his artistry is lacking, he’d do well to spend more time analyzing what’s the matter with his work, and less time figuring what’s the matter with the public. -- Berton Braley

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

The most important political office is that of private citizen. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen... If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

The makers of our constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness... They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone – the most comprehensive of the rights and the right most valued by civilized men. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means – to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retribution. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

No danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is an opportunity for full discussion. Only an emergency can justify repression. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

They: The makers of the Constitution: conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

[The founding fathers] conferred, as against the Government, the right to be left alone -- the right most valued by civilized men. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

A depression is a large-scale decline in production and trade... there is nothing in the nature of a free-market economy to cause such an event. -- Nathaniel Branden

Every child who believes in God is mentally ill. -- Dr. Paul F. Brandwein (False)

As teachers, we enter the minds of others; thus we live in eternity. We help others live better lives, thus teaching remains a mercy. -- Dr. Paul F. Brandwein

If you think we are free today, you know nothing about tyranny and even less about freedom. -- Tom Braun

There is no wisdom without knowledge. -- Tom Braun

Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk. -- Bertolt Brecht

Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came? Why then, the war would come to you! -- Bertolt Brecht

The concept of military necessity is seductively broad, and has a dangerous plasticity. Because they invariably have the visage of overriding importance, there is always a temptation to invoke security "necessities" to justify an encroachment upon civil liberties. For that reason, the military-security argument must be approached with a healthy skepticism. -- Justice William J. Brennan

All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance – unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion, have the full protection of the guarantees [of the First Amendment]. -- Justice William J. Brennan

The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to “create” rights. Rather they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting. -- Justice William J. Brennan

The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any government regulation of religious beliefs as such. Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief, nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold views abhorrent to the authorities. -- Justice William J. Brennan

If there is a bedrock principle of the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. -- Justice William J. Brennan

Historians and economists are very good at creating and perpetuating myths that justify increasing the power placed in the hands of government. -- Reuven Brenner

Universities should be safe havens where ruthless examination of realities will not be distorted by the aim to please or inhibited by the risk of displeasure. -- Kingman Brewster

Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen... -- Zbigniew Brezhinsky

No man has ever been born a Negro hater, a Jew hater, or any other kind of hater. Nature refuses to be involved in such suicidal practices. -- Harry Bridges

Absolutism is a guarantee of objectionable morals in the same way that absolutism in government is a guarantee of objectionable government. -- Robert Briffault

Force is not a remedy. -- John Bright

I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. -- Ashleigh Brilliant

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target. -- Ashleigh Brilliant

I waited and waited, and when no message came, I knew it must have been from you. -- Ashleigh Brilliant

By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me. -- Ashleigh Brilliant

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. -- David Brin

The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were. -- David Brinkley

Anybody that wants the Presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office. -- David Broder

There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility. -- Jacob Bronowski

. . . for righteous monarchs, Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see; To rule o'er freemen, should themselves be free. -- Henry Brooke

Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. -- Bellamy Brooks

I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk. -- Dr. Joyce Brothers

Free speech is about as good a cause as the world has ever known. But it…gets shoved aside in favor of things which at a given moment more vital…everybody favors free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground. -- Heywood Broun

The censor believes that he can hold back the mighty traffic of life with a tin whistle and a raised right hand. For after all, it is life with which he quarrels. -- Heywood Broun

Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will turn vegetarian. -- Heywood Hale Broun

The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil. -- Heywood Hale Broun

The American communists worked energetically and tirelessly to lay the foundations for the United Nations which we were sure would come into existence. … It can be said, without exaggeration, that ever closer relations between our nation and the Soviet Union are an unconditional requirement for the United Nations as a world coalition. … The United Nations is the instrument for victory. Victory is required for the survival of our nation. The Soviet Union is an essential part of the United Nations. Mutual confidence between our country and the Soviet Union and joint work in the leadership of the United Nations are absolutely necessary. -- Earl Browder

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. -- H. Jackson Brown

Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority. -- James A. C. Brown

There exists a “fear of freedom” of selfhood, which makes people want to submerge themselves in the mass and confession is one of the obvious means by which they can do so, for thereby they lose those traits which cause them to feel separate. -- James A. C. Brown

The quixotic desire to do good, be universally fair and make everybody happy is understandable [...] There is only one problem with this approach. We are a court. -- Justice Janice Brown

As we all learned from the sorry experience of state-sanctioned bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, decentralization [in education] is crucial to both freedom and excellence. -- Jerry Brown

Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. -- Norman O. Brown

[T]he best elements of the national and state bars are seriously and energetically working for practical reforms in legal procedure, in the manner of the selection of judges, and in the prevention of delays and against the miscarriage of justice, and this, too, by feasible and constitutional measures and by every constructive and really progressive method which can be devised; and that the fact that satisfactory remedies have not yet been attained, is not the fault of the bench or of the bar, whose leaders have for years been urging upon the people, through the legislatures, fully formulated and efficient remedial measures. The fault lies with the people themselves, whose direct representatives in the legislatures, national and state, refuse properly to consider and act upon proposed laws of authenticated and undeniable efficacy. -- Rome G. Brown

A welfare state is frightened of every poor person who tries to get in and every rich person who tries to get out. -- Harry Browne

If the Fed had a war on abortion like its war on poverty or war on drugs, within 5 years men would be having abortions! -- Harry Browne

The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances. -- Harry Browne

The income tax is the biggest single intrusion suffered by the American people. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes billions of dollars. It penalizes savings and creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy. It is incompatible with a free society, and we aren’t libertarians if we tolerate it. -- Harry Browne

Government is a parasite—a cancer that by nature tries to spread deeper into society. Those who want to run others’ lives won’t give up and start minding their own business. -- Harry Browne

The elegance of honesty needs no adornment. -- Merry Browne

The mortalist enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done the greatest execution unto truth, has been a preemptory adhesion unto authority. -- Sir Thomas Browne

Be assured that if this new provision [the 14th Amendment] be engrafted in the Constitution, it will, in time, change the entire structure and texture of our government, and sweep away all the guarantees of safety devised and provided by our patriotic Sires of the Revolution. -- Orville Browning

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. Or what’s a heaven for? -- Robert Browning

So free we seem, so fettered fast we are. -- Robert Browning

[U]nderlying the gun control struggle is a fundamental division in our nation. The intensity of passion on this issue suggests to me that we are experiencing a sort of low grade war going on between two alternative views of what America is and ought to be. On the one side are those who take bourgeois Europe as a model of civilized society: a society just, equitable, and democratic; but well ordered, with the lines of responsibility and authority clearly drawn, and with decisions made rationally and correctly by intelligent men for the entire nation. To such people, hunting is atavistic, personal violence is shameful, and uncontrolled gun ownership is a blot on civilization. On the other side is a group of people who do not tend to be especially articulate or literate, and whose world view is rarely expressed in print. .... They ask, because they do not understand the other side, “Why do these people want to disarm us?” They consider themselves no threat to anyone; they are not criminals, not revolutionaries. But slowly, as they become politicized, they find an analysis that fits the phenomenon they experience: Someone fears their having guns, someone is afraid of their defending their families, property, and liberty. Nasty things may begin to happen if these people begin to feel that they are cornered. -- B. Bruce-Briggs

Anyone who does anything for pleasure to indulge his selfish soul will surely burn in Hell. -- Lenny Bruce

They call it the Halls of Justice because the only place you get justice is in the halls. -- Lenny Bruce

In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls. -- Lenny Bruce

For as long as one hundred of us shall remain alive, we shall never in any wise consent submit to the rule of the English, for it is not for glory we fight, nor riches, or for honour, but for freedom alone, which no good man loses but with his life. -- Robert Bruce

As the organized Left gained cultural power, it turned into a monster that found perpetual victimhood, combined with thought and speech control, the most efficient way to hold on to that power. Suddenly it was the Left, the protector of liberty, that was setting rules about what could and could not be said or even thought. -- Tammy Bruce

No matter how noble the original intentions, the seductions of power can turn any movement from one seeking equal rights to one that would deny them to others. -- Tammy Bruce

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people. -- Giordano Bruno

Every time we establish a new crime, we’re creating a new mechanism for the government to check up on you. -- James A. Bruton, III

Money power denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. -- William Jennings Bryan

If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave. -- John "Birdman" Bryant

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again. -- William Cullen Bryant

The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy. -- William Cullen Bryant

Individualism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom, have been deemed by Americans not only as their choicest, but their peculiar and exclusive possessions. -- James Bryce

I have often asked Americans wherein they consider their freedom superior to that of the English, but have never found them able to indicate a single point in which the individual is worse off in England as regards his private civil rights or his general liberty of doing and thinking as he pleases. They generally turn the discussion to social equality, the existence of a monarchy and hereditary titles and so forth – matters which are, of course, quite different from freedom in its proper sense. -- James Bryce

If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am in leaving it and returning home, you are the happiest man in this country. -- James Buchanan

What is right and what is practicable are two different things. -- James Buchanan

I like the noise of democracy. -- James Buchanan

The village atheist has the right to be heard; he has no right to be heeded. While he has a right not to have his own children indoctrinated in what he believes are false and foolish teachings, he has no right to dictate what other children may be taught. -- Patrick J. Buchanan

We are thus in the position of having to borrow from Europe to defend Europe, of having to borrow from China and Japan to defend Chinese and Japanese access to Gulf oil, and of having to borrow from Arab emirs, sultans and monarchs to make Iraq safe for democracy. We borrow from the nations we defend so that we may continue to defend them. To question this is an unpardonable heresy called 'isolationism.' -- Patrick J. Buchanan

Tax reform is taking the taxes off things that have been taxed in the past and putting taxes on things that haven't been taxed before. -- Art Buchwald

If the sincere and thoughtful Mason would “take notice” of the symbolism and the use made everywhere in the Lodge of the word “Light,” and remember that the real Initiates are called also “the Illuminati.” -- J.D. Buck

Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then; life is dull without it. --