Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty
 

 
Famous quotes, quotations, sayings, phrases, idioms, proverbs, and axioms about Liberty and the Responsibility that comes with it. 
 


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

Quotes are organized by Name and Category.

If you'd like, join us on the Liberty Tree Daily Quotes emailing list for a daily dose of Liberty Quotes in your mail box. Leave us your email address to subscribe.
Email:

Here's the Daily Quotes Log to date.


Cryptograms!
Do you like cryptograms? We've got thousands!

Authors
Indexed quotes by Author or Speaker.

Categories
Browse quotes by category or select from the list below.

Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/dogma">Dogma Quotes</a>]Dogma Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/domination">Domination Quotes</a>]Domination Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/doubt">Doubt Quotes</a>]Doubt Quotes
Show details for [<a href="/quotes_about/dress">Dress Quotes</a>]Dress Quotes
Hide details for [<a href="/quotes_about/drugs">Drugs Quotes</a>]Drugs Quotes
Franklin P. AdamsProhibition is an awful flop.  We like it. 
It can't stop what it's meant to stop.  We like it. 
It's left a trail of graft and slime,
It don't prohibit worth a dime, 
It's filled our land with vice and crime. 
Nevertheless, we're for it.
AesopVices are their own punishment.
Harry J. AnslingerReefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men.
Harry J. AnslingerThere 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. AnslingerYou 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. AnslingerMarihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing.
Harry J. AnslingerMarijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.
Harry J. AnslingerMarijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.
Saint AugustineNear 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.
Tallulah BankheadCocaine habit forming? Of course not. I ought to know, I've been using it for years.
Tallulah BankheadI'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.
Dr. Jorge BatlleWhy 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.
Dan BaumThe 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 BaumIt'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.
John Biggs, Jr.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.
Alan BloomFreedom 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.
Justice Louis D. BrandeisIt is one of the happy incidents of the federal system, that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.
Harry BrowneIf 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 BrowneThere are no violent gangs fighting over aspirin territories. There are no violent gangs fighting over whisky territories or computer territories or anything else that's legal. There are only criminal gangs fighting over territories covering drugs, gambling, prostitution, and other victimless crimes. Making a non-violent activity a crime creates a black market, which attracts criminals and gangs, which turns what was once a relatively harmless activity affecting a small group of people into a widespread epidemic of drug use and gang warfare.
William F. Buckley, Jr.Now it is one thing to say (I say it) that people shouldn’t consume psychoactive drugs. It is entirely
something else to condone marijuana laws, the application of which resulted, in 1995, in the arrest of 588,963 Americans. Why are we so afraid to
inform ourselves on the question?
William F. Buckley, Jr.Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
William F. Buckley, Jr.Marijuana is not much more difficult to obtain than beer. The reason for this is that a liquor store selling beer to a minor stands to lose its liquor license. Marijuana salesmen don't have expensive overheads, and so are not easily punished.
Bulletin of the FBIMarihuana is a more dangerous drug than heroin or cocaine. I am surprised to learn that certain police officers have been inclined to minimize the effects of the use of marihuana. They would, I am sure, be convinced that the drug is adhering to its Old World traditions of murder, assault, rape, physical demoralization, and mental breakdown. A study of the effects of marihuana shows clearly that it is a dangerous drug, and Bureau records prove that its use is associated with insanity and crime.
Al CaponeWhen I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality.
John CaseyThe growth of drug-related crime is a far greater evil to society as a whole than drug taking. Even so, because we have been seduced by the idea that governments should legislate for our own good, very few people can see how dangerously absurd the present policy is.
Gilbert Keith ChestertonThe free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.
Shirley ChisholmIt is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.
Bill ClintonThe purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people.
Bill ClintonI've said I've never broken the drug laws of my country, and that is the absolute truth.
Bill ClintonQ.- "If you had it to do over again, would you inhale?" A.- "Sure, if I could... I tried before!
Bill ClintonWe can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans...
Thomas M. CoffeyProhibition ended in 1933 because the nation’s most influential people, as well as the general public, acknowledged that it had failed. It had increased lawlessness and drinking and aggravated alcohol abuse.
William ColbyThe Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It’s possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government.
Richard CowanOne of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
Anthony de JasayPeople who live in states have as a rule never experienced
the state of nature and vice-versa, and have no practical
possibility of moving from the one to the other ...
On what grounds, then, do people form hypotheses
about the relative merits of state and state of nature? ...
My contention here is that preferences for political arrangements of society are
to a large extent produced by these very arrangements, so that
political institutions are either addictive like some drugs,
or allergy-inducing like some others, or both,
for they may be one thing for some people and the other for others.
Michel De MontaigneTo forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it.
Earl F. DodgeAfter fifty years as a Prohibitionist, I am more convinced than ever that we need a good party, not just good men and good women. Most public officials are united in the war against terrorism. They, like we, are outraged at the deaths of some 3,000 Americans on September 11. Yet, most are willing to give unqualified support to the traffic in liquor and tobacco in exchange for campaign cash. Those products jointly claim at least 600,000 American lives each year. Two hundred die each year from use of alcohol and tobacco for every one who died in the September 11 attacks. Need another reason for being a Prohibitionist?
John EhrlichmanYou want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
Albert EinsteinThe prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.
Edward EllisonI say legalize drugs because I want to see less drug abuse, not more. And I say legalize drugs because I want to see the criminals put out of business.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThat which we call sin in others is experiment for us.
Abraham FlexnerWe must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent.
Benjamin FranklinModeration in all things -- including moderation.
Benjamin FranklinBeer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Milton FriedmanIf you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.
Milton FriedmanI'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my value system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
Milton FriedmanIt's a moral problem that the government is making into criminals people, who may be doing something you and I don't approve of, but who are doing something that hurts nobody else. Most of the arrests for drugs are for possession by casual users.
Now here's somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he's caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That's the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons.
Milton FriedmanLegalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and also the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order?
Milton FriedmanOne role of prohibition is in making the drug market more lucrative.
Milton Friedman[Drug use] does harm a great many other people, but primarily because it's prohibited. There are an enormous number of innocent victims now. You've got the people whose purses are stolen, who are bashed over the head by people trying to get enough money for their next fix. You've got the people killed in the random drug wars. You've got the corruption of the legal establishment. You've got the innocent victims who are taxpayers who have to pay for more and more prisons, and more and more prisoners, and more and more police. You've got the rest of us who don't get decent law enforcement because all the law enforcement officials are busy trying to do the impossible.
And, last, but not least, you've got the people of Colombia and Peru and so on. What business do we have destroying and leading to the killing of thousands of people in Colombia because we cannot enforce our own laws? If we could enforce our laws against drugs, there would be no market for these drugs.
Milton FriedmanI think that prohibition of drugs is the most immoral program that the United States has ever engaged in. It's destroyed civil rights at home and it is responsible for thousands of deaths abroad.
Milton FriedmanEvery friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the
vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.
Milton FriedmanEvery friend of freedom... must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.
Margaret FullerI know of no inquiry which the impulses of man suggests that is forbidden to the resolution of man to pursue.
Daryl GatesWe're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
Edward GibbonWhenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.
Hermann GoeringWhy of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
Lt. Col. James Bo Gritz (Ret)A spider web of 'patriots for profit', operating from the highest positions of special trust and confidence, have successfully circumvented our constitutional system in pursuit of a New World Order.
John HardwickDon't do drugs because if you do drugs you'll go to prison, and drugs are really expensive in prison.
Hearst newspapers nationwideMarihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye,
step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice.
Heinrich HeineWhenever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
Robert A. HeinleinThe whole principle is wrong. It’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.
Frank HerbertLaws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit.
This is the fine point on which all legal professions of history have based their job security.
Granville HicksThe sooner we all learn to make a decision between disapproval and censorship, the better off society will be... Censorship cannot get at the real evil, and it is an evil in itself.
Robert HiggsDemocrats and Republicans alike support the "War on Drugs." Federal, state, and local police make more than a million drug arrests
yearly. Drug cases clog the courts. More than 60% of federal prison cells and about 30% of state prison cells hold drug offenders. No-knock drug
raiders nullify the Fourth Amendment every day. Yet illicit drugs continue to pour onto the market, and they are readily available throughout the
land. Looks like another failed policy. But politicians say more money will win the war. For fiscal 1996, President Clinton has requested a record
$14.6 billion for this exercise in futility. State and local government will also spend huge sums. Who benefits? Posturing politicians and puritanical
zealots, of course, but also the Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs Service, Coast Guard, FBI, and the rest of the drug warriors. Police love
the drug war, because the forfeiture laws it inspired allow them to seize and keep private property with impunity. Corrupt cops get fabulous bribes,
and corruption therefore runs rampant.
William P. HoarThe Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is so careful about the accountability of others that it ducks its own accountability altogether -- meaning that it takes six years longer to pass on its approval than it does for the same drug or medical device to be approved in other developed nations. That comes at a price: Two-thirds of the cost of a new drug is for it to meet the requirements of the FDA.
Eric HofferYou can never get enough of what you don't really need.
Dr. Albert HoffmanI share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new conciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation.
Dr. Albert HoffmanI believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjunction with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonderchild.


(c) Copyright 1999-2024
Privacy Policy and Terms of Use