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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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Forcing people to be more 'unselfish' creates animosity instead of good will. Trying to control selfish others is a cure worse than the disease. ... In trying to control others, we find ourselves controlled. We point fingers at the dictators, the Communists, the politicians, and the international cartels. We are blithely unaware that our desire to control selfish others creates and sustains them. Like a stone thrown in a quiet pond, our desire to control our neighbors ripples outward, affecting the political course of our community, state, nation, and world. Yet we know not what we do. We attempt to bend our neighbors to our will, sincere in our belief that we are benevolently protecting the world from their folly and short-sightedness. We seek control to create peace and prosperity, not realizing that this is the very means by which war and poverty are propagated. In fighting for our dream without awareness, we become the instruments of its destruction. If we could only see the pattern!
-- Dr. Mary J. Ruwart		 
In countries with subsidized national health insurance, people demand care for minor ailments they used to treat themselves. As a result, patients wait for critical care. In Newfoundland, a patient needing cardiac surgery waits an average of 43 weeks. Affluent Canadians cross the border to our Cleveland Clinic; the poor suffer. The waiting lists for all surgeries have doubled since 1967. Canadians don’t have better health care for less money, they just have less health care! This is not the solution we seek! In Britain, the availability of health care may be even more limited. British doctors see five times as many patients as their American counterparts. Thirty-five percent of kidney dialysis centers refuse to treat patients over 55 years of age! While the elderly are denied access to health care, the poor are neglected as well. Studies in Britain, Sweden, Canada, and New Zealand indicate that people with high social standing receive 2-6 times more health care than the less affluent. National health programs even fail to deliver equal care!
-- Dr. Mary J. Ruwart		 
... real anarchism, feasible and actual, as opposed to mere emotional statements, is simply the [classical] liberal economy, and everything that goes with it: political democracy, civil (and not only civic) liberty, free, unsubsidized, unplanned culture. It is only the liberal economy that can favor the "withering away of the state" and of politics – their withering away or at least their limitation; centralized socialism cannot achieve this.
-- Raymond Ruye		 
Blind submission to the Administration of the government is not devotion to the country or the Constitution. The administration is not the government.
-- Edward G. Ryan		 
All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ... The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government.
-- SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz		 
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.
-- Hassan I. Sabbah		 
The prohibition law, written for weaklings and derelicts, has divided the nation, like Gaul, into three parts -- wets, drys, and hypocrites.
-- Florence Sabin		 
From the standpoint of stable political conditions, it is perhaps well that Hitler is now in a position to wield unprecedented power.
-- Frederic Sackett		 
Never assume the obvious is true.
-- William Safire		 
The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
-- William Safire		 
There is a lurking fear that some things are not meant “to be known,” that some inquiries are too dangerous for human beings to make.
-- Carl Sagan		 
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.)
-- Carl Sagan		 
Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us -- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.
-- Carl Sagan		 
At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.
-- Carl Sagan		 
The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.
-- Carl Sagan		 
History is written by those who win and those who dominate.
-- Edward Said		 
True, it is evil that a single man should crush the herd, but see not there the worse form of slavery, which is when the herd crushes out the man.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry		 
Freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorships.
-- Andrei Sakharov		 
Profound insights arise only in debate, with a possibility of counterargument, only when there is a possibility of expressing not only correct ideas but also dubious ideas.
-- Andrei Sakharov		 
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
-- Saki		 
European merchants supply the best weaponry, contributing to their own defeat.
-- Saladin		 
If newsmen do not tell the truth as they see it because it might make waves, or if their bosses decide something should or should not be broadcast because of Washington or Main Street consequences, we have dishonored ourselves and we have lost the First Amendment by default.
-- Richard Salant		 
Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.
-- Richard Salant		 
Morons hate it when you call them a moron.
-- J. D. Salinger		 
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
-- Sallust		 
A government which will turn its tanks upon its people, for any reason, is a government with a taste of blood and a thirst for power and must either be smartly rebuked, or blindly obeyed in deadly fear.
-- John Salter		 
Fascism, communism and national socialism all share in common the explicit premise that the individual must subordinate himself to society's needs, or as Hitler would phrase it: 'Society's needs come before the individual needs.'
-- A. E. Samaan		 
Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward.
-- Patricia Sampson		 
Without doubt the greatest injury of all was done by basing morals on myth. For, sooner or later, myth is recognized for what it is, and disappears. Then morality loses the foundation on which it has been built.
-- Lord Herbert Louis Samuel		 
[There is a] strong correlation between market freedom and lower government corruption -- not terribly surprising, since the effect of increasing regulatory power is to shift 'cheating' from the private to the public sphere.
-- Julian Sanchez		 
Men of ideas vanish when freedom vanishes.
-- Carl Sandburg		 
Nothing happens unless first a dream.
-- Carl Sandburg		 
One of our best-kept secrets is the degree to which a handful of huge corporations control the flow of information in the United States. Whether it is television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books or the Internet, a few giant conglomerates are determining what we see, hear and read. And the situation is likely to become much worse as a result of radical deregulation efforts by the Bush administration and some horrendous court decisions. Television is the means by which most Americans get their “news.” Without exception, every major network is owned by a huge conglomerate that has enormous conflicts of interest. … The bottom line is that fewer and fewer huge conglomerates are controlling virtually everything that the ordinary American sees, hears and reads. This is an issue that Congress can no longer ignore.
-- Bernie Sanders		 
[W]hile there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
A free race cannot be born of slave mothers.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
[N]o one can doubt that there are times when an abortion is justifiable but they will become unnecessary when care is taken to prevent conception. This is the only cure for abortions.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
I accepted an invitation to talk to the women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan...I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak...In the end, through simple illustrations, I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world, that have disease from their parents, they have no chance in the world to be a human being practically...Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That to me is the greatest sin -- that people can -- can commit.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
As an advocate for birth control, I wish to take advantage of the present opportunity to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit', admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, and no man shall have the right to become a father, without a permit for parenthood.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
...these two words [birth control] sum up our whole philosophy...It means the release and cultivation of better elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination, and eventual extinction, of defective stocks -- those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population…
-- Margaret Sanger		 
Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need ... We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
The unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' [is] the greatest present menace to civilization… the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying… a dead weight of human waste… an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
The procreation of [the diseased, the feeble-minded and paupers] should be stopped.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
The marriage bed is the most degenerative influence in the social order...
-- Margaret Sanger		 
[Our objective is] unlimited sexual gratification without the burden of unwanted children...
-- Margaret Sanger		 
[Mandatory] sterilization for [the insane and feeble-minded] is the answer.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
Give dysgenic groups [people with 'bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.
-- Margaret Sanger		 
[I'm too old to] be influenced by newspaper arguments. When I read them I form perhaps a new opinion of the newspaper but seldom a new opinion on the subject discussed.
-- George Santayana		 
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-- George Santayana		 
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
-- George Santayana		 
To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.
-- George Santayana		 
Skepticism is a discipline fit to purify the mind of prejudice and render it all the more apt, when the time comes, to believe and to act wisely.
-- George Santayana		 
When all beliefs are challenged together, the just and necessary ones have a chance to step forward and reestablish themselves alone.
-- George Santayana		 
The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
-- George Santayana		 
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.
-- George Santayana		 
There is no greater stupidity or meanness than to take uniformity for an ideal.
-- George Santayana		 
Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly.
-- George Santayana		 
Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are.
-- George Santayana		 
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-- George Santayana		 
I can't remember the exact quote but when I used to trade and Mr. Volcker was Fed chairman, he said something like 'gold is my enemy, I'm always watching what gold is doing', we need to think why he made a statement like that. If you're a central banker or one of the congressmen or senators, watch what gold is doing because this is a no-confidence vote in fiscal and dollar policy.
-- Rick Santelli		 
Republics, like individuals, who are benefited by personal sacrifices, are proverbially ungrateful.
-- Epes Sargent		 
... political reporters love to write about politics as if they are merely disinterested observers of political events and the public's perceptions of them, when in fact they play a very key role in shaping those events and perceptions.
-- Greg Sargent		 
... political reporters love to write about politics as if they are merely disinterested observers of political events and the public's perceptions of them, when in fact they play a very key role in shaping those events and perceptions.
-- Greg Sargent		 
Freedom is the oxygen without which science cannot breathe.
-- David Sarnoff		 
Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
-- William Saroyan		 


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