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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and improvement, but conservatories of tradition and unvarying modes of thought.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Once it has been perceived that the division of labour is the essence of society, nothing remains of the antithesis between individual and society. The contradiction between individual principle and social principle disappears.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Many of those who attack capitalism know very well that their situation under any other economic system will be less favorable. Nevertheless, with full knowledge of this fact, they advocate a reform, e.g., socialism, because they hope that the rich, whom they envy, will also suffer under it.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
There are for man only two principles available for a mental grasp of reality, namely, those of teleology and causality. What cannot be brought under either of these categories is absolutely hidden to the human mind. An event not open to an interpretation by one of these two principles is for man inconceivable and mysterious. Change can be conceived as the outcome either of the operation of mechanistic causality or of purposeful behavior; for the human mind there is no third way available.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
True, a socialistic society could see that 1000 litres of wine were better than 800 litres. It could decide whether or not 1000 litres of wine were to be preferred to 500 litres of oil. Such a decision would involve no calculation. The will of some man would decide. But the real business of economic administration, the adaptation of means to ends only begins when such a decision is taken. And only economic calculation makes this adaptation possible. Without such assistance, in the bewildering chaos of alternative materials and processes the human mind would be at a complete loss. Whenever we had to decide between different processes or different centres of production, we would be entirely at sea.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life that can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty.
-- Ludwig Von Mises		 
The struggle for freedom ... is not the struggle of the many against the few, but of minorities -- sometimes of a minority of but one man -- against the majority.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
It is impossible to understand the history of economic thought if one does not pay attention to the fact that economics as such is a challenge to the conceit of those in power. An economist can never be a favorite of autocrats and demagogues. With them he is always the mischief-maker, and the more they are inwardly convinced that his objections are well-founded, the more they hate him.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final or total catastrophe of the currency system involved.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Depression and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market, but by government interference in the economy.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Modern society, based as it is on the division of labor, can be preserved only under conditions of lasting peace.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Spiritual movements are revolts of thought against inertia, of the few against the many; of those who because they are strong in spirit are strongest alone against those who can express themselves only in the mass and the mob, and who are significant only because they are numerous.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. What an alluring utopia! What a noble cause to fight!
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
The direction of all economic affairs is in the market society a task of the entrepreneurs. Theirs is the control of production. They are at the helm and steer the ship. A superficial observer would believe that they are supreme. But they are not. They are bound to obey unconditionally the captain's orders. The captain is the consumer. ...[Consumers] make poor people rich and rich people poor. They determine precisely what should be produced, in what quality, and in what quantities.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Those who call themselves "liberals" today are asking for policies which are precisely the opposite of those policies which the liberals of the nineteenth century advocated in their liberal programs. The so-called liberals of today have the very popular idea that freedom of speech, of thought of the press, freedom of religion, freedom from imprisonment without trial -- that all these freedoms can be preserved in the absence of what is called economic freedom. They do not realize that, in a system where there is no market, where the government directs everything, all those other freedoms are illusory, even if they are made into laws and written up in constitutions.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Violent resistance against the power of the state is the last resort of the minority in its effort to break loose from the oppression of the majority. ... The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Socialism is not in the least what it pretends to be. It is not the pioneer of a better and finer world, but the spoiler of what thousands of years of civilization have created. It does not build, it destroys. For destruction is the essence of it. It produces nothing, it only consumes what the social order based on private ownership in the means of production has created.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Government means always coercion and compulsion and is by necessity the opposite of liberty. Government is a guarantor of liberty and is compatible with liberty only if its range is adequately restricted to the preservation of economic freedom. Where there is no market economy, the best-intentioned provisions of constitutions and laws remain a dead letter.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Political ideas that have dominated the public mind for decades cannot be refuted through rational arguments. They must run their course in life and cannot collapse otherwise than in great catastrophe...
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
The common man is the sovereign consumer whose buying or abstention from buying ultimately determines what should be produced and in what quantity and quality.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
The first thing a genius needs is to breath free air.
-- Ludwig Von Mises		 
This, then, is freedom in the external life of man -- that he is independent of the arbitrary power of his fellows.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.
-- Ludwig von Mises		 
Against nature and within nature there is no freedom.
-- Ludwig Von Mises		 
It is not conclusive proof of a doctrine’s correctness that its adversaries use the police, the hangman, and violent mobs to fight it. But it is a proof of the fact that those taking recourse to violent oppression are in their subconscious convinced of the untenability of their own doctrines.
-- Ludwig Von Mises		 
We do not know of how much a man is capable if he has the will, and to what point he will raise himself if he feels free.
-- Johannes von Muller		 
One does what one is; one becomes what one does.
-- Robert von Musil		 
There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.
-- William Von Raab		 
Man is created free, and is free, even though born in chains. [Ger., Der Mensch ist frei geschaffen, ist frei Und wurd' er in Ketten geboren.]
-- Johann von Schiller		 
The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.
-- Johann von Schiller		 
Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it absolutely vile!
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.		 
All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values…and I say let’s get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States – and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.		 
We are what we pretend to be.
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.		 
Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.		 
But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.		 
The banks -- commercial banks and the Federal Reserve -- create all the money of this nation and its people pay interest on every dollar of that newly created money. Which means that private banks exercise unconstitutionally, immorally, and ridiculously the power to tax the people. For every newly created dollar dilutes to some extent the value of every other dollar already in circulation.
-- Jerry Voorhis		 
What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom 'to' and freedom 'from'.
-- Marilyn vos Savant		 
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
-- Marilyn vos Savant		 
Right now, I'd rather be in Sweden than in the U.S. because we have seen the problems and are moving away from the welfare state. On your side of the Atlantic you are moving right into it, and you risk destroying your country.
-- Ian Wachtmeister		 
The government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe, and Colorado officials have paid and will continue to pay a high price when they violate this foundational freedom. For the past 12 years, Colorado has targeted people of faith and forced them to express messages that violate their conscience and that advance the government’s preferred ideology. First Amendment protections are non-negotiable. Billions of people around the world believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and that men and women are biologically distinct. No government has the right to silence individuals for expressing these ideas or to punish those who decline to express different views. Political and cultural winds shift, but the freedom to speak without fear of censorship is a God-given constitutionally guaranteed right, essential for a flourishing society and self-governing people.
-- Kristen Waggoner		 
Yes, I am positive that one of the great curatives of our evils, our maladies, social, moral, and intellectual, would be a return to the soil, a rehabilitation of the work of the fields.
-- Charles Wagner		 
Stop wasting jail space on prostitutes, drug users and other victimless criminals. Even if we find it morally acceptable to imprison these people for choices they make regarding their bodies, we must realize that we simply cannot afford to continue clogging the court system and the prison system with these harmless criminals.
-- Edward B. Wagner		 
There is one 'word' that the message of the Bible is all about... and that is "LOVE"... different bible versions can be interpreted many ways... But, regardless how many times the wording is changed or interpreted... 'LOVE' always is the 'word'
-- Jesse Charles Wagner II		 
A physicist is an atoms way of knowing about atoms.
-- George Wald		 
Given the ambiguity of religious texts and teachings, the mixed historical record, and the empirical evidence, it would be foolhardy to assert that religious faith necessarily upholds democratic values.
-- Kenneth D. Wald		 
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
-- Alice Walker		 
Look at America now; older middle-income Americans are encouraged to divest themselves of their assets in order to qualify for Medicaid so that taxpayers at large must subsidize the costs of warehousing the artificially impoverished nursing homes -- in the name of “independent living” and “not being a burden to the children.”
-- Daniel F. Walker		 
I consider it my duty to tell you of the extremely dangerous threats that lie ahead. I know for certain that we are now in a period of the greatest strategic deception, perhaps in all history ...The Cold War is NOT over, only in the state of remission ...The Soviet Union is not truly 'on the verge of collapse'. Western defense, on the other hand, is.
-- General Sir Walter Walker		 
Why does the Air Force need expensive new bombers? Have the people we've been bombing over the years been complaining?
-- George Wallace		 
In some ways, certain books are more powerful by far than any battle.
-- Henry Wallace		 
I tell you true, liberty is the best of all things; never live beneath the noose of a servile halter.
-- William Wallace		 
When you pay social security taxes, you are in no way making provision for your own retirement. You are paying the pensions of those who are already retired. Once you understand this, you see that whether you will get the benefits you are counting on when you retire depends on whether Congress will levy enough taxes, borrow enough, or print enough money...
-- W. Allen Wallis		 
Today government touches everything in America and harms almost everything it touches. Federal, state, and local governments together spend 42 out of every 100 dollars we earn. Those who do the taxing and spending have long since ceased to work for the people as a whole. Rather, they work for themselves and for their clients—the education industry, the welfare culture, public-employee unions, etc..
-- Malcolm Wallop		 
Though I admire republican principles in theory, yet I am afraid the practice may be too perfect for human nature. We tried a republic last century, and it failed. Let our enemies try next. I hate political experiments.
-- Sir Robert Walpole		 
From the utopian viewpoint, the United States constitution is a singularly hard-bitten and cautious document, for it breathes the spirit of skepticism about human altruism and incorporates a complex system of checks, balances and restrictions, so that everybody is holding the reins on everybody else.
-- Chad Walsh		 
And here lies the great irony. The people who are the most opposed to free expression are the same people who want to express themselves as freely, outrageously, and disturbingly as imaginable. Self-expression is a right that they want to keep all to themselves. The rest of us must express ourselves in a way that conforms precisely to their wishes. They demand that we adjust our language — adjust our perception of reality itself — to meld with their delusions. "Here is the script you must follow," announces the man who refuses to even follow his own biology.
-- Matt Walsh		 
The news media in general are liberals.
-- Barbara Walters		 
I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually say, 'That which is everybody's business is nobody's business'.
-- Izaak Walton		 
All growth, including political growth, is the result of risk-taking.
-- Jude Wanniski		 
We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.
-- James Paul Warburg		 
If the major opportunities for future growth of government lie in the area of conventional taxation, are there any defenses available to the citizenry? ... Perhaps the most fruitful advice comes in two parts. The first piece of advice is to avoid war and the rumor of war: this is history's greatest boon to the tax man. ... The second piece of advice is to seek ways of inhibiting government's ability conveniently to increase its collections. Possibly the very increase in that ability that is in prospect can be turned to account by a constitutional provision which forbade the income tax, and perhaps even the storage of information regarding individual incomes by third parties, including government.
-- Benjamin Ward		 
The main purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations is promoting the disarmament of U.S. sovereignty and national independence and submergence into an all powerful, one world government.
-- Rear Admiral Chester Ward		 
Death and Taxes, they are certain.
-- Edward Ward		 
The secret of the superiority of state over private education lies in the fact that in the former the teacher is responsible to society ... [T]he result desired by the state is a wholly different one from that desired by parents, guardians, and pupils.
-- Lester Frank Ward		 
No man shall twice be sentenced by Civil Justice for one and the same crime, offense, or trespass.
-- Nathaniel Ward		 
If a law to donate aid to any farmer or cattleman who has had poor crops or lost his cattle comes within the meaning of the phrase “to provide for the General Welfare of the United States,” why should not similar gifts be made to grocers, shopkeepers, miners, and other businessmen who have made losses through financial depression, or to wage earners out of employment? Why is not their property equally within the purview of the General Welfare?
-- Charles Warren		 
The censor’s sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression.
-- Earl Warren		 
Life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.
-- Earl Warren		 
Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world.
-- Earl Warren		 
A republic is not an easy form of government to live under, and when the responsibility of citizenship is evaded, democracy decays and authoritarianism takes over.
-- Earl Warren		 
[O]ur War of the Revolution was, in good measure, fought as a protest against standing armies.
-- Earl Warren		 
The only protection of every citizen from such deprivation of rights is a strict adherence to the Bill of Rights by everyone for everyone. This should be self-evident but the danger of erosion of rights stems largely from the fact that so many citizens of the majority, who have never been deprived of any of these rights, find it difficult to understand what the deprivation of them means in the lives of others.
-- Earl Warren		 
Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness to our society.
-- Earl Warren		 


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