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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.
-- William Tecumseh Sherman		 
There will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them.
-- William Tecumseh Sherman		 
I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.
-- William Tecumseh Sherman		 
Heretics were often most bitterly persecuted for their least deviation from accepted belief. It was precisely their obstinacy about trifles that irritated the righteous to madness. Why can they not yield on so trifling a matter?
-- Leo Shestov		 
Our ultimate goal -- total control of handguns in the United States -- is going to take time... The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced... The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of handguns and all handgun ammunition -- except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors -- totally illegal.
-- Nelson Shields		 
I'm convinced that we have to have federal legislation to build on. We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily -- given the political realities -- going to be very modest. Of course, it's true that politicians will then go home and say, 'This is a great law. The problem is solved.' And it's also true that such statements will tend to defuse the gun-control issue for a time. So then we'll have to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen that law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal -- total control of handguns in the United States -- is going to take time. My estimate is from seven to ten years. The problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get them all registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition -- except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors -- totally illegal.
-- Nelson Shields		 
The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition ... totally illegal.
-- Nelson Turner Shields, III		 
The obsessive fear of secrets culminates in the denial of the right of private difference, which is the denial of the right of others to possess a sphere of privacy.
-- Edward A. Shils		 
The peculiar idea of moral infection in the consequence of association with individuals of indelible wickedness leads to the notion of “guilt by association.”
-- Edward A. Shils		 
A free society can exist only when public spirit is balanced by an equal inclination of men to mind their own business.
-- Edward A. Shils		 
To combat socialism Bismarck put through between 1883 and 1889 a program for social security far beyond anything known in other countries. It included compulsory insurance for workers against old age, sickness, accident and incapacity, and though organized by the State it was financed by employers and employees. It cannot be said that it stopped the rise of the Social Democrats or the trade unions, but it did have a profound influence on the working class in that it gradually made them value security over political freedom and caused them to see in the State, however conservative, a benefactor and a protector. Hitler, as we shall see, took full advantage of this state of mind. In this, as in other matters, he learned much from Bismarck. “I studied Bismarck’s socialist legislation,” Hitler remarks in Mein Kampf (p. 155), “in its intention, struggle and success.”
-- William L. Shirer		 
Truth never tranquilizes. The defining property of truth is its ability to disturb. Jesus only told half the story. The truth 'will' set you free. But, first it's going to piss you off.
-- Solomon Short		 
The cold, hard facts of magazine publishing mean that those who advertise get editorial coverage.
-- Richard Shortway		 
I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own -- and if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans.
-- General David M. Shoup		 
The planning of UN can be traced to the “secret steering committee” established by Secretary [of State Cordell] Hull in January 1943. All of the members of this secret committee, with the exception of Hull, a Tennessee politician, were members of the Council on Foreign Relations. They saw Hull regularly to plan, select, and guide the labors of the [State] Department’s Advisory Committee. It was, in effect, the coordinating agency for all the State Department’s postwar planning.
-- Laurence H. Shoup		 
Council [Council on Foreign Relations] leaders believed that blueprints for a new world order were necessary and, furthermore, that this was exactly the kind of activity the Council had been created to undertake.
-- Laurence H. Shoup		 
The minute you start talking about what you're going to do if you lose, you have lost.
-- George Shultz		 
The only ends for which governments are constituted, and obedience rendered to them, are the obtaining of justice and protection; and they who cannot provide for both give the people a right of taking such ways as best please themselves, in order to their own safety.
-- Algernon Sidney		 
Nay, all laws must fall, human societies that subsist by them be dissolved, and all innocent persons be exposed to the violence of the most wicked, if men might not justly defend themselves against injustice by their own natural right, when the ways prescribed by publick authority cannot be taken.
-- Algernon Sidney		 
[T]here is a difference between lions and asses; and he is a fool who knows not that swords were given to men, that none might be slaves, but such as know not how to use them.
-- Algernon Sidney		 
If vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.
-- Algernon Sidney		 
When truth is divided, errors multiply.
-- Eli Siegel		 
If we were all to be judged by our thoughts, the hills would be swarming with outlaws.
-- Johann Sigurjonsson		 
The work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind forward.
-- Igor Sikorsky		 
The reduction of political discourse to sound bites is one of the worst things that’s happened in American political life.
-- John Silber		 
Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying “No” to any authority -- literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political.
-- Ignazio Silone		 
We find it intolerable that one constitutional right should have to be surrendered in order to assert another.
-- Simmons v. U.S.		 
The only rational liberty is that which is born of subjection, reared in the fear of God and the love of man.
-- William Gilmore Simms		 
He who would acquire fame must not show himself afraid of censure. The dread of censure is the death of genius.
-- William Gilmore Simms		 
All of us necessarily hold many casual opinions that are ludicrously wrong simply because life is far too short for us to think through even a small fraction of the topics that we come across.
-- Julian Simon		 
The world's problem is not too many people, but lack of political and economic freedom.
-- Julian Simon		 
Not understanding the process of a spontaneously-ordered economy goes hand-in-hand with not understanding the creation of resources and wealth.
-- Julian Simon		 
We do not need any more preaching about right or wrong. The old 'thou shall nots' simply are not relevant... Values clarification is a method for teachers to change the values of children without getting caught.
-- Dr. Sidney Simon (False)		 
... good people doing good things. But let me tell you, you'll never find it if you just follow the Washington media. You'll never know the good. All you get is controversy, crap and confusion.
-- Alan Simpson		 
There is no 'slippery slope' toward loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step down must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders.
-- Alan K. Simpson		 
It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.
-- Homer Simpson		 
In a free society, standards of public morality can be measured only by whether physical coercion -- violence against persons or property -- occurs. There is no right not to be offended by words, actions or symbols.
-- Richard E. Sincere, Jr.		 
Our whole monetary system is dishonest, as it is debt-based... We did not vote for it. It grew upon us gradually but markedly since 1971 when the commodity-based system was abandoned.
-- Malcolm Sinclair		 
It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.
-- Upton Sinclair		 
You must believe in free will; there is no choice.
-- Isaac Bashevis Singer		 
We know what a person thinks, not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.
-- Isaac Bashevis Singer		 
The New York Times, CBS and the BBC all had to fire lead personnel over the fact that they just damn well made stuff up out of whole cloth in service to an obviously partisan political agenda.
-- New Sisyphus		 
I am not eccentric. It’s just that I’m more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.
-- Dame Edith Sitwell		 
Society attacks early when the individual is helpless.
-- B. F. Skinner		 
Whether or not legislation is truly moral is often a question of who has the power to define morality.
-- Jerome H. Skolnick		 
Today’s political leaders demonstrate their low opinion of the public with every social law they pass. They believe that, if given the right to chose, the citizenry will probably make the wrong choice. Legislators do not think any more in terms of persuading people; they feel the need to force their agenda on the public at the point of a bayonet and the barrel of a gun, in the name of the IRS, the SEC, the FDA, the DEA, the EPA, or a multitude of other ABCs of government authority.
-- Mark Skousen		 
No one spends someone else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.
-- Mark Skousen		 
In a free society, individuals have the right to do right or wrong, as long as they don’t threaten or infringe upon the rights or property of others.
-- Mark Skousen		 
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure.
-- Mark Skousen		 
Here in America, government began as a tool to assure freedom. It gradually turned into a hideously expensive political toy designed to redistribute your wealth and control most aspects of your business and private life.
-- Mark Skousen		 
Of course, members of the dynastic banking families had been financing the Russian-oriented revolutionists for many years. Trotsky, in his biography, refers to some of these loans from British financiers going back as far as 1907. By 1917 the major subsidies for the revolution were being arranged by Sir George Buchanan and Lord Alfred Milner (of the Morgan-Rothschild-Rhodes confederacy). Milner, it will be recalled, was the founder of England’s secret “Round Table” group which started the Royal Institute for International Affairs in England and the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States. One American source gave Trotsky, Lenin and the other Communist leaders around twenty million dollars for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia. This was Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb and Company.
-- W. Cleon Skousen		 
Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.
-- Slovenian Proverb		 
As Hitler showed us, a press suppressed does not make a recovery. As Lenin indicated, a press controlled does not revert to a critic’s role. As history reminds us, free speech surrendered is rarely recovered.
-- William J. Small		 
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
-- Lewis Smedes		 
Liberty is quite as much a moral as a political growth,--the result of free individual action, energy, and independence.
-- Samuel Smiles		 
In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character...
-- Adam Smith		 
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
-- Adam Smith		 
Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things.
-- Adam Smith		 
Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things.
-- Adam Smith		 
The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from [businessmen], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
-- Adam Smith		 
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
-- Adam Smith		 
It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense. ... They are themselves always, and without exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs.
-- Adam Smith		 
The man of system…is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it… He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.
-- Adam Smith		 
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
-- Adam Smith		 
It is not the benevolence of the butcher, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.
-- Adam Smith		 
Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man or order of men.
-- Adam Smith		 
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be enforceable, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary.
-- Adam Smith		 
The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition . . . is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration.
-- Adam Smith		 
Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.
-- Adam Smith		 
It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.
-- Adam Smith		 
A true party-man hates and despises candour.
-- Adam Smith		 
By pursuing his own interest [every individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
-- Adam Smith		 
The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would ... assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
-- Adam Smith		 
Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.
-- Adam Smith		 
The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.
-- Adam Smith		 


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