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Famous Quotes about Liberty
 
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It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.
-- Richard M. Nixon		 
The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious student sees in them only one root-idea of a complete conversion of social power into State power.
-- Albert Jay Nock		 
Many now believe that with the rise of the totalitarian State the world has entered upon a new era of barbarism. It has not. The totalitarian State is only the State; the kind of thing it does is only what the State has always done with unfailing regularity, if it had the power to do it, wherever and whenever its own aggrandizement made that kind of thing expedient. Give any State like power hereafter, and put it in like circumstances, and it will do precisely the same kind of thing. The State will unfailingly aggrandize itself, if only it has the power, first at the expense of its own citizens, and then at the expense of anyone else in sight. It has always done so, and always will.
-- Albert Jay Nock		 
Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things FOR you carries with it the equivalent power to do things TO you.
-- Albert Jay Nock		 
[T]he State's criminality is nothing new and nothing to be wondered at. It began when the first predatory group of men clustered together and formed the State, and it will continue as long as the State exists in the world, because the State is fundamentally an anti-social institution, fundamentally criminal. The idea that the State originated to serve any kind of social purpose is completely unhistorical. It originated in conquest and confiscation -- that is to say, in crime. It originated for the purpose of maintaining the division of society into an owning-and-exploiting class and a propertyless dependent class -- that is, for a criminal purpose. No State known to history originated in any other manner, or for any other purpose. Like all predatory or parasitic institutions, its first instinct is that of self-preservation. All its enterprises are directed first towards preserving its own life, and, second, towards increasing its own power and enlarging the scope of its own activity. For the sake of this it will, and regularly does, commit any crime which circumstances make expedient.
-- Albert Jay Nock		 
The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious student sees in them only one root-idea of a complete conversion of social power into State power.
-- Albert Jay Nock		 
It is interesting to observe that in the year 1935 the average individual's incurious attitude towards the phenomenon of the State is precisely what his attitude was toward the phenomenon of the Church in the year, say, 1500. ... it does not appear to have occurred to the Church-citizen of that day, any more than it occurs to the State-citizen of the present, to ask what sort of institution it was that claimed his allegiance.
-- Albert Jay Nock		 
The primary reason for a tariff is that it enables the exploitation of the domestic consumer by a process indistinguishable from sheer robbery.
-- Albert Jay Nock		 
It can not even be said that the State has ever shown any disposition to suppress crime, but only to safeguard its own monopoly of crime.
-- Albert Jay Nock		 
The State, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
-- Albert Jay Nock		 
There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means.
-- Albert Jay Nock		 
One of the things that bothers me most is the growing belief in the country that security is more important than freedom. It ain't.
-- Lyn Nofziger		 
These things I believe: That government should butt out. \\ That government should butt out.\\ That freedom is our most precious commodity and\\ if we are not eternally vigilant, government will take it all away.\\ That individual freedom demands individual responsibility.\\ That government is not a necessary good but an unavoidable evil.\\ That the executive branch has grown too strong, the judicial branch too arrogant and the legislative branch too stupid.\\ That political parties have become close to meaningless.\\ That government should work to insure the rights of the individual, not plot to take them away.\\ That government should provide for the national defense\\ and work to insure domestic tranquillity.\\ That foreign trade should be fair rather than free.\\ That America should be wary of foreign entanglements.\\ That the tree of liberty needs to be watered from time to time\\ with the blood of patriots and tyrants.\\ That guns do more than protect us from criminals;\\ more importantly, they protect us from the ongoing threat of government.\\ That states are the bulwark of our freedom.\\ That states should have the right to secede from the Union.\\ That once a year we should hang someone in government\\ as an example to his fellows."\\
-- Lyn Nofziger		 
The reason this country continues its drift toward socialism and big nanny government is because too many people vote in the expectation of getting something for nothing, not because they have a concern for what is good for the country. A better educated electorate might change the reason many persons vote. If children were forced to learn about the Constitution, about how government works, about how this nation came into being, about taxes and about how government forever threatens the cause of liberty perhaps we wouldn't see so many foolish ideas coming out of the mouths of silly old men.
-- Lyn Nofziger		 
As I watch government at all levels daily eat away at our freedom, I keep thinking how prosperity and government largesse have combined to make most of us fat and lazy and indifferent to, or actually in favor of, the limits being placed on that freedom.
-- Lyn Nofziger		 
Another defining feature of therapeutic ethos, then, is the growing tendency to define a range of human behaviors as diseases or pathologies.
-- James L. Nolan		 
...the mainstream media's monopoly on information is over.
-- Peggy Noonan		 
The Democratic Party is made up of trial lawyers, labor unions, government employees, big city political machines, the coercive utopians, the radical environmentalists, feminists, and others who want to restructure society with tax dollars and government fiat.
-- Grover Norquist		 
Home schoolers do not wish to force other parents to home school. Gun owners do not insist that others buy guns, or that hunting be promoted as an alternative lifestyle. It is not the National Rifle Association out lobbying to have government schools read books entitled 'Heather Has Two Hunters' to preschoolers. It is, in fact, the Left that now strives to use state power to impose its morality by forcing all taxpayers to pay for abortions and public "art" that mocks people of faith. It is the Left that forces parents to pay for government schools where they do not wish to send their children.
-- Grover G. Norquist		 
The Democratic Party might be called the Takings Coalition, made up of groups that want the government to take from American citizens -- usually cash -- and keep it for itself.
-- Grover G. Norquist		 
People have a right to the Truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
-- Frank Norris		 
In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary.
-- Kathleen Norris		 
Where the meaning of the Constitution is clear and unambiguous, there can be no resort to construction to attribute to the founders a purpose or intent not manifest in its letter.
-- Norris v. Baltimore		 
I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme.
-- Col. Oliver North		 
Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
-- Northwest Ordinance, Article III, 1787		 
There never was a good war," said Franklin. There have indeed been many wars in which a good man must take part, and take part with grave gladness to die if need be, a willing sacrifice, thankful to give life for what is dearer than life, and happy that even by death in war he is serving the cause of peace. But if a war be undertaken for the most righteous end, before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime.
-- Charles Eliot Norton		 
The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.
-- Charles Eliot Norton		 
The essence of a free life is being able to choose the style of living you prefer free from exclusion and without the compulsion of conformity or law.
-- Eleanor Holmes Norton		 
The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don’t agree with.
-- Eleanor Holmes Norton		 
An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed.
-- Norton vs. Shelby County		 
We are human and our lot is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds.
-- Novalis		 
The socialist society would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults.
-- Robert Nozick		 
Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Seizing the results of someone’s labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities.
-- Robert Nozick		 
To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic.
-- Ted Nugent		 
I think that our American people will welcome a Russian military force for peace-keeping purposes.
-- Sam Nunn		 
'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the milita, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right.
-- Nunn vs. State		 
The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art.
-- Sandra Day O'Connor		 
The prima facie evidence provision in this case ignores all of the contextual factors that are necessary to decide whether a particular cross burning is intended to intimidate. The First Amendment does not permit such a shortcut.
-- Sandra Day O'Connor		 
Your depth of commitment, your quality of service, the product of your devotion -- these are the things that count in life.
-- Scott O'Grady		 
All businesses require capital, management and labor, and business executives, wanting to grow and maintain profitable enterprises, have a strong incentive to keep costs, including labor, as low as possible.
-- Kevin O'Leary		 
Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind.
-- Austin O'Malley		 
When we have begun to take charge of our lives, to own ourselves, there is no longer any need to ask permission of someone.
-- George O'Neil		 
Most of us tend to think of “speech” and “press” in the relatively traditional modes of the spoken and printed word… We should bear in mind that – whatever the Framers of the Bill of Rights may have expected – the First Amendment has adapted over the years to telephones, motion pictures, radio and television broadcasting, fax, cable, and is now just beginning to take measure of digital communication.
-- Robert M. O'Neil		 
Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and will always be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.
-- Eugene O'Neill		 
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every  government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Government does not cause affluence. Citizens of totalitarian countries have plenty of government and nothing of anything else.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Bill [Clinton] hates them [refugees] and fears them, especially the Cubans. Bill knows the Cubans are crazy. Only crazy people would flee from a country with free medical care, guaranteed employment for life, and first-rate gun control. The president and his sanctimonious twit of a wife have worked for decades to build a society like this, and here people are taking their lives in their hands to get away from it. ... Let's face facts about our disgusting political opponents. We've been nice to the liberals for too long. They're thugs. The liberal dream is to control people, to oppress and exploit them for some "higher" goal. And how are the liberals ever going to be able to control people brave enough to sail to Florida in a rum carton? ... A civilized society should no more tolerate the presence of a liberal than the presence of a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, it may be argued that liberalism is worse than the KKK, insofar as Klansman only hate some people while liberals hate them all.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Government does not cause affluence. Citizens of totalitarian countries have plenty of government and nothing of anything else.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
There’s a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any over-large concentration of like-minded individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Politics doesn't work. Look at the parts of America where government has had the most power, where government has spent the most money. Look at the housing projects we've got the poor people in.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
A nation with a goofy foreign policy needs a very serious policy of defense.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to egalitarians, to people obsessed with fairness, to American presidential candidates in the year 2000 -- to everyone who believes that wealth should be redistributed. And that message is clear and concise: Go to Hell.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
The term consumerism has been current since the middle 1960s, about the same length of time as the Department of Transportation itself. Literally interpreted, the word means 'an ideology based on the opposite of being productive.' This ideology has caused enormous changes in the American economy. At one time complaining was a cottage industry. The typical maker of complaints gave them to (or traded them with) friends and family members. Sometimes the complaints were sent to newspapers or included in prayers. Friends, family, the press and God then ignored the complaints. In the sixties, however, various consumer advocates began to help complainers find a market for their wares. There is only one organization that is required to take everyone -- and their complaints -- seriously. So the government became the foremost grumble customer. And it is, of course, the government's bureaucratic agencies who have to do the buying.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
The three branches of government number considerably more than three and are not, in any sense, 'branches' since that would imply that there is something they are all attached to besides self-aggrandizement and our pocketbooks. ... Government is not a machine with parts; it's an organism. When does an intestine quit being an intestine and start becoming an asshole?
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Whatever it is the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government do it to somebody else.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
If you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert, and a drug addict, all it means is that you've read his autobiography.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Government isn't a good way to solve problems ... [G]overnment is concerned mostly with self-perpetuation and is subject to fantastic ideas about its own capabilities. ... [G]overnment is wasteful of the nation's resources, immune to common sense and subject to pressure from every half-organized bouquet of assholes. ... [G]overnment is distrustful of and disrespectful toward average Americans while being easily gulled by Americans with money, influence or fame.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Now majority rule is a precious, sacred thing worth dying for. But, like other precious, sacred things…it’s not only worth dying for, it can make you wish you were dead. Imagine if all life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Think of what big governments have gotten up to in this century : not one, but two world wars, the gulag, the holocaust, aerial bombing of civilian population centers, the Berlin Wall, nuclear explosions, the post office. A wicked individual might want these, but he wouldn't have the cash and connections to get them. A villainous corporation could afford them but has to market the products. The Vietnam draft would be a tough sell for even the most fiendish businessmen. "Get shot! Get killed! Get diseases from foreign women who despise you in their hearts!
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Whatever it is that government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government do it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
The main reason to be opposed to political control of smoking is to keep power --even the smallest and silliest kind of power -- out of the hands of ... members of a dangerous class --the class that knows what´s good for us better than we do.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state ... this violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat -- in other words, turn you into an adult.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things bought and sold are legislators.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please.  And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
-- P. J. O'Rourke		 


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