Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty
 

Click on the name to open the full quote and the details about the quote's origin. Quotes are also grouped by Category and Author.  
 
BATF is a bureaucracy that has outlived its mission. Prohibitionist ended a half century ago. Eliot Ness is no longer needed to chase down gangsters and their untaxed profits from bootlegging. Today no one smuggles tobacco. Treasury agents no longer have anything to do but harass innocent gun owners. The committee [Senate Judiciary Committee] concluded that BATF was a rogue operation that trampled all over the Second, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments. Following the congressional hearings, the Treasury Department was so embarrassed by the documented abuses that it drew up plans to abolish the agency. However, it was unable to do so, because neither the customs Bureau nor the Secret Service would accept the transfer of discredited BATF agents into their organization.
-- Paul Craig Roberts
 
According to the Tax Foundation, the average American worker works 127 days of the year just to pay his taxes. That means that government owns 36 percent of the average American’s output—which is more than feudal serfs owed the robber barons. That 36 percent is more than the average American spends on food, clothing and housing. In other words, if it were not for taxes, the average American’s living standard would at least double.
-- Paul Craig Roberts
 
I spent three years getting my law degree at Yale Law School. From the moment I enrolled, I was assigned huge, leather-bound editions of legal cases to study and discuss. I read what lawyers and judges, professors and historians said about the Constitution. But never once was I assigned the task of reading the Constitution itself...Over the last decade, however, I have become a student of the Constitution, searching each line for its meaning and intent. Studying the Constitution is like studying the Bible. It is amazing how much more you will learn when you quit studying about it and pick it up to read it for yourself.
-- Pat Robertson
 
In 1883, a small group of Socialists met in London, announcing their intentions of converting the British economic system from capitalism to socialism. This group chose the name 'Fabian Society.' One of the leading members of the Fabian Society, author George Bernard Shaw, perhaps summed it up best when he said, quote: '... Socialism means equality of income or nothing... under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.'
-- Edgar Wallace Robinson
 
If the people will lead, eventually the leaders will follow.
-- Florence Robinson
 
Poltical campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration (thinking) man can normally muster.
-- James Harvey Robinson
 
The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
-- Joan Robinson
 
For liberalism, the individual is the end, and society the means. For fascism, society is the end, individuals the means, and its whole life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends.
-- Alfredo Rocco
 
Bilderberger Meeting: The world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government... (more)
-- David Rockefeller
 
This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long. We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.
-- David Rockefeller (False)
 
Everything is in place - after 500 years - to build a true 'new world' in the Western Hemisphere... And what happens if we don't pass NAFTA? I truly don't think that 'criminal' would be too strong a word for rejecting NAFTA.
-- David Rockefeller
 
My congratulations on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution.
-- David Rockefeller
 
This present window of opportunity which during a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built will not be open for too long. Already there are powerful forces at work that threaten to destroy all of our hopes and efforts.
-- David Rockefeller
 
I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.
-- John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
 
I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.
-- John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
 
The combination is here to stay. Individualism has gone, never to return.
-- John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
 
In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions of intellectual and character education fade from their minds, and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk.      We shall not try to make these people, or any of their children, into philosophers, or men of science. We have not to raise up from them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for great artists, painters, musicians nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen -- of whom we have an ample supply.      The task is simple. We will organize children and teach them in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.
-- John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
 
If something is wrong for you or me, it is also wrong for the cop, the soldier, the mayor, the governor, the general, the Fed chairman, the president. Theft does not become acceptable when they call it taxation, counterfeiting when they call it monetary policy, kidnapping when they call it the draft, mass murder when they call it foreign policy. We understand that it is never acceptable to wield violence nor the threat of violence against the innocent, whether by the mugger or the politician.
-- Lew Rockwell
 
Even though they are a relatively recent policy development, civil rights laws are considered necessary to insure rights for blacks. But they are, in fact, among the most draconian forms of intervention into the free market. They attack the essence of private property, the ability to exercise control over it. Such laws have resulted in lessened economic freedom, lowered prosperity, heightened social tension, and more trouble for the groups the laws are supposed to help. ... A Korean grocer may want to employ only Korean clerks, a magazine for black professionals only black editors and writers, and a German restaurant only German cooks and waiters. An employer may think that Iraqi-Americans have been unfairly treated and want to favor them. A women’s health club may want only women customer’s and a men’s bar may want only men. There is nothing wrong with any of these behaviors, although civil rights laws seek to end them. In addition to violating the free labor contract, civil rights laws guarantee everyone the right of “access” to “public accommodations” like restaurants, movie theaters, and shops. In fact, what the civil rights laws call public is really private. These businesses are established by private entrepreneurs with private money. The owners should no more be required to serve everyone who comes into their place than they are required to invite everyone to their home for dinner. A large downtown restaurant is as private as a small house in the country. The real difference between private and public is one of ownership, not function or location.
-- Lew Rockwell
 
American money was never more sound, or banking more free, than 200 years ago. Since then, it’s been a long steady decline from the gold standard and competitive banking to our Fed-run system of inflated paper currency, deposit insurance, and perpetually shaky banks on the dole.
-- Lew Rockwell
 
Repeal the entire Banking Act of 1933, and Austrian School economists will cheer, especially if the current system were replaced by a 100%-reserve competitive banking with no central bank. That banking reform would give us a sound money system, meaning no more business cycle, bailouts, or inflation.
-- Lew Rockwell
 
Anything other than free enterprise always means a society of compulsion and lower living standards, and any form of socialism strictly enforced means dictatorship and the total state.  That this statement is still widely disputed only illustrates the degree to which malignant fantasy can capture the imagination of intellectuals.
-- Lew Rockwell
 
The only reason for a government service is precisely to provide financial support for an operation that is otherwise unsustainable, or else there would be no point in the government’s involvement at all.
-- Lew Rockwell
 
If you think you're too small to make a difference, you haven't been in bed with a mosquito.
-- Anita Roddick
 
You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
-- Dr. Adrian Rogers
 
I believe that the testing of the student's achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher, is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning.
-- Carl Rogers
 
The issues can be stated very briefly: Who will be controlled? Who will exercise control? What type of control will be exercised? Most important of all, toward what end or purpose, or in the pursuit of what value, will control be exercised?
-- Carl Rogers
 
Your mothers get mighty shocked at you girls nowadays, but in her day, her mother was just on the verge of sending her to reform school.
-- Will Rogers
 
We are always yapping about the 'Good Old Days' and how we look back and enjoy it, but I tell you there is a lot of hooey to it.   There is a whole lot of all our past lives that wasn't so hot.
-- Will Rogers
 
I see where they are going to be more strict with these robbers; when they catch 'em from now on, they're going to publish their names.
-- Will Rogers
 
It will take America fifteen years of steady taking care of our own business and letting everybody else's alone, to get us back to where everybody speaks to us again.
-- Will Rogers
 
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
-- Will Rogers
 
An economist is a man that can tell you...what can happen under any given condition, and his guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's too.
-- Will Rogers
 
I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him 'father'.
-- Will Rogers
 
On account of us being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only people in the world that has to keep a government four years no matter what it does.
-- Will Rogers
 
All one has to do to get one's stuff in the Congressional Record is to find a stenographer that can stay awake long enough to take it down. Then you mark in the 'Applause' and 'Laughter' parts yourself.
-- Will Rogers
 
Those tax-exempt bonds were put in so that a town or a state or a government could sell more bonds than it ought to.
-- Will Rogers
 
The United States investigates everything -- usually after it's dead.
-- Will Rogers
 
We are sure living in a peculiar time. You get more for not working than you will for working, and more for not raising a hog than for raising it.
-- Will Rogers
 
This stuff they are talking here in Congress costs the people of the United States $44 a page. That's beside what it costs to ship it to the asylums where it's read.
-- Will Rogers
 
Hurray! Congress is to adjourn! Only four more days of Congressional burglary on the Treasury!
-- Will Rogers
 
I guess truth can hurt you worse in an election than about anything that can happen to you.
-- Will Rogers
 
If we have Senators and Congressmen there that can't protect themselves against the evil temptations of lobbyists, we don't need to change our lobbies, we need to change our representatives.
-- Will Rogers
 
A Country can get more real joy out of just Hollering for their Freedom than they can if they get it.
-- Will Rogers
 
There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
-- Will Rogers
 
I bet you, if I had met Trotsky, and had had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I have never yet met a man I didn't like.
-- Will Rogers
 
America has a very unique record. We never lost a war or won a conference...
-- Will Rogers
 
Ammunition beats persuasion when you are looking for freedom.
-- Will Rogers
 
There is two types of Larceny, Petty and Grand. They are supposed to be the same in the eyes of the law, but judges always put a little extra on you for Petty, which is kind of a fine for stupidness.
-- Will Rogers
 
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
-- Will Rogers
 
Of course nothing is ever done about a [presidential] commission report, except, they say, once a man at the state prison for the criminally insane actually read one once clear through. Then he did something about it. He made a bonfire that lasted a week.
-- Will Rogers
 
Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven't had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.
-- Will Rogers
 
We are the only nation in the world that waits till we get into a war before we start getting ready for it.
-- Will Rogers
 
If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone, 'America died from a delusion that she has moral leadership'.
-- Will Rogers
 
It sure did kick up some excitement in the Senate when one Senator called the other Senators 'sons of Wild jackasses.' Well, if you thought it made the Senators hot, you wait till you see what happens when the jackasses hear how they have been slandered.
-- Will Rogers
 
The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.
-- Will Rogers
 
I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.
-- Will Rogers
 
Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?
-- Will Rogers
 
A foreigner coming here and reading the Congressional Record would say that the President of the United States was elected solely for the purpose of giving Senators somebody to call a horse thief.
-- Will Rogers
 
Elections are a good deal like marriages, there's no accounting for anyone's taste. Every time we see a bridegroom we wonder why she ever picked him, and it's the same with Public Officials.
-- Will Rogers
 
Tomorrow is Labor Day, I suppose set by Act of Congress. Everything we do nowadays is either by, or against, Acts of Congress. How Congress knew anything about Labor is beyond us.
-- Will Rogers
 
Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, that don't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous.
-- Will Rogers
 
Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches.
-- Will Rogers
 
That's what a Congressman or a Senator is for -- to see that too much money don't accumulate in the national Treasury.
-- Will Rogers
 
Nothing makes a man, or a body of men, as mad as the truth. If there is no truth in it, they laugh it off.
-- Will Rogers
 
This thing about getting rid of a man in the Cabinet is all right, but there is one bad feature to it that few people realize. That is, that unfortunately every one of them is replaced by someone else. If it wasn't for that, this resignation business would be great.
-- Will Rogers
 
The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.
-- Will Rogers
 
There is good news from Washington today. The Congress is deadlocked and can't act.
-- Will Rogers
 
Diplomats are just as essential in starting a war as soldiers are in finishing it.
-- Will Rogers
 
You shake a slogan at an American and it's just like showing a hungry dog a bone.
-- Will Rogers
 
If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
-- Will Rogers
 
The minute you read something that you can't understand, you can almost be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer.
-- Will Rogers
 
Will somebody please tell me what they do with all the Vice-Presidents a bank has? Why the United States is the biggest business institution in the world, and they got only one Vice-President and nobody has ever found anything for him to do.
-- Will Rogers
 
You see, in Washington they have these bodies, Senate and the House of Representatives. That is for the convenience of the visitors. If there is nothing funny happening in one, there is sure to be in the other, and in case one body passes a good bill, why, the other can see it in time and kill it.
-- Will Rogers
 
I doubt if a charging elephant, or a rhino, is as determined or hard to check as a socially ambitious mother.
-- Will Rogers
 


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

Here's the Daily Quote history.

Browse quotes by
Authors, Categories,
and Cryptograms!



The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

A classic since 1953 with over 20,000 quotes from over 3,000 authors.


Famous Last Words

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


Stretch Your Wings

Famous Black Quotations for the Young


American Quotations

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


The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations


Last Words of Saints and Sinners

700 Final Quotes from the Famous, the Infamous, and the Inspiring Figures of History


America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations

Contains over 2,100 profound quotations from founding fathers, presidents, constitutions, court decisions and more


The Law

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


Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

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


The Stupidest Things Ever Said by Politicians

Rise up, America -- and laugh out loud at the greatest gaffes that no spin doctor could possibly fix!


The 776 Even Stupider Things Ever Said

Another great collection of stupidity


Quotable Quotes

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


The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time

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


2,715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers, Writers & Raconteurs

Invaluable sampler of witticisms, epigrams, sayings, bon mots, platitudes and insights chosen for their brevity and pithiness.


Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts Funny Sayings

A stupendous collection of quotes, quips, epigrams, witticisms, and humorous comments for personal enjoyment and ready reference.


Quick Quips and Quotes; 532 Things I Wish I Had Said

Quick Quips and Quotes is the Ultimate Collection of one liners.


Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

The ultimate anthology of anecdotes, now revised with over 700 new entries.


Quotations for Public Speakers

A Historical, Literary, and Political Anthology


Liberty - The American Revolution

This compelling series traces the events leading up to the war and America's fight for freedom.


Founding Fathers

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


Libertarianism: A Primer

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


The Libertarian Reader

Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao-Tzu to Milton Friedman


Thomas Paine: Collected Writings

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


(c) Copyright 1999-2025