Famous Quotations / Quotes Famous Quotes about Liberty
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	We have depended on government for so much for so long that we as people have become less vigilant of our liberties. As long as the government provides largesse for the majority, the special interest lobbyists will succeed in continuing the redistribution of welfare programs that occupies most of Congress's legislative time. -- Dr. Ron Paul   When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans. Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers. -- Dr. Ron Paul   The obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people. -- Dr. Ron Paul   The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people. -- Dr. Ron Paul   American voters should understand that Congress will always find a way to spend every last dollar sent to Washington. Remember, politicians get votes by promising everything to everyone, always at the expense of some other invisible taxpayers. …The federal government cannot maintain a budget surplus any more than an alcoholic can leave a fresh bottle of whiskey untouched in the cupboard. -- Dr. Ron Paul   -- Dr. Ron Paul   You have to remember, rights don’t come in groups we shouldn’t have ‘gay rights’; rights come as individuals, and we wouldn’t have this major debate going on. It would be behavior that would count, not what person belongs to what group. -- Dr. Ron Paul   We have a lot of goodness in this country. And we should promote it, but never through the barrel of a gun. We should do it by setting good standards, motivating people and have them want to emulate us. But you can't enforce our goodness, like the neocons preach, with an armed force. It doesn't work. -- Dr. Ron Paul   It's a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare system. It's a total fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: the military-industrial complex, the bankers, the foreign dictators, it's totally out of control. [...] This idea that the government has services or goods that they can pass on is a complete farce. Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another at the destruction of the principles of freedom, and we ought to challenge that concept. -- Dr. Ron Paul   Our federal government, which was intended to operate as a very limited constitutional republic, has instead become a virtually socialist leviathan that redistributes trillions of dollars. We can hardly be surprised when countless special interests fight for the money. The only true solution to the campaign money problem is a return to a proper constitutional government that does not control the economy. Big government and big campaign money go hand-in-hand. -- Dr. Ron Paul   Times of tragedy and war naturally bring out strong emotions... Sometimes people are only too anxious to sacrifice their constitutional liberties during a crisis, hoping to gain some measure of security. Yet nothing would please terrorists more than if we willingly gave up our cherished liberties because of their actions. -- Dr. Ron Paul   Welfarism and excessive spending and deficits and socialism divide us, because everybody has to go to Washington. Those who have the biggest clout, those who are the best lobbyists, those who go and they grab. And whether it's the medical industrial complex, or the banking industry, or the military industrial complex, that's who ends up controlling our government... For so long, conservatives and constitutionalists have lost the argument, they lost the moral high ground. Because those who want to give things away, not talking about where they steal it from, but they want to give things and take care of people, they get the moral high ground and they come by as being compassionate. And we who believe in liberty, we lack compassion. But the truth is, there's only one compassionate system known to man, and that is freedom and personal responsibility, then there's enough wealth, and then we will all have personal responsibility to use this compassion that we have, first to take care of our families and friends and neighbors, and there would be so much wealth that we could spread this wealth around the world. -- Dr. Ron Paul   I am absolutely convinced, you never have to give up any of your freedoms in order to be secure. -- Dr. Ron Paul   Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism! -- Dr. Ron Paul   You don't have a right to the fruits of somebody else's labor. You don't have a right to a house, you don't have a right to a job, you don't have a right to medical care. You have a right to your life, you have your right to your liberty, you have a right to keep what your earn. And that's what produces prosperity. So you want equal justice. And this is not hard for me to argue, because if you really are compassionate and you care about people, the freer the society the more prosperous it is, and more likely that you are going to have medical care... When you turn it over to central economic planning, they're bound to make mistakes. The bureaucrats and the special interests and the Halliburtons are going to make the money. Whether it's war, or Katrina, these noncompetitive contracts, the bureaucrats make a lot of money and you end up with inefficiency. -- Dr. Ron Paul   Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms. -- Dr. Ron Paul   Strictly speaking, it probably is not “necessary” for the federal government to tax anyone directly; it could simply print the money it needs. However, that would be too bold a stroke, for it would then be obvious to all what kind of counterfeiting operation the government is running. The present system combining taxation and inflation is akin to watering the milk; too much water and the people catch on. -- Dr. Ron Paul   [W]e have to realize that the real problem is that the American people have been too submissive. We have been too submissive. It has been going on for a long time. ... [T]he bill that I have introduced ... is very simple. It is one paragraph long. It removes the immunity from anybody in the Federal government that does anything that you or I can't do. If you can't grope another person and if you can't X-ray people and endanger them with possible X-rays, [and] you can't take nude photographs of individuals, why do we allow the government to do it? We would go to jail. He would be immediately arrested, if an individual citizen went up and did these things, and yet we just sit there and calmly say, 'oh, they are making us safe.' And besides, the argument from the executive branch is that when you buy a ticket, you have sacrificed your rights and it is the duty of the government to make us safe. That isn't the case. You never have to sacrifice your rights. The duty of the government is to protect our rights, not to use them and do what they have been doing to us. -- Dr. Ron Paul   The theory of the IRS is rather repugnant to me because the assumption is made that I, the government, owns 100% of your income and I permit you to keep 5%, 10% or 20%. You're vulnerable, you've sold out. The government can take 80% if they want, which they did at one time. -- Dr. Ron Paul   When one person can initiate war, by its definition, a republic no longer exists. -- Dr. Ron Paul   They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil. -- Paul the Apostle   Assuming that either the left wing or the right wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles. -- Pat Paulsen   All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian. -- Pat Paulsen   The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies. -- Cesare Pavese   To know the world one must construct it. -- Cesare Pavese   We can't spend more than we have. ... This is no longer a matter of right versus left, liberal versus conservative, we can prove our conclusion on this by basic mathematics. The United States Federal Government from all sources, for all purposes, takes in $2.2 trillion a year. Keep that number in mind. $2.2 trillion a year. We have total unfunded liabilities of $65 trillion, $2.2 trillion in revenue, $65 trillion in total unfunded liabilities. That is more than 30 to 1 leverage. If the United States Federal Government were a bank regulated by itself, they would shut themselves down. We live in a nation where not long ago our United States Secretary of State [Hillary Clinton] was on rhetorical bended knee in communist China pleading with the Chinese to continue to buy our debt, because if they don’t buy our debt and other foreign sovereign wealth funds don’t buy our debt our beloved United States of America can’t pay its bills. The United States of America my friends is not a beggar nation. -- Gov. Tim Pawlenty   ....it is always easier to tell people what to do than to find out what is happening... -- Martin Pawley   Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. -- J. H. Payne   What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions; life is plurality, death is uniformity. -- Octavio Paz   [Transcription of some of the signs in Washington during the peace march January 18, 2003] -- Peace March Signs   The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. -- Norman Vincent Peale   We live in a world that has popularized Black people showing the same hate towards white people that people like Martin Luther King Jr. died fighting to overcome. It’s sad. Sad as hell. -- CJ Pearson   Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects. -- Lester B. Pearson   Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. -- M. Scott Peck   Did I say "republic?" By God, yes, I said "republic!" Long live the glorious republic of the United States of America. Damn democracy. It is a fraudulent term used, often by ignorant persons but no less often by intellectual fakers, to describe an infamous mixture of socialism, graft, confiscation of property and denial of personal rights to individuals whose virtuous principles make them offensive. -- Westbrook Pegler   He who does not bellow out the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers. -- Charles Peguy   Contrary to the Marxists, the Nazis did not advocate public ownership of the means of production. They did demand that the government oversee and run the nation's economy. The issue of legal ownership, they explained, is secondary; what counts is the issue of control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property -- so long as the state reserves to itself the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property. -- Leonard Peikoff   Contrary to the Marxists, the Nazis did not advocate public ownership of the means of production. They did demand that the government oversee and run the nation’s economy. The issue of legal ownership, they explained, is secondary; what counts is the issue of control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property—so long as the state reserves to itself the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property. -- Leonard Peikoff   You demonize...we call it the wrap-up smear, you smear somebody with falsehoods and all the rest, and then you merchandise it and then you write it and say, "See, it's reported in the press that this, this, and this..." so they have that validation that the press reported the smear and then it's called a wrap-up-smear and the merchandise is the press' report on the smear we made. It's a tactic, and it's self-evident. -- Nancy Pelosi   Let the people think they govern and they will be governed. -- William Penn   Justice is the insurance we have in our lives, and obedience is the premium we pay for it. -- William Penn   To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as morals. -- William Penn   Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants. -- William Penn   A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil, that good may come of it. -- William Penn   The loyalists in the beginning of the late war objected to associating, arming and fighting, in defense of our liberties, because these measures were not constitutional. A free people should always be left... with every possible power to promote their own happiness. -- Pennsylvania Gazette   The provision in the Constitution granting the right to all persons to bear arms is a limitation upon the power of the Legislature to enact any law to the contrary. The exercise of a right guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be made subject to the will of the sheriff. -- People vs. Zerillo   Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers. -- Erik Pepke   One has the right to be wrong in a democracy. -- Claude Pepper   Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. -- Pericles   Instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all. -- Pericles   I believe that America is the greatest country in history and for good reasons, but America has been changing and not for the better. Our free society has been falling prey to a more repressive system with methods for the increased control of people. The return of groups and individuals to the controlling ideology of Imperialism and Marxism using the structures of Corporatism, Socialism and Democracy. The result is that this nation's foundational principles based on the ideology of Liberty are now in danger of extinction. -- Darren Perkins   Our dependency makes slaves out of us, especially if this dependency is a dependency of our self esteem. If you need encouragement, pats on the back from everybody, then you make everybody your judge. -- Fritz Perls   Is any man free except the one who can pass his life as he pleases? [Lat., An quisquam est alius liber, nisi ducere vitam Cui licet, ut voluit?] -- Persius   Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. -- St. Peter   While [false teachers] promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. -- St. Peter   Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status. -- Laurence J. Peter   A free press is one that prints a dictator’s speech but doesn’t have to. -- Laurence J. Peter   Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame. -- Laurence J. Peter   A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to. -- Laurence J. Peter   Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy. -- Charles Peters   If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade. -- Tom Peters   The American people are bound to the people of the Soviet Union in the great alliance of the United Nations. We are determined that nothing shall stop us from sharing with you all that we have. -- Howard C. Peterson   We are good citizens, and we cannot protect ourselves because you allow the criminals to run wild. ... I'd like you to come and live in the inner city for a week and see the importance of having a weapon. ... Go after the criminals and not the good people. -- Jesse Lee Peterson   One should not associate with controversy; one should always reach for the highest ratings; one should never forget that there is safety in numbers; one should always remember that comedy, adventure, and escapism provide the best atmosphere for selling. -- Peter G. Peterson   ... the key question is: can we define 'income' in a fair and reasonably straightforward manner? Unfortunately we have not yet succeeded in doing so. -- Shirley Peterson   Eight decades of amendments... to (the) code have produced a virtually impenetrable maze... The rules are unintelligible to most citizens... The rules are equally mysterious to many government employees who are charged with administering and enforcing the law. -- Shirley Peterson   If oppression and wrong should gain the ascendancy, and injustice stalk abroad in the land, and all else fail him; nevertheless his humblest roof, and all things that are sheltered beneath it, would find, somehow, someway, a final refuge and protection in the Supreme Court of the United States. -- Edward J. Phelps   A large body of people, sufficient to make a nation, have come to the conclusion that they will have a government of a certain form. Who denies them the right? Standing with the principles of '76 behind us, who can deny them the right? ... I maintain on the principles of '76 that Abraham Lincoln has no right to a soldier in Fort Sumter. ... You can never make such a war popular. ... The North never will endorse such a war. -- Wendell Phillips   Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories. -- Wendell Phillips   No free people can lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshipping the symbol instead of the principle it represents. -- Wendell Phillips   The labor movement means just this: it is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth. -- Wendell Phillips   No matter whose lips that would speak, they must be free and ungagged. The community which dares not protect its humblest and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves. If there is anything in the universe that can’t stand discussion, let it crack. -- Wendell Phillips   Eternal vigilence is the price of liberty. -- Wendell Phillips   Let us always remember that he does not really believe his own opinion, who dares not give free scope to his opponent. -- Wendell Phillips   Liberty knows nothing but victories. Soldiers call Bunker Hill a defeat; but liberty dates from it though Warren lay dead on the field. -- Wendell Phillips   Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. -- Wendell Phillips   Money, it has been said, is the cause of good things to a good man, of evil things to a bad man. -- Philo of Alexandria   A free spirit takes liberties even with liberty itself. -- Francis Picabia   Art is an instrument in the war against the enemy. -- Pablo Picasso   All the progress we have made in philosophy… is the result of that methodical skepticism which is the element of human freedom. -- Charles S. Pierce   Every child in America who enters school at the age of five is mentally ill, because he comes to school with an allegiance toward our elected officials, toward our founding fathers, toward our institutions, toward the preservation of this form of government that we have. Patriotism, nationalism, and sovereignty, all that proves that children are sick because a truly well individual is one who has rejected all of those things, and is truly the international child of the future. -- Dr. Chester Pierce   I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity, ... [it] would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded. -- Franklin Pierce   The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded. -- Franklin Pierce   The constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those … who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy. ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded. -- Franklin Pierce   Socialism is after all, the Viagra of politics... -- Michael Pierce   Congress has doubled the IRS budget over the past 10 years -- making that agency one of the fastest growing non-entitlement programs. It has increased its employment by 20 percent. The IRS’s powers to investigate and examine taxpayers transcend those of any other law enforcement agency. Virtually all of the constitutional rights regarding search and seizure, due process, and jury trial simply do not apply to the IRS. -- Daniel Pilla   Today, of course, the redistributive powers of Congress are everywhere -- except in the Constitution. The result is the feeding frenzy that is modern Washington, the Hobbesian war of all against all as each tries to get his share and more of the common pot the tax system fills. ... It is unseemly and wrong. More than that, it is unconstitutional, whatever the slim and cowed majority on the New Deal Court may have said. -- Roger Pilon   The growth of federal power and programs over this century -- involving the regulation of business, the expansion of "civil rights," the production of environmental goods, and much else -- has taken place in large measure through the power of Congress to regulate "commerce among the states." That power has been read so broadly by the modern Court that Congress today can regulate anything that even "affects" commerce, which in principle is everything. As a result, save for the restraints imposed by the Bill of Rights, the commerce power is now essentially plenary, which is hardly what the Framers intended when they enumerated Congress’s powers. Indeed, if they had meant for Congress to be able to do anything it wanted under the commerce power, the enumeration of Congress’s other powers -- to say nothing of the defense of the doctrine of enumerated powers throughout the Federalist Papers -- would have been pointless. The purpose of the commerce clause quite simply, was to enable Congress to ensure the free flow of commerce among the states. Under the Articles of Confederation, state legislatures had enacted tariffs and other protectionist measures that impeded interstate commerce. To break the logjam, Congress was empowered to make commerce among the states "regular." In fact, the need to do so was one of the principal reasons behind the call for a new constitution. -- Roger Pilon   Indeed, it was the enumeration of powers, not the enumeration of rights in the Bill of Rights, that was meant by the Framers to be the principal limitation on government power. -- Roger Pilon   Over the 20th century, the federal government has assumed a vast and unprecedented set of powers. Not only has the exercise of those powers upset the balance between federal and state governments; run roughshod over individuals, families, and firms; and reduced economic opportunity for all; but most of what the federal government does today -- to put the point as plainly and candidly as possible -- is illegitimate because done without explicit constitutional authority. The time has come to start returning power to the states and the people, to relimit federal power in our fundamental law, to restore constitutional government. -- Roger Pilon   Unfortunately, over the course of this century Congress has largely ignored the constitutional limits on its power. And the courts, especially after Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court with six additional members, have only abetted the resulting growth of government by fashioning constitutional doctrines that have no basis whatever in the Constitution. As a consequence, many of the programs Congress oversees today are without constitutional foundation, having resulted from acts that Congress had no authority. -- Roger Pilon   [T]he vast regulatory structure the federal government has erected in the name of the commerce power cannot be ended overnight, in many cases, but the pretense that such programs are constitutional can be ended, even as the programs themselves are phased out over time. -- Roger Pilon   Under our Constitution, the federal government has delegated, enumerated and thus limited powers. Power is delegated by the founding generation or through subsequent amendment (that makes it legitimate); enumerated in the constitution (that makes it legal); and limited by that enumeration. As the 10th Amendment says, if a power hasn’t been delegated, the federal government doesn’t have it. For 150 years, that design held for the most part. When faced with a welfare bill in 1794, for example, James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, rose in the House to say that he could find no constitutional authority for the bill. A century later, when Congress passed a similar measure, President Cleveland vetoed it as beyond Congress’ authority. That all changed during the New Deal as both congress and the president sought to expand federal power. When the Supreme court objected, rather than amend the Constitution, Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to pack the court with six additional members. The scheme failed, but the threat worked. Thereafter, the court started reading the Constitution’s General Welfare and Commerce Clauses so broadly that the doctrine of enumerated powers was essentially destroyed—and with it limited government. -- Roger Pilon   The legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion nor touching or abridging the liberty of the press. -- Charles Pinckney   Sept. 9, 2004, will be remembered as a paradigm-shifting day in media history. That was the day the 'blogosphere' took down CBS News. -- James Pinkerton   Honesty demands that we boldly pursue ideas tested by time, defended by reason, validated by experience, and confirmed by revelation. We will only find truth when we place our confidence in it and not in ourselves. We will only learn when we love truth enough to measure all ideas with a measuring rod outside of those things being measured and are willing to discard those ideas we find to be "intolerable," inferior, and useless. -- Everett Piper   History has taught us time and again that political power always raises its angry fist when timeless principles are lost. We know that without the scale of "self-evident truths" grounded in the "laws of nature and nature's God," every culture eventually finds itself subject to the rule of the gang or the tyranny of the individual. Recognizing this, scholars of all ages have confidently given their hearts and minds to the words, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. -- Everett Piper   Only the incompetent wait until the last extremity to use force, and by then, it is usually too late to use anything, even prayer. -- H. Beam Piper   The poorest man may in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement. -- William Pitt   Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. -- William Pitt   Unlimited Power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it. -- William Pitt, Sr.   Henceforth it will be the task of this Sacred Congregation not only to examine carefully the books denounced to it, to prohibit them if necessary, and to grant permission for reading forbidden books, but also to supervise, ex officio, books that are being published, and to pass sentence on such as deserve to be prohibited. -- Pope Pius X   One Galileo in two thousand years is enough. -- Pope Pius XII   Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. -- Plato   Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments. -- Plato   Do not expect justice where might is right. -- Plato   We see many instances of cities going down like sinking ships to their destruction. There have been such wrecks in the past and there surely will be others in the future, caused by the wickedness of captains and crews alike. For these are guilty men, whose sin is supreme ignorance of what matters most. -- Plato   A tyrant…is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. -- Plato   One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato   Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule. -- Plato   The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness… This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs, when he first appears he is a protector. -- Plato   Freedom in a democracy is the glory of the state, and, therefore, in a democracy only will the freeman of nature deign to dwell. -- Plato   Only the dead have seen the end of war. -- Plato   Democracy…is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. -- Plato   Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. -- Plato   Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught in falsehood's school. And the one man who dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool. -- Plato   The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs, is to be ruled by evil men. -- Plato   Your silence gives consent. -- Plato   Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. -- Plato   When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. -- Plato   The worst of all deceptions is self-deception. -- Plato   Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. -- Plato   Kings … will … take possession of the children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws. -- Plato   Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired. -- Titus Maccius Plautus   Patience is the best remedy for every trouble. -- Titus Maccius Plautus   No man is wise enough by himself. -- Titus Maccius Plautus   I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. -- Pledge of Allegiance   Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little. -- Plutarch   The first destroyer of the liberties of a people is he who first gave them bounties and largess. -- Plutarch   An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. -- Plutarch   The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits. -- Plutarch   What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. -- Plutarch   The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled. -- Plutarch   [T]he next time you read or hear about a murder victim, a rape victim or an assault victim, I want you to preface it with the word 'unarmed' so that murder victims become 'unarmed murder victims'; this is especially true in rape. How many times have you read, 'An unidentified woman, heavily armed with a semi-automatic weapon was raped by a man wielding a knife.' No answer is necessary, right? -- The Liberty Pole   Great popular support and enthusiasm for the United Nations policies should be built up, well organized and fully articulate. But it is necessary to do more than that. The opposition must be rendered so impotent that it will be unable to gather any significant support in the Senate against the United Nations Charter and the treaties which will follow. -- Political Affairs   The freedom to make and admit mistakes is at the core of the scientific process. If we are asked to forswear error, or worse, to say that error means fraud, then we cannot function as scientists. -- Robert Pollack   When libertarian moral theory is combined with economic theory a compelling conception of the good society emerges. -- Lansing Pollock   We get lost in a fog of abstractions and easily forget that man is a bloodhound sniffing out the real. -- Robert C. Pollock   [A] public policy of simply discouraging people from owning or using firearms is not, in and of itself, a constitutionally permissible objective, any more than discouraging people from religious observance would be permissible to some oh-so-progressive government that considered religion as hopelessly declassé as progressives nowadays consider the right to keep and bear arms .... And any statute or regulation that burdens the right to keep and bear arms on the ground that guns are a public health hazard should enjoy the same frosty reception in court that would be given a statute or regulation that burdened the free exercise of religion as a mental hazard. -- Daniel D. Polsby   [There can be no] rational administration of government when good men are held in the same esteem as bad ones. -- Polybius   The object of this clause [the right of the people to keep and bear arms] is to secure a well-armed militia.... But a militia would be useless unless the citizens were enabled to exercise themselves in the use of warlike weapons. To preserve this privilege, and to secure to the people the ability to oppose themselves in military force against the usurpations of government, as well as against enemies from without, that government is forbidden by any law or proceeding to invade or destroy the right to keep and bear arms. -- John Norton Pomeroy   We turn sacred cows into hamburger. -- Lowell Ponte   Give me again my hollow tree A crust of bread, and liberty! -- Alexander Pope   Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. -- Alexander Pope   Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few. -- Alexander Pope   A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. -- Alexander Pope   Oh what a tangled web we weave\\ When first we practise to deceive;\\ But when we’ve practised quite a while,\\ How vastly we improve our style. -- J. R. Pope   There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions… It obviously endangers the freedom and the objectivity of our discussion if we attack a person instead of attacking an opinion or, more precisely, a theory. -- Sir Karl Popper   We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure. -- Sir Karl Popper   Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant… then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. […] We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. -- Karl R. Popper   Throughout the history of the United States, war has been the primary impetus behind the growth and development of the central state. It has been the lever by which presidents and other national officials have bolstered the power of the state in the face of tenacious popular resistance. -- Bruce D. Porter   MacKinnon's treatment of the central issue of pornography as she herself poses it -- the harm that pornography does to women -- is shockingly causal. Much of her evidence is anecdotal, and in a nation of 260 Million people, anecdotes are a weak form of evidence. -- Judge Richard Posner   I do not know what has caused MacKinnon to become, and, more surprisingly, to remain, so obsessed with pornography, and so zealous for censorship. But let us not sacrifice our civil liberties on the altar of her obsession. -- Judge Richard Posner   Now that eighteen-year-olds have the right to vote, it is obvious that they must be allowed the freedom to form their political views on the basis of uncensored speech before they turn eighteen, so that their minds are not a blank when they first exercise the franchise. And since an eighteen-year-old’s right to vote is a right personal to him rather than a right to be exercised on his behalf by his parents, the right of parents to enlist the aid of the state to shield their children from ideas of which the parents disapprove cannot be plenary either. People are unlikely to become well-functioning, independent-minded adults and responsible citizens if they are raised in an intellectual bubble. -- Richard Posner   It is the censor's business to make a judgment about the propriety of the content or message of the proposed expressive activity. The regulation here does not authorize any judgment about the content of any speeches. ... A park is a limited space, and to allow unregulated access to all comers could easily reduce rather than enlarge the park's utility as a forum for speech. Just imagine two rallies held at the same time in the same park area using public-address systems that drowned out each other's speakers. -- Richard Posner   Violent video games played in public places are a tiny fraction of the media violence to which modern American children are exposed. Tiny -- and judging from the record of this case not very violent compared to what is available to children on television and in movie theaters today. -- Richard Posner   Police may have no right to privacy in carrying out official duties in public. But the civilians they interact with do. -- Judge Richard Allen Posner   If you permit the audio recordings, they'll be a lot more eavesdropping. ... There's going to be a lot of this snooping around by reporters and bloggers. ... Yes, it's a bad thing. There is such a thing as privacy. -- Judge Richard Allen Posner   Make no mistake about it: the labeling of someone’s language as ‘sexist’ involves a political judgment and implies the desirability of a particular sociological doctrine. One may be in favor of that doctrine (as I believe I am) but it is quite another matter to force writers by edicts and censorship into accepting it. -- Neil Postman   The American notion of freedom transcended the political realm and in fact extended to every major category of human relationships, including those between employer and employee, clergyman and layman, husband and wife, parent and child, public official and citizen. Americans believed that, as of July 4, 1776, all men were created equal, and that any impairment of a man’s equality was destructive of his liberty also. -- David M. Potter   It is clear in our criminal justice system that the jury has the power to nullify -- that is, the power to acquit or to convict on reduced charges despite overwhelming evidence against the defendant. ... In a criminal trial, the court cannot direct a verdict of guilty, no matter how strong the evidence. In addition, if the jury acquits, double jeopardy bars the prosecution from appealing the verdict or seeking retrial. Similarly, if the jury convicts the defendant of a less serious offense than the one charged, the prosecution cannot again try the defendant on the more serious charge. This result occurs regardless of whether the jury consciously rejects the law, embraces a merciful attitude, or is simply confused concerning the law or facts. Thus, nullification -- with or without authority, intended or not -- is part of our system. -- Anne Bowen Poulin   The power of nullification plays an important role in the criminal justice system. ... Because an accused criminal is restricted in the defenses he or she can raise, the law recognizes only certain defenses and justification, and correspondingly, limited evidence. The jury’s power to nullify provides an accommodation between the rigidity of the law and the need to hear and respond to positions that do not fit legal pigeonholes, such as claims of spousal abuse before the battered-spouse syndrome received acceptance. Jury nullification permits the jury to respond to a position that does not have the status of a legally recognized defense. The power to nullify guarantees that the jury is free to speak as the conscience of the community. -- Anne Bowen Poulin   Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand. -- Ezra Pound   The phase of the usury system which we are trying to analyze is more or less Patterson's perception that the Bank of England could have benefit of all the interest on all the money that it creates out of nothing. ... Now the American citizen can, of course, appeal to his constitution, which states that Congress shall have power to coin money or regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin. Such appeal is perhaps quixotic. -- Ezra Pound   I think an alliance with Stalin's Russia is rotten. -- Ezra Pound   Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt. -- Ezra Pound   Sovereignty inheres in the right to issue money. And the American sovereignty belongs by right to the people, and their representatives in Congress have the right to issue money and to determine the value thereof. And 120 million, 120 million suckers have lamentably failed to insist on the observation of this quite decided law. ... Now the point at which embezzlement of the nation's funds on the part of her officers becomes treason can probably be decided only by jurists, and not by hand-picked judges who support illegality. -- Ezra Pound   Liberty is not a right but a duty. -- Ezra Pound   That text is known to them that have the patience to read it, possibly one one-hundredth of one percent of the denizens. They forget it, all save a few Western states. I think somebody in Dakota once read it. The Constitution. -- Ezra Pound   Jury lawlessness is the greatest corrective of law in its actual administration. -- Roscoe Pound   The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling. -- Paula Poundstone   Those who believe themselves to be masters of all they survey are mistaken. There is no such thing as absolute power and the delusion that one is in possession of such power constitutes absolute corruption. This delusion leads, resolutely, to the downfall of its adherents. -- Daniel Pouzzner   The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to limit what the federal government could do. Any interpretation of a provision of the Bill of Rights as a grant of federal power is ipso facto wrong. -- L. A. Powe, Jr.   Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return. -- General Colin Powell (False)   So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world. We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we've done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home ... to live our own lives in peace. -- General Colin Powell   One of the fondest expressions around is that we can't be the world's policeman. But guess who gets called when somebody needs a cop. -- General Colin Powell   I will not surrender responsibility for my life and my actions. -- John Enoch Powell   The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal. -- Lewis F. Powell   Let therefore every man, that, appealing to his own heart, feels the least spark of virtue or freedom there, think that it is an honor which he owes himself, and a duty which he owes his country, to bear arms. -- Thomas Pownhall   To the students and faculty of our high school: I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people.\\\\ I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in America have worked against you, against your teachers and against our country.\\\\ First, this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships.\\\\ The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity -- your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American. This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans.\\\\ If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial or religious identity through school, you will have to go elsewhere. We will end all ethnicity-, race- and non-American nationality-based celebrations. They undermine the motto of America, one of its three central values -- e pluribus unum, "from many, one." And this school will be guided by America's values.\\\\ This includes all after-school clubs. I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on any identities. This includes race, language, religion, sexual orientation or whatever else may become in vogue in a society divided by political correctness.\\\\ Your clubs will be based on interests and passions, not blood, ethnic, racial or other physically defined ties. Those clubs just cultivate narcissism -- an unhealthy preoccupation with the self -- while the purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. So we will have clubs that transport you to the wonders and glories of art, music, astronomy, languages you do not already speak, carpentry and more. If the only extracurricular activities you can imagine being interesting in are those based on ethnic, racial or sexual identity, that means that little outside of yourself really interests you.\\\\ Second, I am uninterested in whether English is your native language. My only interest in terms of language is that you leave this school speaking and writing English as fluently as possible. The English language has united America's citizens for over 200 years, and it will unite us at this school. It is one of the indispensable reasons this country of immigrants has always come to be one country. And if you leave this school without excellent English language skills, I would be remiss in my duty to ensure that you will be prepared to successfully compete in the American job market. We will learn other languages here -- it is deplorable that most Americans only speak English -- but if you want classes taught in your native language rather than in English, this is not your school.\\\\ Third, because I regard learning as a sacred endeavor, everything in this school will reflect learning's elevated status. This means, among other things, that you and your teachers will dress accordingly. Many people in our society dress more formally for Hollywood events than for church or school. These people have their priorities backward. Therefore, there will be a formal dress code at this school.\\\\ Fourth, no obscene language will be tolerated anywhere on this school's property -- whether in class, in the hallways or at athletic events. If you can't speak without using the f-word, you can't speak. By obscene language I mean the words banned by the Federal Communications Commission, plus epithets such as [the 'N' word], even when used by one black student to address another black, or 'bitch,' even when addressed by a girl to a girlfriend. It is my intent that by the time you leave this school, you will be among the few your age to instinctively distinguish between the elevated and the degraded, the holy and the obscene.\\\\ Fifth, we will end all self-esteem programs. In this school, self-esteem will be attained in only one way -- the way people attained it until decided otherwise a generation ago -- by earning it. One immediate consequence is that there will be one valedictorian, not eight.\\\\ Sixth, and last, I am reorienting the school toward academics and away from politics and propaganda. No more time will be devoted to scaring you about smoking and caffeine, or terrifying you about sexual harassment or global warming. No more semesters will be devoted to condom wearing and teaching you to regard sexual relations as only or primarily a health issue. There will be no more attempts to convince you that you are a victim because you are not white, or not male, or not heterosexual or not Christian. We will have failed if any one of you graduates this school and does not consider him or herself inordinately lucky -- to be alive and to be an American.\\\\ Now, please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of our country. As many of you do not know the words, your teachers will hand them out to you. -- Dennis Prager   Our job this day is to become part of the answer to the world's immense and protracted suffering rather than continuing our ancient task of being part of the difficulty. -- Hugh Prather   Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. -- Elvis Presley   Given the opportunity, the IRS will take the easy way out and grab whatever it can... the IRS does not really care about you and what your future... may be. -- Santo Presti   Fear is the key element for the IRS in achieving its mission. Without fear, the IRS would have a difficult time maintaining our so-called system of voluntary compliance ... -- Santo Presti   You are not what you think you are; What you think – you are. -- Red Pritchard   Socialism needs two legs on which to stand; a right and a left.  While appearing to be in complete opposition to one another,  they both march in the same direction. -- Paul Proctor   Jena by this time was a center of antitobacco activism -- mainly through the labors of Karl Astel, director of the new institute [Institute for Tobacco Hazards Research] and president, since the summer of 1939, of the University of Jena. Astel was head of the Thuringia's office of Racial Affairs and a notorious antisemite and racial hygienist (he had joined the Nazi party and the SS in July of 1930) ... Astel was also a militant antismoker and teetolater who once characterized opposition to tobacco as a 'national socialist duty.' On May 1, 1941, he banned smoking in all buildings and classrooms of the University of Jena, and the following spring, as head of Thuringia's Public Health Office, he announced a smoking ban in all regional schools and health offices. Tobacco in his view had to be fought 'cigar by cigar, cigarette by cigarette, and pack by pack' -- hence his notoriety for snatching cigarettes from the mouth of students who dared to violate his Jena University tobacco ban. -- Robert N. Proctor   One topic that has only recently begun to attract attention is the Nazi anti-tobacco movement. Germany had the world's strongest antismoking movement in the 1930s and early 1940s, supported by Nazi medical and military leaders worried that tobacco might prove a hazard to the race. Many Nazi leaders were vocal opponents of smoking. Anti-tobacco activists pointed out that whereas Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt were all fond of tobacco, the three major fascist leaders of Europe -- Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco -- were all non-smokers. -- Robert N. Proctor   Riding a bike is 113 times more dangerous than hunting with all those “gun nuts”! The NSC [National Safety Council] reports that out of 100,000 bicyclists 905 had injuries requiring hospital treatment. Out of the same number of fisherman, 141 required treatment and out of 100,000 golfers 104 were injured. Please compare that to the 8 hunters out of 100,000 who were injured in 1991 (last year for data). -- The Proponent   To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so...\\ To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality. -- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon   Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth!  They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of the government. -- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon   We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can make for us or spare us. -- Marcel Proust   Even the smallest candle burns brighter in the dark. -- Proverb   Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are. -- Proverb   Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. -- Proverb   Observation, and not old age, brings wisdom. -- Proverb   The wise learn from the experience of others, most from their own experience, and fools not at all. -- Proverb   A person with one watch knows what time it is; a person with two watches is never sure. -- Proverb   An honest answer is the sign of true friendship. -- Proverb   Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. -- Proverb   The wise do freely, early and in good time, what fools do later out of necessity. -- Proverb   Seize opportunity by the beard, for it is bald behind. -- Bulgarian Proverb   Outside noisy, inside empty. -- Chinese Proverb   The believer is happy, the doubter is wise. -- Hungarian Proverb   Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth. -- Irish Proverb   You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep. -- Navajo Proverb   It is better to live one day as a lion, than one hundred years as a sheep -- Roman Proverb   The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going. -- Proverbs   The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. -- Proverbs   An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. -- Joseph Pulitzer   Our republic and its press will rise and fall together. -- Joseph Pulitzer   A deranged psychopath is no match for a well-focused psychotic. -- The Punisher   Our anti-crisis policy is directed to internal demand support, social security of citizens and creation of new jobs. Like many other countries, we are reducing taxes on production, investing money in the economy. We are optimising state expenses. -- Vladimir Putin   We must seek support in the moral values that have ensured the progress of our civilization. Honesty and hard work, responsibility and faith in our strength are bound to bring us success. There should be no place for despondency. The crisis can and must be fought by uniting our intellectual, spiritual and material resources. -- Vladimir Putin   I think that the 21st-century economy is an economy of people, not of factories. The intellectual aspect in the global economic development has grown immensely. That’s why we plan to concentrate on creating additional opportunities for our people to realise their potential. -- Vladimir Putin   Let us be frank: provoking military-political instability and other regional conflicts is also a convenient way of deflecting people’s attention from mounting social and economic problems. Regrettably, further attempts of this kind cannot be ruled out. -- Vladimir Putin   Unfortunately, more and more often we hear that increasing military spending will help solve today’s social and economic problems. The logic here is quite simple. Additional allocations for military needs create new jobs. For reference: The growth of military spending: USA—$529 billion in 2006, $555 billion in 2007, and $583 billion in 2008. Experts expect $606 billion in 2009. Great Britain—£27 billion in 2006, £31 billion in 2007, £34 billion in 2008, and £35.2 billion planned for 2009. Germany—€23 billion in 2006, €24 billion in 2007, and €25 billion in 2008. China—$38 billion in 2006, $44 billion in 2007, $58 billion in 2008, and a 17% increase in 2009 (around $66 billion). Georgia (according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute)—$49 million in 2002, $80 million in 2004, $362 million in 2006, $592 million in 2007, and $1.104 billion in 2008. At a glance, it seems to be merely a method to fight the crisis and unemployment. Perhaps, in the short run, such a measure may yield some results. But in reality, instead of solving the problem, militarisation pushes it to a deeper level. It draws away from the economy immense financial and material resources, which could have been used much more efficiently elsewhere. -- Vladimir Putin   One must not allow oneself to skid down to isolationism and unbridled economic egoism. ... The second possible mistake would be excessive interference into the economic life of the country. And the absolute faith into the all-mightiness of the state. -- Vladimir Putin   During the time of the Soviet Union the role of the state in economy was made absolute, which eventually lead to the total non-competitiveness of the economy. That lesson cost us very dearly. I am sure nobody would want history to repeat itself. We should also be aware that for during the last months, we have been witnessing the washout of the entrepreneurship spirit. That includes the principle of the personal responsibility – of a businessman, an investor or a share-holder – for his or her own decisions. There are no grounds to suggest that by putting the responsibility over to the state, one can achieve better results. Another thing – handling crisis must not turn into financial populism, into rejecting a responsible macro-economic policy. Unreasonable expansion of the budget deficit, accumulation of the national debt – are as destructive as an adventurous stock market game. -- Vladimir Putin   There is no inherent misdirection in holding unorthodox views. Indeed, the autonomous individual, free from compulsive conformance and unquestioned assumptions, is likely to be unorthodox... They stimulate the climate of controversy without which political democracy becomes an empty formalism. -- Snell Putney   If a government were trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of a population, what would it do?\\ 1. The use of indirect rather than direct taxes, so that the tax is hidden in the price of goods. \\ 2. Inflation, by which the state reduces the value of everyone else's currency. \\ 3. Borrowing, so as to postpone the necessary taxation. \\ 4. Gift and luxury taxes, where the tax accompanies the receipt or purchase of something special, lessening the annoyance of the tax.\\ 5. “Temporary” taxes, which somehow never get repealed when the emergency passes.\\ 6. Taxes that exploit social conflict, by placing higher taxes on unpopular groups.\\ 7. The threat of social collapse or withholding monopoly government services if taxes are reduced.\\ 8. Collection of the total tax burden in relatively small increments over time, rather than in a yearly lump sum.\\ 9. Taxes whose exact incidence cannot be predicted in advance, thus keeping the taxpayer unaware of just how much he is paying.\\ 10. Extraordinary budget complexity to hide the budget process from public understanding. 11. The use of generalized expenditure categories to make it difficult for outsiders to assess the individual components of the budget.\\ -- Amilcare Puviani   A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns. -- Mario Puzo   The weapon of the dictator is not so much propaganda as censorship. -- Terence H. Qualter   To understand a man, you must know his memories. The same is true of a nation. -- Anthony Quayle   I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy. But that will change. -- Dan Quayle   The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. -- Carroll Quigley   In 1891, [Cecile] Rhodes organized a secret society with members in a "Circle of Initiates" and an outer circle known as the "Association of Helpers" later organized as the Round Table organization. In 1909-1913, they organized semi-secret groups known as Round Table Groups in the chief British dependencies and the United States. In 1919, they founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Similar Institutes of International Affairs were established in the chief British dominions and the United States where it is known as the Council on Foreign Relations. After 1925, the Institute of Pacific Relations was set up in twelve Pacific area countries. They were constantly harping on the lessons to be learned from the failure of the American Revolution and the success of the Canadian federation of 1867 and hoped to federate the various parts of the empire and then confederate the whole with the United Kingdom.\\ ...\\ There does exist and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates to some extent in the way the Radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known." -- Carroll Quigley   The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is the American Branch of a society which originated in England... (and) ...believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years, and was permitted in the early 1960's to examine its papers and secret records. … I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known. -- Carroll Quigley (False)   The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world. -- Carroll Quigley   I am now quite sure that 'Tragedy and Hope' was suppressed although I do not know why or by whom. -- Carroll Quigley   For the first time in its history, Western Civilization is in danger of being destroyed internally by a corrupt, criminal ruling cabal which is centered around the Rockefeller interests, which include elements from the Morgan, Brown, Rothschild, Du Pont, Harriman, Kuhn-Loeb, and other groupings as well. This junta took control of the political, financial, and cultural life of America in the first two decades of the twentieth century. -- Carroll Quigley (False)   Under God we are determined that, wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever, we shall be called upon to make our exit, we will die freemen. -- Josiah Quincy, Jr.   Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a "halter" intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men. -- Josiah Quincy, Jr.   Lawyers [are] operators of the toll bridge across which anyone in search of justice has to pass. -- Jane Bryant Quinn   Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish. -- Marcus Fabius Quintilianus   Sanity may be madness but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be. -- Don Quixote   Those who swallow down usury cannot arise except as one whom Satan has prostrated by his touch does rise. That is because they say, trading is only like usury; and Allah has allowed trading and forbidden usury. To whomsoever then the admonition has come from his Lord, then he desists, he shall have what is already passed, and his affairs are in the hands of Allah; and whoever returns to it - these are the inmates of the fire; they shall abide in it..." -- Qur'an   Most new insights come only after a superabundant accumulation of facts have removed the blindness which prevented us from seeing what later comes to be regarded as obvious. -- Isidor Issac Rabi   Our government has found that the most effective way to control a person is not by the ballot or the bullet, but rather by the 'bucket'. Today, in a country that fought a revolution to rid itself of a repressive government and excessive taxes, government takes 40 percent of everything we earn in the form of taxes. -- Byron C. Radaker   To have freedom is only to have that which is absolutely necessary to enable us to be what we ought to be, and to possess what we ought to possess. -- Ibn Rahel   [It is a basic principle of a tyrant] to unarm his people of weapons, money, and all means whereby they resist his power. -- Sir Walter Raleigh   A man must first govern himself ere he is fit to govern a family; and his family ere he be fit to bear the government of the commonwealth. -- Sir Walter Raleigh   Heresy hunters are intolerant not only of unorthodox ideas; worse than that, they are intolerant of ideas -- of any ideas which are really alive and not empty cocoons. -- Philip Lee Ralph   Under fascism, citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership. Under socialism, government officials acquire all the advantages of ownership, without any of the responsibilities, since they do not hold title to the property, but merely the right to use it -- at least until the next purge. In either case, the government officials hold the economic, political and legal power of life or death over the citizens. -- Ayn Rand   The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia [was] the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced. -- Ayn Rand   ...there is no such entity as 'the public' - since the public is merely a number of individuals - the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others. -- Ayn Rand   [S]tatism is a system of institutionalized violence and perpetual civil war. It leaves men no choice but to fight to seize political power -- to rob or be robbed, to kill or be killed. ... Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production. -- Ayn Rand   The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights... -- Ayn Rand   The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia is the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced.  If service and self-sacrifice are a moral ideal, and if the "selfishness" of human nature prevents men from leaping into sacrificial furnaces, there is no reason -- no reason that a mystic moralist could name -- why a dictator should not push them in at the point of bayonets -- for their own good, or the good of humanity, or the good of posterity, or the good of the latest bureaucrat's five-year plan.  There is no reason that they can name to oppose any atrocity.  The value of a man's life?  His right to exist?  His right to pursue his own happiness?  These are concepts that belong to individualism and capitalism -- to the antithesis of the altruist morality. -- Ayn Rand   There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. -- Ayn Rand   Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law. -- Ayn Rand   When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper which should have been gold, are a token of honor—your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. -- Ayn Rand   America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to "the common good," but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance -- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way. -- Ayn Rand   Creation comes before distribution or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. -- Ayn Rand   Do you think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power the government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. -- Ayn Rand   When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion -- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing -- when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors -- when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you -- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice -- you may know that your society is doomed. -- Ayn Rand   Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: "Account Overdrawn. -- Ayn Rand   When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are. -- Ayn Rand   I swear by my life, and love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. -- Ayn Rand   Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals -- that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government -- that it is not a charter _for_ government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection _against_ the government. -- Ayn Rand   The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word 'selfishness' is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual 'package-deal,' which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind. -- Ayn Rand   The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia is the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced.\\\\ If service and self-sacrifice are a moral ideal, and if the "selfishness" of human nature prevents men from leaping into sacrificial furnaces, there is no reason -- no reason that a mystic moralist could name -- why a dictator should not push them in at the point of bayonets -- for their own good, or the good of humanity, or the good of posterity, or the good of the latest bureaucrat's five-year plan.  There is no reason that they can name to oppose any atrocity.  The value of a man's life?  His right to exist?  His right to pursue his own happiness?  These are concepts that belong to individualism and capitalism -- to the antithesis of the altruist morality. -- Ayn Rand   Needless to say, under either system [socialism or fascism], the inequalities of income and standard of living are greater than anything possible under a free economy -- and a man’s position is determined, not by his productive ability and achievement, but by political pull and force. Under both systems, sacrifice is invoked as a magic, omnipotent solution in any crisis -- and “the public good” is the altar on which victims are immolated. -- Ayn Rand   Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests.  The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force -- and statism has always been the political corollary of collectivism. -- Ayn Rand   Individualism regards man -- every man -- as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being.  Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights -- and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members. -- Ayn Rand   A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment ... is not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule. -- Ayn Rand   There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system. -- Ayn Rand   Let anyone who believes that a high standard of living is the achievement of labor unions and government controls ask himself the following question: If one had a “time machine” and transported the united labor chieftains of America, plus three million government bureaucrats, back to the tenth century—would they be able to provide the medieval serf with electric light, refrigerators, automobiles, and television sets? -- Ayn Rand   Collectivism is a doctrine that holds that the individual has no rights, and the ultimate standard of value is the group to which 'he belongs.' Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors. Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas -- or of inherited knowledge -- which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men. Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination. -- Ayn Rand   Let me explain this.  There are, fundamentally, only two causes of the progress of the nineteenth century -- the same two causes which you will find at the root of any happy, benevolent, progressive era in human history.  One cause is psychological, the other existential -- or: one pertains to man's consciousness, the other to the physical conditions of his existence.  The first is reason, the second is freedom.  And when I say "freedom," I do not mean poetic sloppiness, such as "freedom from want" or "freedom from fear" or "freedom from the necessity of earning a living."  I mean "freedom from compulsion -- freedom from rule by physical force."  Which means: political freedom. -- Ayn Rand   Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel. -- Ayn Rand   When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed. -- Ayn Rand   Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns—or dollars. Take your choice -- there is no other -- and your time is running out. -- Ayn Rand   It is a policeman’s duty to protect men from criminals -- criminals being those who seize wealth by force. It is a policeman’s duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman’s duty becomes, not the protection, but the plunder of property -- then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman. -- Ayn Rand   Make no mistake about it -- and tell it to your Republican friends: capitalism and altruism cannot coexist in the same man or in the same society.  Tell it to anyone who attempts to justify capitalism on the ground of the "public good" or the "general welfare" or "service to society" or the benefit it brings to the poor.  All these things are true, but they are the by-products, the secondary consequences of capitalism -- not its goal, purpose or moral justification.  The moral justification of capitalism is man's right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; it is the recognition that man -- every man -- is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others, not a sacrificial animal serving anyone's need. -- Ayn Rand   The difference between [socialism and fascism] is superficial and purely formal, but it is significant psychologically: it brings the authoritarian nature of a planned economy crudely into the open. The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal. -- Ayn Rand   It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for. -- Ayn Rand   In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. -- Ayn Rand   It is a matter of record that in the German Election of 1933, the Communist Party was ordered by its leaders to vote for the Nazis - with the explanation that they could later fight the Nazis for power, but first they had to help destroy their common enemy: capitalism and its parliamentary form of government. -- Ayn Rand   The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia [was] the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, [but that his use of brutality was] the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced. -- Ayn Rand   Let me explain this.  There are, fundamentally, only two causes of the progress of the nineteenth century -- the same two causes which you will find at the root of any happy, benevolent, progressive era in human history.  One cause is psychological, the other existential -- or: one pertains to man's consciousness, the other to the physical conditions of his existence.  The first is reason, the second is freedom.  And when I say "freedom," I do not mean poetic sloppiness, such as "freedom from want" or "freedom from fear" or "freedom from the necessity of earning a living."  I mean "freedom from compulsion -- freedom from rule by physical force."  Which means: political freedom. -- Ayn Rand   Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it -- that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life. -- Ayn Rand   Make no mistake about it -- and tell it to your Republican friends: capitalism and altruism cannot coexist in the same man or in the same society. Tell it to anyone who attempts to justify capitalism on the ground of the "public good" or the "general welfare" or "service to society" or the benefit it brings to the poor.  All these things are true, but they are the by-products, the secondary consequences of capitalism -- not its goal, purpose or moral justification.  The moral justification of capitalism is man's right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; it is the recognition that man -- every man -- is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others, not a sacrificial animal serving anyone's need. -- Ayn Rand   The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force. -- Ayn Rand   The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time. -- Ayn Rand   Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads. -- Ayn Rand   Government control of the economy, no matter in whose behalf, has been the source of all the evils in our industrial society -– and the solution is laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., the abolition of any and all forms of intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State. -- Ayn Rand   The power of morality is the greatest of all intellectual powers -– and mankind’s tragedy lies in the fact that the vicious moral code men have accepted destroys them by means of the best within them. -- Ayn Rand   We [entrepreneurs] required that you leave us free to function -- free to think and work as we choose ... -- free to earn our own profits and make our own fortunes ... Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high. -- Ayn Rand   The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. -- Ayn Rand   There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. -- Ayn Rand   We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. -- Ayn Rand   There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns. -- Ayn Rand   Do you wish to know when that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by Compulsion -- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing -- when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors -- when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you -- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming self-sacrifice -- you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot. -- Ayn Rand   Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people’s savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments. -- Ayn Rand   It was not the tycoons of big business, it was not the working classes, it was the intellectuals who reversed the trend toward political freedom and revived the doctrines of the absolute State, of totalitarian government rule, of the government's right to control the lives of the citizens in any manner it pleases.  This time, it was not in the name of the "divine right of kings," but in the name of the divine right of the masses.  The basic principle was the same: the right to enforce at the point of a gun the moral doctrines of whoever happens to seize control of the machinery of government. -- Ayn Rand   If an uncompromising stand is to be smeared as 'extremism,' then that smear is directed at any devotion to values, any loyalty  to principles, any profound conviction, any consistency, any steadfastness, any passion, any dedication to an unbreached, inviolate truth -- any man of integrity. -- Ayn Rand   I refuse to apologize for my ability -- I refuse to apologize for my success -- I refuse to apologize for my money. If this is evil, make the most of it. -- Ayn Rand   The three values which men held for centuries and which have now collapsed are: mysticism, collectivism, altruism. Mysticism -- as a cultural power -- died at the time of the Renaissance. Collectivism -- as a political ideal -- died in World War II. As to altruism -- it has never been alive. It is the poison of death in the blood of Western civilization, and men survived it only to the extent to which they neither believed nor practiced it. ... -- Ayn Rand   Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others. -- Ayn Rand   Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. -- Ayn Rand   The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities. -- Ayn Rand   The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave. -- Ayn Rand   It’s the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money -- and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it. Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. -- Ayn Rand   There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction. -- Ayn Rand   ...and we must consider," Austen Heller was saying unemotionally, "that since--unfortunately--we are forced to live together, the most important thing for us to remember is that the only way in which we can have any law at all is to have as little of it as possible. I see no ethical standard to which to measure the whole unethical conception of a State, except in the amount of time, of thought, of money, of effort and of obedience, which a society extorts from its every member. Its value and its civilization are in inverse ratio to that extortion. There is no conceivable law by which a man can be forced to work on any terms except those he chooses to set. There is no conceivable law to prevent him from setting them--just as there is none to force his employer to accept them. The freedom to agree or disagree is the foundation of our kind of society--and the freedom to strike is a part of it. I am mentioning this as a reminder to a certain Petronius from Hell’s Kitchen, an exquisite bastard who has been rather noisy lately about telling us that this strike represents a destruction of law and order. -- Ayn Rand   So long as [men] hold the tribal notion that the individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any) alleged 'good' can justify it -- there can be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations. -- Ayn Rand   Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureucrat's  tool is fear. -- Ayn Rand   Any group or “collective,” large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members. In a free society, the “rights” of any group are derived from the rights of its members through their voluntary individual choice and contractual agreement, and are merely the application of these individual rights to a specific undertaking... A group, as such, has no rights. -- Ayn Rand   The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. -- Ayn Rand   Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force? -- Ayn Rand   My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. -- Ayn Rand   The goal of the “liberals”—as it emerges from the record of the past decades—was to smuggle the country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time. Never permitting their direction to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot—by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli. (The goal of the “conservative” was only to retard that process.) -- Ayn Rand   One can ignore reality, but one cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. -- Ayn Rand   For years, the intellectual posture of America's political leaders has been a long, pleading, appeasing, self-abasing whine of apology for this country's greatness - an apology addressed to every advocate or perpetrator of collectivism's horrors and failures anywhere on earth. -- Ayn Rand   Don't forget that pure democracy is a form of collectivism -- it readily sacrifices individual rights to majority wishes. Since it involves no constitutional bill of rights, or at least, no working and effective one, the majority-of-the-moment can and does vote away the rights of the minority-of-the-moment, even of a single individual.  This has been called 'mob rule,' the 'tyranny of the majority' and many other pejorative names.  It is one of the greatest threats to liberty, the reason why America's founding fathers wrote so much so disparagingly of pure democracy. -- Bert Rand   Anyone who confuses liberty lovers with nazis or other fascists is waaaayy too stupid (or evil) to deserve respect. -- Bert Rand   Take a look at how the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies have totally snookered the politically-correct media and liberal establishments into fighting a 'War on Smoking' for them. After all, absolutely none of their anxiety drugs can quell anxiety or panic attacks anywhere near as cheaply, quickly or thoroughly as a cigarette can. -- Bert Rand   Any person or any so-called 'political spectrum' that equates live-and-let-livers with control freaks is even more evil than the worst control freaks themselves. -- Bert Rand   A people who mean to continue free must be prepared to meet danger in person; not rely upon the fallacious protection of mercenary armies. -- Edmund Randolph   The general object was to produce a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origins, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy. -- Edmund Randolph   The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it. -- John Randolph   We all know our duty better than we discharge it. -- John Randolph   You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. -- Jeannette Rankin   The United Nations is the greatest fraud in all History. Its purpose is to destroy the United States. -- John E. Rankin   We have plenty of freedom in this country but not a great deal of independence. -- John W. Raper   Socialism is: \\ The taking of money (taxes) from some people who work for it and giving it to others who don't work for it. On a grand scale. \\ The vast expansion of freebies doled out by central government. In order to create and sustain dependence. \\ The government protection of favored persons and corporations, permitting them and aiding them to expand their fortunes without limit, regardless of what crimes they commit in the process. (Monsanto would be a fine example.) \\ The squeezing out of those who would compete with the favored persons and corporations. \\ The dictatorship by and for the very wealthy, pretending to be the servant of the masses. \\ The lie that the dictatorship is being run by the masses. \\ The gradual lowering of the standard of living for the overwhelming number of people. \\ The propaganda claiming socialism is the path to a better world for all. \\ \\ In other words, socialism is a protection racket and a long con and a heartless system of elite control, posing as the greatest good. It is just another form of top-down tyranny---as old as the hills. -- Jon Rappoport   From the moment the first leader of the first clan in human history took charge, he busied himself with this question: 'What can I say and do that will make my people react the way I want them to.' He was the first Pavlov. He was the first psychologist, the first propagandist, the first mind-control boss. His was the first little empire. Since then, only the means and methods have changed. -- Jon Rappoport   War, what is it good for? With the same "socialist" elites backing both sides, it's good for business. It's good for creating chaos and destruction. It's good for launching new global organizations, in the aftermath; organizations that exert a level of control and reach that didn't exist before. It's good for launching organizations like the United Nations and the European Union and the World Trade Organization---dedicated to Globalism, which in turn is dedicated to planned civilization, in which the individual is demeaned and the group is All. Freedom is demeaned; and dominance by the few over the many is hailed as peace in our time. -- Jon Rappoport   Under the surface of this global civilization, a great and secret war is taking place. The two opponents hold different conceptions of Reality. On one side, those who claim that humans operate purely on the basis of stimulus-response, like machines; on the other side, those who believe there is a gigantic thing called freedom. Phase One of the war is already over. The stimulus-response people have won. In Phase Two, people are waking up to the far-reaching and devastating consequences of the Pavlovian program. -- Jon Rappoport   There is an irreducible thing. It's called freedom. It is native to every individual. Sometimes it rears its head in the middle of the night, and the dreamer awakes. And he asks himself: what is my freedom for? And then he begins a voyage that no device can record, measure, or analyze. If he pursues it long enough, it takes him out of the labyrinth. -- Jon Rappoport   Think about the agendas behind universal vaccination, climate change, universal psychiatric treatment, GMO food, and other 'science-based' frauds. They all imply a false collectivist model, in which individuals give up their power in exchange for 'doing good' and becoming members of the largest group in the world: 'disabled' people with needs that must be addressed and satisfied. Instead of supporting the liberation of the individual, the controllers want to squash it. Why? Because they fear individual power. It is forever the unpredictable wild card. They want a society in which every thought an individual thinks connects him to a greater whole---and if that sounds attractive, understand that this Whole is a fiction, intentionally faked to resemble a genuine oceanic feeling. -- Jon Rappoport   The Council on Foreign Relations is “the establishment.” Not only does it have influence and power in key decision-making positions at the highest levels of government to apply pressure from above, but it also announces and uses individuals and groups to bring pressure from below, to justify the high level decisions for converting the U.S. from a sovereign Constitutional Republic into a servile member state of a one-world dictatorship. -- John Rarick   A liberal society stands on the proposition that we should all take seriously the idea that we might be wrong. This means we must place no one, including ourselves, beyond the reach of criticism (no final say); it means that we must allow people to err, even where the error offends and upsets, as it often will. -- Jonathan Rauch   The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both. -- William Rawle   The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one, analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice. -- John Rawls   The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. -- Dr. John Joseph Ray   The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word 'Nazi' is a German abbreviation for 'National Socialist' (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was 'The National Socialist German Workers' Party' (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei). -- Dr. John Joseph Ray   It is incorrect to think of liberty as synonymous with unrestrained action. Liberty does not and cannot include any action, regardless of sponsorship, which lessens the liberty of a single human being. To argue contrarily is to claim that liberty can be composed of liberty negations, patently absurd. Unrestraint carried to the point of impairing the liberty of others is the exercise of license, not liberty. To minimize the exercise of license is to maximize the area of liberty. Ideally, government would restrain license, not indulge in it; make it difficult, not easy; disgraceful, not popular. A government that does otherwise is licentious, not liberal. -- Leonard E. Read   What, actually, is the difference between communism and fascism?  Both are forms of statism, authoritarianism.  The only difference between Stalin’s communism and Mussolini’s fascism is an insignificant detail in organizational structure. -- Leonard E. Read   What, actually, is the difference between communism and fascism? Both are forms of statism, authoritarianism. The only difference between Stalin’s communism and Mussolini’s fascism is an insignificant detail in organizational structure. -- Leonard E. Read   Oh, joy to the world! the hour is come,\\ When the nations to freedom awake,\\ When the royalists stand agape and dumb,\\ And monarchs with terror shake!\\ Over the walls of majesty\\ "Upharsin is writ in words of fire,\\ And the eyes of the bondsman, wherever they be\\ Are lit with wild desire.\\ Soon shall the thrones that blot the world,\\ Like the Orleans, into the dust be hurl'd,\\ And the word roll on like a hurricane's breath,\\ Till the farthest slave hears what it saith--\\ Arise, arise, be free! -- Thomas Buchanan Read   What a state of society is this in which freethinker is a term of abuse, and in which doubt is regarded as sin? -- William Winwood Reade   It was the Republican Party that demolished the shining city on the hill my father built. It was the Republican Party that was 100 percent responsible for the end of the Reagan Revolution...[T]he Republican Party abandoned the trail leading to that shining city on the hill to become itself a quasi-Left-wing organization which looks at the Democrats’ welfare programs and says ‘me too’. -- Michael Reagan   Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. -- Ronald Reagan   There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit. -- Ronald Reagan   Government is the people's business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid. -- Ronald Reagan   Man is not free unless government is limited.... As government expands, liberty contracts. -- Ronald Reagan   I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts. -- Ronald Reagan   Our coins bear the words 'In God We Trust'. We take the oath of office asking His help in keeping that oath. And we proclaim that we are a nation under God when we pledge allegiance to the flag. But we can't mention His name in a public school or even sing religious hymns that are nondenominational. Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas. -- Ronald Reagan   Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. -- Ronald Reagan   Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: 'We the people.' 'We the people' tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. 'We the people' are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the people' tell the government what it is allowed to do. 'We the people' are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past eight years. -- Ronald Reagan   We developed at the local school district level probably the best public school system in the world. Or it was until the Federal government added Federal interference to Federal financial aid and eroded educational quality in the process. -- Ronald Reagan   If history teaches us anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. -- Ronald Reagan   The NRA believes America's laws were made to be obeyed and that our Constitutional liberties are just as important today as 200 years ago. And by the way, the Constitution does not say Government shall decree the right to keep and bear arms. The Constitution says 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' -- Ronald Reagan   We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him. . . . But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure. -- Ronald Reagan   Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? -- Ronald Reagan   Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put in this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer. It´s so hard for government planners, no matter how sophisticated, to ever substitute for millions of individuals working night and day to make their dreams come true. The fact is, bureaucracies are a problem around the world. -- Ronald Reagan   The taxpayer; that's someone who works for the federal government, but doesn´t have to take a civil service examination. -- Ronald Reagan   An informed patriotism is what we want. -- Ronald Reagan   Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. -- Ronald Reagan   If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals -- if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. -- Ronald Reagan   Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July. -- Ronald Reagan   We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefitting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development. -- Ronald Reagan   If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth. -- Ronald Reagan   How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin. -- Ronald Reagan   I just wanted to speak to you about something from the Internal Revenue Code. It is the last sentence of section 509A of the code and it reads: 'For purposes of paragraph 3, an organization described in paragraph 2 shall be deemed to include an organization described in section 501C-4, 5, or 6, which would be described in paragraph 2 if it were an organization described in section 501C-3.' And that's just one sentence out of those fifty-seven feet of books. -- Ronald Reagan   Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, 'What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.' But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector. -- Ronald Reagan   No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! -- Ronald Reagan   The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West will not contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written. -- Ronald Reagan   It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history.... [It is] the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism- Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people. -- Ronald Reagan   Common sense told us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and this New Year we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons...but the regional conflicts that rack the globe are also beginning to cease. -- Ronald Reagan   In an ironic sense, Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis -- a crisis where the demands of the economic order are colliding directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West, but in the home of Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union.... [Communism will be] left on the ash heap of history. -- Ronald Reagan   Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. -- Ronald Reagan   As we celebrate Thanksgiving ... we should ask what we can do as individuals to demonstrate our gratitude to God for all He has done. Such reflection can only add to the significance of this precious day of remembrance. Let us recommit ourselves to that devotion to God and family that has played such an important role in making this a great Nation, and which will be needed as a source of strength if we are to remain a great people. -- Ronald Reagan   Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, prosperous, progressive and free. -- Ronald Reagan   Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. -- Ronald Reagan   Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem. -- Ronald Reagan   Are you entitled to the fruits of your labor or does government have some presumptive right to spend and spend and spend? -- Ronald Reagan   The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away. -- Ronald Reagan   There are many well-meaning people today who work at placing an economic floor beneath all of us so that no one shall exist below a certain level or standard of living, and certainly we don't quarrel with this. But look more closely and you may find that all too often these well-meaning people are building a ceiling above which no one shall be permitted to climb and between the two are pressing us all into conformity, into a mold of standardized mediocrity. -- Ronald Reagan   Our federal tax system is, in short, utterly impossible, utterly unjust and completely counterproductive, [it] reeks with injustice and is fundamentally un-American... it has earned a rebellion and it's time we rebelled. -- Ronald Reagan   You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.' -- Ronald Reagan   Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. -- Ronald Reagan   Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuous revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions. -- Ronald Reagan   When you start talking about government as 'we' instead of 'they,' you have been in office too long. -- Ronald Reagan   There are some who've forgotten why we have a military. It's not to promote war; it's to be prepared for peace. -- Ronald Reagan   Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? ... Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp. -- Ronald Reagan   Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence. -- Ronald Reagan   Republicans believe the best way to assure prosperity is to generate more jobs. The Democrats believe in more welfare. -- Ronald Reagan   Government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always finds a need for the money it gets. -- Ronald Reagan   Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite. -- Ronald Reagan   Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book. -- Ronald Reagan   Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! -- Ronald Reagan   Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves. -- Ronald Reagan   One definition of an economist is somebody who sees something happen in practice and wonders if it will work in theory. -- Ronald Reagan   Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself. ... [I] hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts. -- Ronald Reagan   I think the best possible social program is a job. -- Ronald Reagan   No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. -- Ronald Reagan   It would seem that not only is religion lacking in the schools -- so is common sense. I wonder what a teacher is supposed to say if a kid asks about those four words on a dime -- 'In God We Trust.' Or maybe that's why they aren't being taught how to read these days. -- Ronald Reagan   For too long, the world was paralyzed by the argument that terrorism could not be stopped until the grievances of terrorists were addressed. The complicated and heartrending issues that perplex mankind are no excuse for violent, inhumane attacks, nor do they excuse not taking aggressive action against those who deliberately slaughter innocent people. -- Ronald Reagan   Tyranny, like fog in the well known poem, often creeps in silently 'on little cat feet.' -- Ronald Reagan   The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution. -- Ronald Reagan   History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. -- Ronald Reagan   Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it.  If it keeps moving, regulate it.  And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -- Ronald Reagan   It is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work -- work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it. It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. ... We shall reflect the compassion that is so much a part of your makeup. How can we love our country and not love our countrymen, and loving them, not reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they are sick, and provide opportunities to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory? ... We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free. It would be fitting and good, I think, if on each Inauguration Day in future years it should be declared a day of prayer. -- Ronald Reagan   Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.... We've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of government himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price. -- Ronald Reagan   In an atmosphere of liberty, artists and patrons are free to think the unthinkable and create the audacious; they are free to make both horrendous mistakes and glorious celebrations. -- Ronald Reagan   There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder. -- Ronald Reagan   I just wanted to speak to you about something from the Internal Revenue Code. It is the last sentence of section 509A of the code and it reads: 'For purposes of paragraph 3, an organization described in paragraph 2 shall be deemed to include an organization described in section 501C-4, 5, or 6, which would be described in paragraph 2 if it were an organization described in section 501C-3.' And that's just one sentence out of those fifty-seven feet of books. -- Ronald Reagan   We've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. -- Ronald Reagan   I was pleased last year to proclaim 1983 the Year of the Bible. But, you know, a group called the A.C.L.U. severely criticized me for doing that. Well, I wear their indictment like a badge of honor. -- Ronald Reagan   Former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart noted (in his dissent of Abington Township, 1963) ‘if religious exercises are held to be impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvantage. Permission for such exercises for those who want them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion. And a refusal to permit them is seen not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism.' -- Ronald Reagan   We even had to pass a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago to allow student prayer groups the same access to school rooms after classes that a Young Marxist Society … would already enjoy. -- Ronald Reagan   Well-meaning Americans in the name of freedom have taken freedom away. For the sake of religious tolerance, they’ve forbidden religious practice. -- Ronald Reagan   As we struggle to teach our children … we dare not forget that our civilization was built by men and women who placed their faith in a loving God. If Congress can begin each day with a moment of prayer … so then can our sons and daughters. -- Ronald Reagan   The classical Liberal, during the Revolutionary time, was a man who wanted less power for the king and more power for the people. He wanted people to have more say in the running of their lives and he wanted protection for the God-given rights of the people. He did not believe those rights were dispensations granted by the king to the people, he believed that he was born with them. Well, that today is the Conservative. -- Ronald Reagan   If what we read today can result in a subpoena or a search warrant tomorrow, fear replaces freedom. We presented three witnesses who said there would, in fact, be a chilling effect if the Tattered Cover was forced to turn over the information. -- Dan Recht   Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. -- Ambrose Redmoon   [S]ince 1933 those in control of the Government, realizing that the power to tax is the power to destroy, have appeared before the Committee on Ways and Means with the proposal to tax firearms. While they narrowed it down to machine guns on the ground that it would prevent bandits from using firearms of a certain size, yet the thought was there of getting control of the private firearms of this country. I know that our chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and others on that committee were on the alert, sensed the danger, and accordingly went no further than partial taxation and regulation, but I think every member of the committee saw the purpose and the motive of the proposed tax. -- Daniel A. Reed   It constantly amazes me that defenders of the free market are expected to offer certainty and perfection while government has only to make promises and express good intentions. Many times, for instance, I’ve heard people say, "A free market in education is a bad idea because some child somewhere might fall through the cracks," even though in today’s government school, millions of children are falling through the cracks every day. -- Dr. Lawrence W. Reed   When the socialist economies of Eastern Europe disintegrated, the cause was evident to nearly everyone: the stifling directives of central planning had all but obliterated individual initiative and accountability. The cure was just as obvious: a healthy dose of entrepreneurship and private enterprise. -- Dr. Lawrence W. Reed   After the 16th Amendment was ratified, an income tax was imposed starting in 1913 with rates ranging from 1 percent to 7 percent with the top rate applying only to incomes in excess of $500,000. By 1916 that top rate had risen to 15 percent, on income in excess of $2,000,000. The top rate exceeded 90 percent at its peak in the early 1950s. The first 1040 form -- instructions and all -- took up only four pages. Today there are some 4,000 pages of tax forms and instructions. American workers and business are forced to spend more than 5.4 billion man-hours every year figuring out their taxes. Since those hours could be put to a more productive use, and almost surely would be in the absence of today’s incomprehensible tax code, the result is a large dead-weight output loss of some $200 billion each year. ... The IRS now has more enforcement personnel than the EPA, BATF, OSHA, FDA, and DEA combined. With its 115,000-man workforce, it has the power to search the property and financial documents of American citizens without a search warrant and to seize property from American citizens without a trial. It routinely does both. Economist James L. Payne has written a most revealing analysis of the IRS, a 1993 book entitled Costly Returns. He arrives at a stunning conclusion, the total cost to collect our federal taxes, including the effects on the economy as a whole adds up to an amazing 65 percent of all the tax dollars received annually. The U.S. tax system, says Payne, has produced hundreds of thousands of victims of erroneous IRS penalties, liens, levies, and tax advice. In answering taxpayer questions, for example, the IRS telephone information service has in previous years given about one-third of all callers -- as many as 8.5 million Americans -- the wrong answers to their questions. A 1987 General Accounting Office study found that 47 percent of a random sample of IRS correspondence -- including demands for payments -- contained errors. Incredibly a GAO audit of the IRS in 1993 found widespread evidence of financial malfeasance and gross negligence at the agency. The IRS could not account for 64 percent of its congressional appropriation! -- Dr. Lawrence W. Reed   Federal regulations alone are estimated to cost Americans more than $600 billion yearly. We pay government in lives shortened or lost because of delays in new drug approvals. Because of a raft of restrictive barriers to enterprise, we pay for government in terms of businesses stymied or never started and jobs never created. A government education monopoly that often fails to educate exacts a terrible price by stunting careers and squandering immense human potential. One cost of government that can’t be reckoned in dollars and cents -- a diminution of the individual’s basic freedom to act and speak on his own -- has been deemed important enough to spark a revolution from time to time. -- Dr. Lawrence W. Reed   The nation relies upon public discussion as one of the indispensable means to attain correct solutions to problems of social welfare. Curtailment of free speech limits this open discussion. Our whole history teaches that adjustment of social relations through reason is possible when free speech is maintained. -- Stanley Forman Reed   One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. -- Thomas B. Reed   The value of paper money is precisely the value of a politician's promise, as high or low as you put that; the value of gold is protected by the inability of politicians to manufacture it. -- Sir William Rees-Mogg   It is both illogical and inconsistent for a government to say people have a right to life and a right to self-defense but no right to own the tools necessary to defend their lives. It is illogical for a government that says its police have no obligation to provide individual protection to deny people the means to protect themselves. It is immoral for a government that repeatedly releases predators to prey on people to tell those victims they cannot have a weapon for self-defense. It’s stupid for a government that can’t control criminals, drugs or illegal immigrants to claim it can take guns away from criminals only if honest folks will give up theirs. Gun-control proposals are also an insult. Gun control by definition affects only honest people. When a politician tells you he wants to forbid you from owning a firearm or force you to get a license, he is telling you he doesn’t trust you. That’s an insult. The government trusted me with a M-48 tank and assorted small arms when it claimed to have need of my services. It trusts common Americans with all kinds of arms when it wants them to go kill foreigners somewhere—usually for the financial benefit of some corporations. But when the men and women take off their uniforms and return to their homes and assume responsibility for their own and their families’ safety, suddenly the politicians don’t trust them to own a gun. This is pure elitism. . . . Gun control is not about guns or crime. It is about an elite that fears and despises the common people. -- Charley Reese   Washington, of course, aside from being one of the most mismanaged, crime-ridden cities on the planet, is a place where 535 federal legislators and about 38,000 lobbyists work at confiscating and redistributing the incomes of the American people. -- Charley Reese   Congress is extraordinarily reluctant to inject itself into foreign policy. It has dumped entirely its constitutional duty for money onto a central bank, and for trade, onto the executive branch. It seems to never know what the CIA and other intelligence agencies are doing. Like the Romans, they no longer talk of the republic or liberty. And like the Romans, the American people, or most of them anyway, don’t seem to care. ... Like the Romans, we no longer have a citizen army but professional legions, and whether they wear jackboots or not, some federal officers seem to regard Americans with about the same compassion as the Praetorian Guard had for the plebes. As in Rome, the air is full of suspicion, intrigues and conspiracies, real or imagined, and the air reeks of greed and opportunism. As those on the Tiber, the rulers on the Potomac have grown suspicious of the people, don’t trust them and, in some cases fear them. And, as in Rome, they grovel in luxury while taking 40 cents on the dollar out of the sweat of working people to pay for corn and circuses to keep the mob satisfied. -- Charley Reese   Powers once assumed are never relinquished, just as bureaucracies, once created, never die. -- Charley Reese   Some lawyers and judges may have forgotten it, but the purpose of the court system is to produce justice, not slavish obedience to the law. -- Charley Reese   If Americans wish to preserve a country they will recognize, then the first step is to recognize the enemy. Public education is the enemy. The entertainment industry is the enemy. The corporate culture is the enemy. The advertising industry is the enemy. And most of the politicians in both parties are the enemy. An enemy is defined as anybody, or any organization, which is attacking the traditional beliefs of Americans. -- Charley Reese   American tyranny has come gradually, like a slowly rising river. Each of us does not realize the danger until the water comes in our door. Until then, it is merely someone else's problem and a problem that we fool ourselves into thinking won't reach us. -- Charley Reese   [N]o American should retreat an inch on the right of jurors to acquit if they perceive the law or its administration to be unjust. -- Charley Reese   If you look at Washington, you see permanently camped on the banks of the Potomac spread around in concentric circles an army representing thousands of selfish interests. The sole purpose of their presence is to plunder, by hook or crook, the public treasury for the benefit of their particular people or corporations. -- Charley Reese   Unless they can pass the same test that immigrants must pass to become citizens, people shouldn't be allowed to vote. The idea that there is some public benefit in ignoramuses and morons pulling levers next to names on a ballot is one of the evil myths of post-modern America. The purpose of voting, in our country, is to select men and women with the competence and integrity to operate the mechanics of government fixed by our Constitution. For this process to have any public benefit requires that the choices be made on an intelligent, knowledgeable and reasoned basis. -- Charley Reese   If we could manage our own finances the way the Congress does the nation’s, we’d all be living in high cotton and eating high on the hog. -- Charley Reese   The Constitution requires that Congress treat similarly situated persons similarly, not that it engages in gestures of superficial equality. -- William H. Rehnquist   We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers. -- William H. Rehnquist   The dirty little secret is that both houses of Congress are irrelevant. ... America's domestic policy is now being run by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve, and America's foreign policy is now being run by the International Monetary Fund [IMF]. ...when the president decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from Congress. -- Robert Reich   Restraint of government is the true liberty and freedom of the people. -- John P. Reid   For the average family, all these taxes now eat 38 percent of gross income, a higher rate of taxation than ever before in the peacetime history of the United States. By comparison, the typical two-income family in the mid-1950s paid 28 percent of their income for taxes. We’re now at the absurd point where the typical family works until noon of every working day to satisfy the taxman, paying more in taxes than they spend for food, clothing and housing combined. -- Ralph Reiland   It ain’t over on April 15! If you stop, for example, for a $10 pizza on Thursday night to celebrate being done with the IRS for another year, the taxman will be right there to grab a slice or two. On top of paying the sales tax, you’ll also be picking up a major chunk of what the government charges the pizza shop owner for local property taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, federal payroll taxes, federal and state and local income taxes, and worker’s compensation taxes. Altogether, according to a study by the Americans for Tax Reform, that comes to $3.80 on a $10 pizza for the omnipresent taxman. If you pick up a Bud six-pack to go with the pizza, there’s another 43 cents of each beer dollar that goes straight to the taxman for excise taxes, income taxes, property taxes, etc. For something stronger, say Jack Daniels, the taxman’s share is $7.20, on average, out of every $10. Go lighter and just drink Pepsi and it’s 35 percent of what you pay that goes for taxes at all levels. Add some Marlboros and its 75 percent of the retail price that’s funneled directly into the state’s coffers. Get home and hit the light switch and another $26 out of every $100 on the electric bill goes for government rather than electricity. If you’re flying the next day, the taxman is up early and waiting at the aiport, pocketing $40 on every $100 airline ticket. And he’s there in the hotel lobby when you land, snatching $43 on every $100 of the hotel bill. Go out to dinner and it’s another $28 of every $100 of the tab that ends up with the government rather than with the restaurant, the farmers, truckers and everyone else who worked together to produce the meal. -- Ralph Reiland   At the start of this nation’s unique experiment with individual sovereignty and limited government, “Taxation without representation is tyranny” was the watchword of the American Revolution. For our Founding Fathers, a level of taxation of only a few cents on a dollar, siphoned off to a faraway and arrogant bureaucracy, was enough to ignite a revolution enough to grab the trusty musket off the wall. Today, in contrast, if we dare to startle the more panicky among us by buying a good rabbit gun, the government’s there at the cash register to check our papers and seize $46 on every $100. -- Ralph Reiland   At each and every stop, in items large and small, the greedy hand of government has its sticky fingers in every pocket. With bread, a recent study by Price Waterhouse shows that 30 different taxes imposed on the production and sale of a loaf of bread account for 27 percent of the average retail price. Buy some new tires and it’s $36 on every $100 that goes to the taxman. On the price of a new car, an Americans for Tax Reform study shows that the total taxes reach 45 percent of the showroom sticker price. Add some gas and 54 percent of what you pay for a fill-up goes for 43 different federal, state and local taxes rather than to the oil producer and retailer. -- Ralph Reiland   The idea that men are created free and equal is both true and misleading: men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other. -- David Reisman   Aside from the collective gain that comes from that free interchange of ideas, there is a direct personal value for the individual concerned. Each of us should have the right to speak his thoughts and to hear the thoughts of others… -- Charles Rembar   To be able to think freely, a man must be certain that no consequence will follow whatever he writes. -- Ernest Renan   The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving any excuse. -- Jules Renard   In all men is evil sleeping; the good man is he who will not awaken it, in himself or in other men. -- Mary Renault   Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal. -- Janet Reno   Gun registration is not enough. -- Janet Reno   The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner. -- Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary   Anyone who decries a State flag belittles himself before all civilized citizens, and commits an unlawful act. But one who decries the red flag ... thereby excludes himself from the community of all honest people. -- Resolution of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party   A government is the only vessel known to leak from the top. -- James Reston   The rising power of the United States in world affairs ... requires, not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism ... Our job in this age, as I see it, is not to serve as cheerleaders for our side ... but to help the largest possible number of people to see the realities. -- James Reston   A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than to an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence. -- Jean-Francois Revel   Democracy tends to ignore, even deny, threats to its existence because it loathes doing what is needed to counter them. It awakens only when the danger becomes deadly, imminent, evident. By then, either there is too little time left for it to save itself, or the price of survival has become crushingly high. -- Jean-Francois Revel   A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than to an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence. -- Jean-Francois Revel   To totalitarianism, an opponent is by definition subversive; democracy treats subversives as mere opponents for fear of betraying its principles. -- Jean-Francois Revel   As the interned American citizens of Japanese descent learned, the Bill of Rights provided them with little protection when it was needed. -- Glenn Harlan Reynolds   [T]he people as ultimate sovereigns, retain the ultimate power -- and even the duty -- to overthrow any government that fails to respect their authority. -- Glenn Harlan Reynolds   A 'well regulated militia' was thus one that was well-trained and equipped, not one that was 'well-regulated' in the modern sense of being subjected to numerous government prohibitions and restrictions. -- Glenn Harlan Reynolds   The purpose of the right to bear arms is twofold; to allow individuals to protect themselves and their families, and to ensure a body of armed citizenry from which a militia could be drawn, whether that militia’s role was to protect the nation, or to protect the people from a tyrannical government. -- Glenn Harlan Reynolds   In the early and mid-1970’s, public advice was to cooperate with robbers and rapists in order to minimize personal injury. Appeasement, in other words. While this may be good advice in some circumstances, as general behavior it makes crime more rewarding. A nation of sheep is nice for wolves. -- Morgan Reynolds   The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. -- Rhode Island Constitution   The constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. -- Rhode Island Declaration of Rights Article I, Section I   We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories. -- Cecil Rhodes   Why should we not form a secret society with but one object, the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire? -- Cecil Rhodes   Africa is still lying ready for us. It is our duty to take it. -- Cecil Rhodes   We need a common enemy to unite us. -- Condoleezza Rice   Separation of powers is a problem for foreign policy. -- Condoleezza Rice   But, clearly, the prime minister has laid down some ground rules which any functioning democratic state would insist upon, having to do with, you know, arms belonging to the state, not to -- not in private hands. The current circumstances come out of what I think is a very important and indeed appropriate action that the Iraqi government has taken. -- Condoleezza Rice   Lying is done with words and also with silence. -- Adrienne Rich   I've never had a problem with drugs.  I've had problems with the police. -- Keith Richards   When a legislature decides to steal some of our rights and plans to use police force to accomplish it, what's the real difference between them and the thief? Darn little! They hide behind the excuse that they're legislating democratically. The fact they do it by a majority vote has no moral significance whatsoever. Numerical might does not constitute right, no more than a lynch mob can justify its act because a majority participated. -- H. L. Richardson   For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse. -- Samuel Richardson   If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him. -- Cardinal Richelieu   Among other grand achievements, F. A. Hayek had a remarkable career pointing out the flaws in collectivism.  One of his keenest insights was that, paradoxically, any collectivist system necessarily depends on one individual (or small group) to make key social and economic decisions. In contrast, a system based on individualism takes advantage of the aggregate, or 'collective,' information of the whole society; through his actions each participant contributes his own particular, if incomplete, knowledge—information that could never be tapped by the individual at the head of a collectivist state. -- Sheldon Richman   Apologists for activist government never tire of telling us that the benevolent state is our protector and that without it we'd be at the mercy of monsters. It is about time that we understood that the U.S. government does more to endanger the American people than any imagined monsters around the world…by pursuing its Grand Foreign Policy of meddling anywhere and everywhere. -- Sheldon Richman   Some conservatives are surprised to find people on the Left supporting the war in Afghanistan. It's not surprising at all…It is hard for the government to prosecute a war and not expand…Conservatives may think they can support war and oppose the expansion of the state, but that is like trying to square the circle. What makes them think they can contain the expansion? -- Sheldon Richman   Today, the people who would use guns to violate rights have little trouble getting them, while those who would use them to defend their rights have increasing trouble getting them. ... Gun control is in effect a subsidy for criminals. -- Sheldon Richman   It is embarrassing to have to remind people of this in the United States of America. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson singled out three natural rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The last phrase, appearing instead of "property," has prompted much discussion. I cannot say what Jefferson was thinking. But here's a plausible theory: Property is already implicit in liberty. If you are free, you can use your belongings as you see fit. But by specifying the pursuit of happiness Jefferson might have been pointing out that the blessing of liberty need not be justified through selfless service to others. One's life and happiness on earth are justification enough. -- Sheldon Richman   Perhaps the deterioration of American education is illustrated by the high correlation between the number of years a person has attended school and his inability to understand the words "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." It is more likely, though, that those who interpret the Second Amendment to preclude an individual right to own guns are driven by their political agenda. Whichever the case, they do themselves no credit when they tell us that a simple, elegant sentence means the opposite of what it clearly says. -- Sheldon Richman   If you own your life, then you have the right to defend yourself against anyone who would deprive you of it. ... And, if you have the right of self-defense, it follows that you have the right to act ... to obtain means appropriate to that defense. That brings us to firearms, particularly the handgun, which so many people would outlaw. The handgun has been called the equalizer ..., and for good reason. It affords smaller, weaker people the chance to defend themselves against bigger, stronger people who threaten them. Handguns offer the otherwise defenseless a convenient, practical, inexpensive method of safeguarding themselves and their families. Banishing handguns -- even if the big and strong were also denied them -- would leave the small and the weak defenseless. -- Sheldon Richman   The media, far from being a conspiracy to dull the political sense of the people, could be viewed as a conspiracy to disguise the extent of political indifference. -- David Riesman   Economic necessity cannot justify a disregard of cardinal constitutional guarantee. -- Riley v. Carter   The man who lives under the servitude of laws takes, without being aware of it, the soul of a slave. -- Georges Ripert   Confronted with such a tight regulation, can man pretend to be free because the tyranny he is subjected to derives from the law? Of course, the legal power is not called "tyranny" since it appears to be established by the general will in the common interest, and since, in any event, occurrences of arbitrary power are infrequent. But a master's equity does not mean that his subjects are not slaves. ... And when their servitude lasts and their thoughts follow their behavior, the state becomes totalitarian and subjection is complete. Since it is legal servitude, the regime is still said to be democratic. Such is the hypocrisy of political language. -- Georges Ripert   We continue to claim that nobody is supposed to ignore the law. But we must give some credit to those who know it. -- Georges Ripert   The history of war is the history of powerful individuals willing to sacrifice thousands upon thousands of other people’s lives for personal gains. -- Michael Rivero   Most people prefer to believe that their leaders are just and fair, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which he lives is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all. -- Michael Rivero   Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one’s self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all. -- Michael Rivero   One of the greatest problems that we as a free people face today is that for the past 100 years trial judges in the U.S. have routinely misinformed jurors that they were bound to accept the judge’s opinion of what the law is; which law to apply; and whether or not they had to find a defendant guilty. In so doing these judges have welded shut this all important safety valve, which our Founders so wisely provided our society -- and the result has been an explosive one. -- Mike Robbins   Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. -- Tom Robbins   Politics is for people who have a passion for changing life but lack a passion for living it. -- Tom Robbins   Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of liberty. -- Henry Martyn Robert   For more than a century, this Court has recognized that the admission and exclusion of foreign nationals is a 'fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the Government’s political departments largely immune from judicial control.' -- Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.   The tax that was supposed to soak the rich has instead soaked America. The beneficiary of the income tax has not been the poor, but big government. The income tax has given us a government bureaucracy that outnumbers the manufacturing work force. It has created welfare dependencies that have entrapped millions of Americans in an underclass that is forced to live a sordid existence of trading votes for government handouts. -- Paul Craig Roberts   If liberals can seize our guns because they are dangerous, we have no chance of holding on to our cars and our homes. The total number of accidental fatalities (the majority of which are hunting accidents) of all types of firearms is infinitesimal compared to the number of fatalities from car and home accidents. More children die from playing with cigarette lighters than from playing with loaded guns. -- Paul Craig Roberts   I don’t know why liberals want to disarm the law-abiding population, but I do know that not a single argument proffered stands the light of facts. Armed citizens deter far more crimes than the police, and far more lives are saved by the intended victim being armed than are lost in firearm accidents. -- Paul Craig Roberts   In U.S. politics, 'compassion' means giving money and privileges to well organized interest groups at everyone else's expense. -- Paul Craig Roberts   BATF is a bureaucracy that has outlived its mission. Prohibitionist ended a half century ago. Eliot Ness is no longer needed to chase down gangsters and their untaxed profits from bootlegging. Today no one smuggles tobacco. Treasury agents no longer have anything to do but harass innocent gun owners. The committee [Senate Judiciary Committee] concluded that BATF was a rogue operation that trampled all over the Second, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments. Following the congressional hearings, the Treasury Department was so embarrassed by the documented abuses that it drew up plans to abolish the agency. However, it was unable to do so, because neither the customs Bureau nor the Secret Service would accept the transfer of discredited BATF agents into their organization. -- Paul Craig Roberts   According to the Tax Foundation, the average American worker works 127 days of the year just to pay his taxes. That means that government owns 36 percent of the average American’s output—which is more than feudal serfs owed the robber barons. That 36 percent is more than the average American spends on food, clothing and housing. In other words, if it were not for taxes, the average American’s living standard would at least double. -- Paul Craig Roberts   I spent three years getting my law degree at Yale Law School. From the moment I enrolled, I was assigned huge, leather-bound editions of legal cases to study and discuss. I read what lawyers and judges, professors and historians said about the Constitution. But never once was I assigned the task of reading the Constitution itself...Over the last decade, however, I have become a student of the Constitution, searching each line for its meaning and intent. Studying the Constitution is like studying the Bible. It is amazing how much more you will learn when you quit studying about it and pick it up to read it for yourself. -- Pat Robertson   In 1883, a small group of Socialists met in London, announcing their intentions of converting the British economic system from capitalism to socialism. This group chose the name 'Fabian Society.' One of the leading members of the Fabian Society, author George Bernard Shaw, perhaps summed it up best when he said, quote: '... Socialism means equality of income or nothing... under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.' -- Edgar Wallace Robinson   If the people will lead, eventually the leaders will follow. -- Florence Robinson   Poltical campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration (thinking) man can normally muster. -- James Harvey Robinson   The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists. -- Joan Robinson   For liberalism, the individual is the end, and society the means. For fascism, society is the end, individuals the means, and its whole life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends. -- Alfredo Rocco   Bilderberger Meeting: The world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government... (more) -- David Rockefeller   This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long. We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order. -- David Rockefeller (False)   Everything is in place - after 500 years - to build a true 'new world' in the Western Hemisphere... And what happens if we don't pass NAFTA? I truly don't think that 'criminal' would be too strong a word for rejecting NAFTA. -- David Rockefeller   My congratulations on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution. -- David Rockefeller   This present window of opportunity which during a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built will not be open for too long. Already there are powerful forces at work that threaten to destroy all of our hopes and efforts. -- David Rockefeller   I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living. -- John D. Rockefeller, Jr.   I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty. -- John D. Rockefeller, Jr.   The combination is here to stay. Individualism has gone, never to return. -- John D. Rockefeller, Sr.   In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions of intellectual and character education fade from their minds, and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk.      We shall not try to make these people, or any of their children, into philosophers, or men of science. We have not to raise up from them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for great artists, painters, musicians nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen -- of whom we have an ample supply.      The task is simple. We will organize children and teach them in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way. -- John D. Rockefeller, Sr.   If something is wrong for you or me, it is also wrong for the cop, the soldier, the mayor, the governor, the general, the Fed chairman, the president. Theft does not become acceptable when they call it taxation, counterfeiting when they call it monetary policy, kidnapping when they call it the draft, mass murder when they call it foreign policy. We understand that it is never acceptable to wield violence nor the threat of violence against the innocent, whether by the mugger or the politician. -- Lew Rockwell   Even though they are a relatively recent policy development, civil rights laws are considered necessary to insure rights for blacks. But they are, in fact, among the most draconian forms of intervention into the free market. They attack the essence of private property, the ability to exercise control over it. Such laws have resulted in lessened economic freedom, lowered prosperity, heightened social tension, and more trouble for the groups the laws are supposed to help. ... A Korean grocer may want to employ only Korean clerks, a magazine for black professionals only black editors and writers, and a German restaurant only German cooks and waiters. An employer may think that Iraqi-Americans have been unfairly treated and want to favor them. A women’s health club may want only women customer’s and a men’s bar may want only men. There is nothing wrong with any of these behaviors, although civil rights laws seek to end them. In addition to violating the free labor contract, civil rights laws guarantee everyone the right of “access” to “public accommodations” like restaurants, movie theaters, and shops. In fact, what the civil rights laws call public is really private. These businesses are established by private entrepreneurs with private money. The owners should no more be required to serve everyone who comes into their place than they are required to invite everyone to their home for dinner. A large downtown restaurant is as private as a small house in the country. The real difference between private and public is one of ownership, not function or location. -- Lew Rockwell   American money was never more sound, or banking more free, than 200 years ago. Since then, it’s been a long steady decline from the gold standard and competitive banking to our Fed-run system of inflated paper currency, deposit insurance, and perpetually shaky banks on the dole. -- Lew Rockwell   Repeal the entire Banking Act of 1933, and Austrian School economists will cheer, especially if the current system were replaced by a 100%-reserve competitive banking with no central bank. That banking reform would give us a sound money system, meaning no more business cycle, bailouts, or inflation. -- Lew Rockwell   Anything other than free enterprise always means a society of compulsion and lower living standards, and any form of socialism strictly enforced means dictatorship and the total state.  That this statement is still widely disputed only illustrates the degree to which malignant fantasy can capture the imagination of intellectuals. -- Lew Rockwell   The only reason for a government service is precisely to provide financial support for an operation that is otherwise unsustainable, or else there would be no point in the government’s involvement at all. -- Lew Rockwell   If you think you're too small to make a difference, you haven't been in bed with a mosquito. -- Anita Roddick   You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. -- Dr. Adrian Rogers   I believe that the testing of the student's achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher, is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning. -- Carl Rogers   The issues can be stated very briefly: Who will be controlled? Who will exercise control? What type of control will be exercised? Most important of all, toward what end or purpose, or in the pursuit of what value, will control be exercised? -- Carl Rogers   Your mothers get mighty shocked at you girls nowadays, but in her day, her mother was just on the verge of sending her to reform school. -- Will Rogers   We are always yapping about the 'Good Old Days' and how we look back and enjoy it, but I tell you there is a lot of hooey to it.   There is a whole lot of all our past lives that wasn't so hot. -- Will Rogers   I see where they are going to be more strict with these robbers; when they catch 'em from now on, they're going to publish their names. -- Will Rogers   It will take America fifteen years of steady taking care of our own business and letting everybody else's alone, to get us back to where everybody speaks to us again. -- Will Rogers   Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. -- Will Rogers   An economist is a man that can tell you...what can happen under any given condition, and his guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's too. -- Will Rogers   I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him 'father'. -- Will Rogers   On account of us being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only people in the world that has to keep a government four years no matter what it does. -- Will Rogers   All one has to do to get one's stuff in the Congressional Record is to find a stenographer that can stay awake long enough to take it down. Then you mark in the 'Applause' and 'Laughter' parts yourself. -- Will Rogers   Those tax-exempt bonds were put in so that a town or a state or a government could sell more bonds than it ought to. -- Will Rogers   The United States investigates everything -- usually after it's dead. -- Will Rogers   We are sure living in a peculiar time. You get more for not working than you will for working, and more for not raising a hog than for raising it. -- Will Rogers   This stuff they are talking here in Congress costs the people of the United States $44 a page. That's beside what it costs to ship it to the asylums where it's read. -- Will Rogers   Hurray! Congress is to adjourn! Only four more days of Congressional burglary on the Treasury! -- Will Rogers   I guess truth can hurt you worse in an election than about anything that can happen to you. -- Will Rogers   If we have Senators and Congressmen there that can't protect themselves against the evil temptations of lobbyists, we don't need to change our lobbies, we need to change our representatives. -- Will Rogers   A Country can get more real joy out of just Hollering for their Freedom than they can if they get it. -- Will Rogers   There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you. -- Will Rogers   I bet you, if I had met Trotsky, and had had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I have never yet met a man I didn't like. -- Will Rogers   America has a very unique record. We never lost a war or won a conference... -- Will Rogers   Ammunition beats persuasion when you are looking for freedom. -- Will Rogers   There is two types of Larceny, Petty and Grand. They are supposed to be the same in the eyes of the law, but judges always put a little extra on you for Petty, which is kind of a fine for stupidness. -- Will Rogers   Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. -- Will Rogers   Of course nothing is ever done about a [presidential] commission report, except, they say, once a man at the state prison for the criminally insane actually read one once clear through. Then he did something about it. He made a bonfire that lasted a week. -- Will Rogers   Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven't had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln. -- Will Rogers   We are the only nation in the world that waits till we get into a war before we start getting ready for it. -- Will Rogers   If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone, 'America died from a delusion that she has moral leadership'. -- Will Rogers   It sure did kick up some excitement in the Senate when one Senator called the other Senators 'sons of Wild jackasses.' Well, if you thought it made the Senators hot, you wait till you see what happens when the jackasses hear how they have been slandered. -- Will Rogers   The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office. -- Will Rogers   I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat. -- Will Rogers   Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate? -- Will Rogers   A foreigner coming here and reading the Congressional Record would say that the President of the United States was elected solely for the purpose of giving Senators somebody to call a horse thief. -- Will Rogers   Elections are a good deal like marriages, there's no accounting for anyone's taste. Every time we see a bridegroom we wonder why she ever picked him, and it's the same with Public Officials. -- Will Rogers   Tomorrow is Labor Day, I suppose set by Act of Congress. Everything we do nowadays is either by, or against, Acts of Congress. How Congress knew anything about Labor is beyond us. -- Will Rogers   Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, that don't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous. -- Will Rogers   Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches. -- Will Rogers   That's what a Congressman or a Senator is for -- to see that too much money don't accumulate in the national Treasury. -- Will Rogers   Nothing makes a man, or a body of men, as mad as the truth. If there is no truth in it, they laugh it off. -- Will Rogers   This thing about getting rid of a man in the Cabinet is all right, but there is one bad feature to it that few people realize. That is, that unfortunately every one of them is replaced by someone else. If it wasn't for that, this resignation business would be great. -- Will Rogers   The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets. -- Will Rogers   There is good news from Washington today. The Congress is deadlocked and can't act. -- Will Rogers   Diplomats are just as essential in starting a war as soldiers are in finishing it. -- Will Rogers   You shake a slogan at an American and it's just like showing a hungry dog a bone. -- Will Rogers   If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. -- Will Rogers   The minute you read something that you can't understand, you can almost be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer. -- Will Rogers   Will somebody please tell me what they do with all the Vice-Presidents a bank has? Why the United States is the biggest business institution in the world, and they got only one Vice-President and nobody has ever found anything for him to do. -- Will Rogers   You see, in Washington they have these bodies, Senate and the House of Representatives. That is for the convenience of the visitors. If there is nothing funny happening in one, there is sure to be in the other, and in case one body passes a good bill, why, the other can see it in time and kill it. -- Will Rogers   I doubt if a charging elephant, or a rhino, is as determined or hard to check as a socially ambitious mother. -- Will Rogers   Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy until you can find a rock. -- Will Rogers   Don't let yesterday use up too much of today. -- Will Rogers   You can have all the advanced war methods you want, but, after all, nobody has ever invented a war that you don't have to have somebody in the guise of soldiers to stop the bullets. -- Will Rogers   On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does. -- Will Rogers   Income taxes have made more liars out of the American people than golf. -- Will Rogers   How is the government going to get the extra taxes? Out of the rich -- or just out of the poor, as usual? -- Will Rogers   Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth! -- Will Rogers   If we took Congress seriously, we would be worrying all the time. -- Will Rogers   Farmers, get out your sense of humor! Congress meets to relieve you again next week. -- Will Rogers   I don't make jokes -- I just watch the government and report the facts. -- Will Rogers   Things in our country run in spite of the government, not by the aid of it. -- Will Rogers   The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best. -- Will Rogers   One of these days they are going to remove so much of the 'hooey' and the thousands of things the schools have become clogged up with, and we will find that we can educate our broods for about one-tenth of the price and learn 'em something that they might accidentally use after they escape. -- Will Rogers   Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects. -- Will Rogers   Fairness does not require the redistribution of wealth; it requires the creation of wealth, geared to an economy that can provide employment for everyone able and willing to work. -- Felix Rohatyn   Since I am an immature and wicked man, war and unrest appeal to me more than good bourgeois order. Brutality is respected, the people need wholesome fear. They want to fear someone. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive. -- Ernst Rohm   The relative openness or closedness of a mind cuts across specific content; that is, it is not restricted to any one particular ideology, or religion, or philosophy, or scientific viewpoint. -- Milton Rokeach   O liberty! O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name! -- Madame Jeanne-Marie Roland   The test for whether one is living in a police state is that those who are charged with enforcing the law are allowed to break the laws with impunity. -- Jon Roland   We make money the old fashioned way. We print it. -- Art Rolnick   I am convinced that we can do to guns what we've done to drugs: create a multi-billion dollar underground market over which we have absolutely no control. -- George L. Roman   Felix qui nihil debet. (Happy is he who owes nothing.) -- Roman Proverb   Give me control over a man's economic actions, and hence over his means of survival, and except for a few occasional heroes, I'll promise to deliver to you men who think and write and behave as I want them to. -- Benjamin A. Rooge   Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. -- Eleanor Roosevelt   We do not move forward by curtailing people’s liberty because we are afraid of what they may do or say. -- Eleanor Roosevelt   Those of us who believe in the right of any human being to belong to whatever church he sees fit, and to worship God in his own way, cannot be accused of prejudice when we do not want to see public education connected with religious control of the schools, which are paid for by taxpayers' money. -- Eleanor Roosevelt   Smearing good people like Lauchlin Currie [former administrative assistant to President Roosevelt], Alger Hiss and others is, I think, unforgiveable... Anyone knowing Mr. Currie or Mr. Hiss, who are the two people whom I happen to know fairly well, would not need any denial on their part to know they are not Communists. Their records prove it. -- Eleanor Roosevelt   Spiritual leadership should remain spiritual leadership and the temporal power should not become too important in any church. -- Eleanor Roosevelt   The things you refuse to meet today always come back at you later on, usually under circumstances which make the decision twice as difficult as it originally was. -- Eleanor Roosevelt   It is not that you set the individual apart from society but that you recognize in any society that the individual must have rights that are guarded. -- Eleanor Roosevelt   Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants? -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   The creed of our democracy is that liberty is acquired and kept by men and women who are strong and self-reliant, and possessed of such wisdom as God gives mankind -- men and women who are just, and understanding, and generous to others -- men and women who are capable of disciplining themselves. For they are the rulers and they must rule themselves. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands, they must be made brighter in our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance, we must provide a safe place for their perception. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   It is a good thing to demand liberty for ourselves and for those who agree with us, but it is a better thing and a rarer thing to give liberty to others who do not agree with us. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   [The commerce clause was written] in the horse-and-buggy age ... since that time … we have developed an entirely different philosophy. ... We are interdependent, we are tied in together. And the hope has been that we could, through a period of years, interpret the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution in the light of these new things that have come to the country. It has been our hope that under the interstate commerce clause we could recognize by legislation and by judicial decision that a harmful practice in one section of the country could be prevented on the theory that it was doing harm to another section of the country. That was why the Congress for a good many years, and most lawyers, have had the thought that in drafting legislation we could depend on an interpretation that would enlarge the constitutional meaning of interstate commerce to include not only those matters of direct interstate commerce, but also those matters which indirectly affect interstate commerce. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   I do not believe in communism any more than you do, but there is nothing wrong with the communists in this country. Several of the best friends I have are Communists. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   We all know that books will burn -- yet we have the greater knowledge that books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory... -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   I tell the American people solemnly that the United States will never survive as a happy and fertile oasis of liberty surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson. History depicts Andrew Jackson as the last truly honorable and incorruptible American president. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   The saving grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities -- a sense of humor and a sense of proportion. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self-reliant enough to be free. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   Knowledge -- that is, education in its true sense -- is our best protection against unreasoning prejudice and panic-making fear, whether engendered by special interest, illiberal minorities, or panic-stricken leaders. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   The truth is found when men are free to pursue it. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt   No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse. -- Theodore Roosevelt   All constitutions, those of the States no less than that of the nation, are designed, and must be interpreted and administered so as to fit human rights. -- Theodore Roosevelt   'Liar' is just as ugly a word as 'thief,' because it implies the presence of just as ugly a sin in one case as in the other. If a man lies under oath or procures the lie of another under oath, if he perjures himself or suborns perjury, he is guilty under the statute law. -- Theodore Roosevelt   To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. -- Theodore Roosevelt   The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life. -- Theodore Roosevelt   Free speech exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free. -- Theodore Roosevelt   Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted. -- Theodore Roosevelt   In life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard. -- Theodore Roosevelt   To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. -- Theodore Roosevelt   In strict confidence … I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one. -- Theodore Roosevelt   Freedom is not a gift which can be enjoyed save by those shown themselves worthy of it. -- Theodore Roosevelt   No man who is corrupt, no man who condones corruption in others, can possibly do his duty by the community. -- Theodore Roosevelt   No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency. -- Theodore Roosevelt   No triumph of peace can equal the armed triumph of war. -- Theodore Roosevelt   To divide along the lines of section or caste or creed is un-American. -- Theodore Roosevelt   All privileges based on wealth, and all emnity to honest men merely because they are wealthy, are un-American. -- Theodore Roosevelt   Any man who tries to incite class hatred, sectional hate, hate of creeds, any kind of hatred in our community, though he may affect to do so in the interest of the class he is addressing, is in the long run with absolute certainty that class’s own worst enemy. -- Theodore Roosevelt   Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. ... Every man who parrots the cry of “stand by the President” without adding the proviso “so far as he serves the Republic” takes an attitude as essentially unmanly as that of any Stuart royalist who championed the doctrine that the King could do no wrong. No self-respecting and intelligent free man could take such an attitude. -- Theodore Roosevelt   Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. -- Theodore Roosevelt   If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs. -- Theodore Roosevelt   To educate a man in mind, and not in morals, is to educate a menace to society. -- Theodore Roosevelt   When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'present' or 'not guilty.' -- Theodore Roosevelt   We cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to endure. Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity. -- Theodore Roosevelt   To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. -- Theodore Roosevelt   There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. -- Theodore Roosevelt   To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. -- Theodore Roosevelt   The one absolute certain way to bring this nation to ruin ... would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities. -- Theodore Roosevelt   It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. -- Theodore Roosevelt   Nannyism is fascism on training wheels. -- R. L. Root   Lottery tickets are the only consumer products actively promoted and sold by the state. The state does not sell toothpaste, or even promote brushing your teeth. But it tells people they should gamble. The main marketing concern is how to attract new players, who otherwise wouldn't gamble. -- I. Nelson Rose   No man suffers injustice without learning, vaguely but surely, what justice is. -- Isaac Rosenfeld   But it became clear as time went on that in Mr. Bush’s mind the New World Order was founded on a convergence of goals and interests between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, so strong and permanent that they would work as a team through the U.N. Security Council. -- A. M. Rosenthal   During the last dozen years the tales of suppression of free assemblage, free press, and free speech, by local authorities or the State operating under martial law have been so numerous as to have become an old story. They are attacked at the instigation of an economically and socially powerful class, itself enjoying to the full the advantages of free communications, but bent on denying them to the class it holds within its power... -- Edward Alsworth Ross   Although it had its share of strenuous Christians... the gathering at Philadelphia was largely made up of men in whom the old fires were under control or had even flickered out. Most were nominally members of one of the traditional churches in their part of the country.. and most were men who could take their religion or leave it alone. Although no one in this sober gathering would have dreamed of invoking the Goddess of Reason, neither would anyone have dared to proclaim his opinions had the support of the God of Abraham and Paul. The Convention of 1787 was highly rationalist and even secular in spirit. -- Clinton Rossiter   The Americans of 1776 were among the first men in modern society to defend rather than to seek an open society and constitutional liberty.... Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of this political theory sits in its deep-seated conservatism. However radical the principles of the Revolution may have seemed to the rest of the world, in the minds of the colonists they were thoroughly preservative and respectful of the past. -- Clinton Lawrence Rossiter III   Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded. Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave. -- Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr.   A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity -- as liberals do. A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population -- as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and overtaxes the nation’s citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state -- as liberals do. -- Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr.   The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind. When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious. -- Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr.   There can be no truly moral choice unless that choice is made in freedom; similarly, there can be no really firmly grounded and consistent defense of freedom unless that defense is rooted in moral principle. In concentrating on the ends of choice, the conservative, by neglecting the conditions of choice, loses that very morality of conduct with which he is so concerned. And the libertarian, by concentrating only on the means, or conditions, of choice and ignoring the ends, throws away an essential moral defense of his own position. -- Murray N. Rothbard   It is curious that people tend to regard government as a quasi-divine, selfless, Santa Claus organization. Government was constructed neither for ability nor for the exercise of loving care; government was built for the use of force and for necessarily demagogic appeals for votes. If individuals do not know their own interests in many cases, they are free to turn to private experts for guidance. It is absurd to say that they will be served better by a coercive, demagogic apparatus. -- Murray N. Rothbard   We must, therefore, emphasize that 'we' are not the government; the government is not 'us.' The government does not in any accurate sense 'represent' the majority of the people.  But, even if it did, even if 70 percent of the people decided to murder the remaining 30 percent, this would still be murder and would not be voluntary suicide on the part of the slaughtered minority.  No organicist metaphor, no irrelevant bromide that 'we are all part of one another,' must be permitted to obscure this basic fact. -- Murray N. Rothbard   It is also important for the State to inculcate in its subjects an aversion to any outcropping of what is now called 'a conspiracy theory of history.' For a search for 'conspiracies,' as misguided as the results often are, means a search for motives, and an attribution of individual responsibility for the historical misdeeds of ruling elites. If, however, any tyranny or venality, or aggressive war imposed by the State was brought about not by particular State rulers but by mysterious and arcane 'social forces,' or by the imperfect state of the world -- or if, in some way, everyone was guilty -- then there is no point in anyone's becoming indignant or rising up against such misdeeds. Furthermore, a discrediting of 'conspiracy theories' will make the subjects more likely to believe the 'general welfare' reasons that are invariably put forth by the modern State for engaging in aggressive actions. -- Murray N. Rothbard   It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance. -- Murray N. Rothbard   It is not the business of the law to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright. -- Murray N. Rothbard   The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, including classical Aristotelian and Thomist philosophers, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State. -- Murray N. Rothbard   Since the State necessarily lives by the compulsory confiscation of private capital, and since its expansion necessarily involves ever-greater incursions on private individuals and private enterprise, we must assert that the state is profoundly and inherently anti-capitalist. -- Murray N. Rothbard   It's ours to right the great wrong done,\\ Ten thousand years ago -- \\ The State, conceived in blood and hate, \\ Remains our only foe! \\ Oh, join us, brothers, join us, sisters,\\ Victory is nigh!\\ Come meet your fate, destroy the State,\\ And raise black banners high! -- Murray N. Rothbard   Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws. -- Mayer Amschel Rothschild   Fortunately, political freedom and economic progress are natural partners.  Despite capitalism's lingering reputation as the source of all the world's evils, the fact remains that every single democracy is a capitalist country.  Half a century of economic experimentation proved beyond doubt that tyranny cannot yield prosperity. ... Socialism collapsed because it is a policy of unrestrained intervention.  It tries to fix what is 'wrong' with the spontaneous, self-organizaing phenomenon called capitalism.  But, of course, a natural process cannot be 'fixed.' ... Socialism is an ideology. Capitalism is a natural phenomenon. -- Michael Rothschild   Either the application for renewal of the charter (for the First Bank of the United States) is granted, or the United States will find itself involved in a most disastrous war. -- Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild   I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire, ...The man that controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply. -- Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild   Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau   I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau   The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms his strength into right, and obedience into duty. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau   Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau   There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom for in that way one captures volition itself. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau   The most absolute authority is that which penetrates into a man’s innermost being and concerns itself no less with his will than with his actions. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau   There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom for in that way one captures volition itself. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau   The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau   Liberty is not to be found in any form of government; she is in the heart of the free man; he bears her with him everywhere. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau   Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau   The surest way to ruin a promising career in economics, whether professional or academic, is to venture into the 'cranks and crackpots' world of suggestions for reform of the financial system. -- Michael Rowbotham   This assumption about religion being necessary for morality is recognized and used as a justification for religion. When atheists provide arguments showing that religious beliefs are incorrect and illogical, a frequent response is that religion is still good because it's needed for morality. The question of truth is dismissed as less important than the question of usefulness. If morality is a good thing, then atheist arguments fall on deaf ears. And more, the act of willfully ignoring evidence or argument is performed with a sense of moral pride. This position rests on the myth that morality requires religion, and that you have to accept religion despite any flaws or abandon morality. This justification of religion is just one more consequence of the myth. -- Joseph Rowlands   Liberty is not a cruise ship full of pampered passengers. Liberty is a man-of-war, and we are all crew. -- Kenneth W. Royce   In March, 1982, Kennesaw, Georgia, passed a mandatory gun ownership ordinance which requires all heads of households to own a firearm—handgun, rifle or shotgun. In 1982, our crime against persons, which include murder, rape, armed robbery, aggravated assault and residential burglary, decreased 74%. In 1983 these same crimes decreased [an additional] 46%. ... I would also like you to be aware that our population has increased in excess of 20% since 1982. We have had no accidents nor incidents involving our citizens with regards to firearms. ... It is a pleasure to see our senior citizens strolling the streets at night without fear of becoming a victim of violent crime. -- Robert L. Ruble   The blame for [the national debt] lies with the Congress and the President, with Democrats and Republicans alike, most all of whom have been unwilling to make the hard choices or to explain to the American people that there is no such thing as a free lunch. -- Warren Rudman   Ruff's Third Law of Economic Dynamics: "An economy in motion tends to stay in motion, and an economy at rest tends to stay at rest. A free market is constantly in motion. A centrally planned market slows until it eventually dies completely. -- Mike Ruff   I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden. -- Richard Rumbold   Political scientists almost everywhere have promoted the expansion of government power. They have functioned as the clergy of oppression. -- Rudolph J. Rummel   Nobody can be trusted with unlimited power. The more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom. -- Rudolph J. Rummel   The more power a government has, the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite and murder its foreign and domestic subjects. The more constrained the power of governments, the more power is diffused, checked and balanced, the less it will aggress on others and commit democide. ... In total, during the first eighty-eight years of this century, almost 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people. It is as though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not of germs. -- Rudolph J. Rummel   The way to virtually eliminate genocide and mass murder appears to be through restricting and checking power. This means to foster democratic freedom. -- Rudolph J. Rummel   What will follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict. It will be of a force and scope and scale that has been beyond what has been seen before. -- Donald Rumsfeld   Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights -- Dr. Benjamin Rush   Liberty without virtue would be no blessing to us. -- Dr. Benjamin Rush   The only foundation for... a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. -- Dr. Benjamin Rush   Controversy is only dreaded by the advocates of error. -- Dr. Benjamin Rush   Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property. Let him be taught to love his family, but let him be taught, at the same time, that he must forsake, and even forget them, when the welfare of his country requires it. -- Dr. Benjamin Rush   Freedom of speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. -- Salman Rushdie   Free societies…are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom’s existence. -- Salman Rushdie   The worst, most insidious effect of censorship is that, in the end, it can deaden the imagination of the people. Where there is no debate, it is hard to go on remembering, every day, that there is a suppressed side to every argument. -- Salman Rushdie   To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education. -- John Ruskin   One evening, when I was yet in my nurse’s arms, I wanted to touch the tea urn, which was boiling merrily... My nurse would have taken me away from the urn, but my mother said 'Let him touch it.' So I touched it -- and that was my first lesson in the meaning of liberty. -- John Ruskin   Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons. -- John Ruskin   Without seeking, truth cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by itself out of it such, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own. -- John Ruskin   Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor. -- John Ruskin   Wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chains of mail, -- strength and defense, though something of an incumbrance. -- John Ruskin   The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it. -- John Ruskin   There is no wealth but life. -- John Ruskin   That treacherous phantom which men call Liberty. -- John Ruskin   Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindness in favour of systematic hatred. -- Bertrand Russell   Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day. -- Bertrand Russell   It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. -- Bertrand Russell   The argument against the persecution of opinion does not depend upon what the excuse for persecution may be. The argument is that we none of us know all truth, that the discovery of new truth is promoted by free discussion and rendered very difficult by suppression. -- Bertrand Russell   The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. -- Bertrand Russell   Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. -- Bertrand Russell   In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. -- Bertrand Russell   What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. -- Bertrand Russell   I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology. ...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda ...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. -- Bertrand Russell   To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead. -- Bertrand Russell   The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being viewed dogmatically, they are held tentatively, with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. -- Bertrand Russell   Heretical views arise when the truth is uncertain, and it is only when the truth is uncertain that censorship is invoked. -- Bertrand Russell   It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions make it impossible to earn a living. -- Bertrand Russell   The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell   Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure. -- Bertrand Russell   There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. -- Bertrand Russell   Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life. -- Bertrand Russell   These men - ..., the politicians, ... - use their position, their knowledge, and their power of disseminating misinformation to arouse and stimulate the latent instinct for bloodshed. When they have succeeded, they say they are reluctantly forced to war by the pressure of public opinion. -- Bertrand Russell   What's the difference between a bright, inquisitive five-year-old, and a dull, stupid nineteen-year-old? Fourteen years of the British educational system. -- Bertrand Russell   When the state intervenes to insure the indoctrination of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favor of that doctrine. -- Bertrand Russell   Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires. -- Bertrand Russell   Envy is the basis of Democracy. -- Bertrand Russell   If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships. -- Bertrand Russell   We may define a Puritan as a man who holds that certain kinds of acts, even if they have no visible bad effects upon others than the agent, are inherently sinful, and, being sinful, ought to be prevented by whatever means is most effectual - the criminal law if possible, and, if not that, then public opinion backed by economic pressure. -- Bertrand Russell   The laws in question can, therefore, only be justified by the theory of vindictive punishment, which holds that certain sins, though they may not injure anyone except the sinner, are so heinous as to make it our duty to inflict pain upon the delinquent. This point of view, under the influence of Benthamism, lost its hold during the nineteenth century. But in recent years, with the general decay of Liberalism, it has regained lost ground, and has begun to threaten a new tyranny as oppressive as any in the Middle Ages. -- Bertrand Russell   The practical objection to Puritanism, as to every form of fanaticism, is that it singles out certain evils as so much worse than others that they must be suppressed at all costs. The fanatic fails to recognise that the suppression of a real evil, if carried out too drastically, produces other evils which are even greater. -- Bertrand Russell   Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power. Consequently those who live under the dominion of Puritanism become exceedingly desirous of power. Now love of power does far more harm than love of drink or any of the other vices against which Puritans protest. Of course, in virtuous people love of power camouflages itself as love of doing good, but this makes very little difference to its social effects. It merely means that we punish our victims for being wicked, instead of for being our enemies. In either case, tyranny and war result. Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda. -- Bertrand Russell   The earth becomes more crowded, and our dependence upon our neighbours becomes more intimate. In these circumstances life cannot remain tolerable unless we learn to let each other alone in all matters that are not of immediate and obvious concern to the community. We must learn to respect each other's privacy, and not to impose our moral standards upon each other. The Puritan imagines that his moral standard is the moral standard; he does not realize that other ages and other countries, and even other groups in his own country, have moral standards different from his, to which they have as good a right as he has to his. Unfortunately, the love of power which is the natural outcome of Puritan self-denial makes the Puritan more executive than other people, and makes it difficult for others to resist him. Let us hope that a broader education and a wider knowledge of mankind may gradually weaken the ardour of our too virtuous masters. -- Bertrand Russell   I pray that no child of mine would ever descend into such a place as a library. They are indeed most dangerous places and unfortunate is she or he who is lured into such a hellhole of enjoyment, stimulus, facts, passion and fun. -- Willy Russell   With lies you may get ahead in the world - but you can never go back. -- Russian proverb   Teachers are directed to instruct their pupils... and to awaken in them a sense of their responsibility toward the community of the nation. -- Bernhard Rust   It is in the American interest to put an end to Nationhood. That is the goal in global government. America must get out of the United Nations or our sovereign Republic will not survive. -- Walt Rustow   You just can't beat the person who never gives up. -- Babe Ruth   It was not by accident or coincidence that the rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guaranty with the rights of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances. All these, though not identical, are inseparable. They are cognate rights, and therefore are united in the first Article’s assurance. -- Judge Wiley B. Rutledge   Individual rights must take a back-seat to the collective. -- Harvey Ruvin   [T]he Swiss people are the best practitioners of the ideals of non-aggression. The Swiss national government posts are parttime positions. Most decisions are made at the canton (state) level. Swiss per capita income is the highest in the world, showing that non-aggression pays. How did the Swiss come to adopt a relatively non-aggressive constitution in an aggressive world? In the mid-1800s, they imitated our constitution and stuck with it! -- Dr. Mary J. Ruwart   Using aggression to stop drug abuse kills more people than the drugs themselves! If we honored our neighbor’s choice, the people now enforcing the minimum wage and licensing laws would be available to go after the real criminals. In 1987, drug offenders made up 36% of the federal prison population. As the War on Drugs escalates, more of our law enforcement dollar will be spent on drug-related crimes and less on rapists, murderers, and thieves. Is this the best way to deal with the drug problem? ... People who drink an alcoholic beverage in the privacy of their own homes are not using first-strike force, theft, or fraud against anyone else. Nor is a person smoking a joint or snorting cocaine, under the same conditions, guilty of anything more sinister than trying to feel good. We see no contradiction in arresting the cocaine user while we enjoy our favorite cocktail. Are we once again sanctioning aggression-through-government in an attempt to control the lives of others? In the early 1900s, many people supported aggression through-government to stop the consumption of alcoholic beverages. As we all know, Prohibition was tried, but it just didn’t work. People still drank, but they had to settle for home-brews, which were not always safe. Some people even died from drinking them. Since business people could no longer sell alcohol, organized crime did. Turf battles killed innocent bystanders, and law enforcement officials found they could make more money taking bribes than jailing the bootleggers. Aggression was ineffective—and expensive, both in terms of dollars and lives. When Prohibition was repealed, people bought their alcohol from professional brewers instead of criminals. As a result, they stopped dying from bathtub gin. The turf fighting subsided, since there was no turf to fight about. The murder and assault rate that had skyrocketed during Prohibition fell steadily after its repeal. -- Dr. Mary J. Ruwart   In 1847, Marx and Engels proposed ten steps to convert the Western nations to Communist countries without firing a shot. Most of these ideas have been successfully implemented in our own country with little, if any, resistance! ... One of the ten steps called for "centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly" just like our own Federal Reserve! ... Another of the ten steps called for instituting "a heavy progressive or graduated income tax" just like our own federal income tax! ... Another step proposed by Marx and Engels was "abolition of all right of inheritance," which we come ever closer to as inheritance taxes increase. Taking wealth at gunpoint, if necessary that one person has created and given to another person is theft. Whether the wealth creator is alive or dead, the act and the impact are the same. Another step was "free education for all children in public schools." Although our country still has many private schools in addition to the public ones, the content of both is dictated by aggression-through-government, to teach aggression. Marx and Engels also recommended the "extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state." In the past century, more and more services have become exclusive, subsidized government monopolies (e.g., garbage collection, water distribution, mass transit, etc.). As a result, we pay twice as much for lower quality service! Marx also called for the "centralization of the means of communications and transport in the hands of the state." Television and radio stations are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. A station that does not pursue programming considered "in the public interest" is stopped at gunpoint, if necessary from further broadcast. ... Radio stations have an elite ownership as well. Those who benefit from aggression-through-government have little incentive to tell the public that licensing is a tool of the rich! ... Another of the ten steps calls for "confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels" ... [O]ur law enforcement agents can seize the wealth of anyone suspected of drug crimes without a trial! [T]he Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has also been seizing the assets of taxpayers without a trial if the IRS thinks they might have underpaid their taxes! The wealth we have created can be taken from us at gunpoint, if necessary without a formal accusation or a chance to defend ourselves! ... In addition, Marx and Engels called for "abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes." In other words, land would not be privately owned. No homesteading would be permitted. Our federal and local governments have title to 42% of the land mass of the United States. Most of the remaining land is under government control as well. For example, today's homeowners can pay off their mortgages, but must still pay property taxes to the local government. If they stop payments, their property is taken from them. They are, in essence, renting their home from the local government. -- Dr. Mary J. Ruwart   In the late 1980s, Soviets were allowed to keep the wealth they created by raising vegetables on their garden plots. Although these plots composed only about 2% of the agricultural lands in the Soviet Union, they produced 25% of the food! When Soviets kept the wealth they created, they produced almost 16 times more than when it was taken from them at gunpoint, if necessary! -- Dr. Mary J. Ruwart   When marijuana was legalized in Alaska, consumption went down. The Netherlands had a similar experience. In Amsterdam, heroin addiction is half that of the U.S. rate, and crack is not widely available. When we honor our neighbor’s choice, he or she will often act differently than we would have predicted. ... The excessive profit that comes from prohibitive licensing would not exist in the self-regulating marketplace ecosystem. Alcohol and cigarettes, which are illegal for minors, are less of a problem because they are less profitable. If recreational drugs were legal, their medicinal properties could be more easily studied and employed. Today, red tape discourages physicians from giving marijuana to their patients, even though it can slow the progress of glaucoma, keep cancer patients from being nauseated by chemotherapy, and help treat multiple sclerosis. Until it became illegal, marijuana was listed in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia for some of these purposes. Instead, our enforcement agents seized the marijuana plants of a retired postal worker suffering from cancer. Robert Brewser had used them to control the pain and nausea from his radiation therapy. The agents also took -- without trial -- the van his wife used to take him to the hospital for treatment! How much universal love do we show our neighbors when we support laws that make this possible? ... Aggression-through-government sets the stage for drug problems. When we discriminate against disadvantaged workers through minimum wage and licensing laws, we frustrate their economic goals. Getting high is certainly more attractive when other parts of one’s life don’t seem to be working. Selling drugs certainly seems like a lucrative career for a ghetto youth banned from legitimate paths of creating wealth. In addition to the other deleterious effects of licensing laws, they may well contribute to the drug problem. Drug prohibition is counterproductive. We resist this conclusion, however, because we want to control other people’s choices. Some people will indeed make what we consider to be poor choices for themselves. People who overeat, drink heavily, or engage in dangerous activities may prefer a shorter, more exciting, and intense life to a longer one with different rewards. They may prefer gratification over longevity. It is their life and their choice -- if only we would honor it. -- Dr. Mary J. Ruwart   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   I know, both by reason and by experience, that if you ever need a gun, whether in Katmandu or Los Angeles, at that moment you will have never needed anything so badly in your life. -- Carmine Sarracino   The poet must be free to love or hate as the spirit moves him, free to change, free to be a chameleon, free to be an enfant terrible. He must above all never worry about this effect on other people. -- May Sarton   Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. -- Jean-Paul Sartre   Man is condemned to be free. -- Jean-Paul Sartre   Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. -- Jean-Paul Sartre   If politicians don't respect the law, why should citizens respect politicians? -- Debra Saunders   About all a Federal Reserve note can legally do is wipe out one debt and replace itself with another debt, a note that promises nothing. If anything's been paid, the payment occurs only in the minds of the parties... -- Tupper Saussy   Most people are willing to pay more to be amused than to be educated. -- Robert C. Savage   When the People contend for their Liberty, they seldom get anything by their Victory but new masters. Power is so apt to be insolent and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good Terms. -- George Savile   Wherever a Knave is not punished, an honest Man is laugh'd at. -- George Savile   Do you wish to be free? Then above all things, love God, love your neighbor, love one another, love the common weal; then you will have true liberty. -- Girolamo Savonarola   Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made. -- John Godfrey Saxe   Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right? -- Jean-Baptiste Say   Laissez-nous faire, laissez-nous passer. Le monde va de lui meme. (Let us do, leave us alone. The world runs by itself.) -- French Saying   [T]he enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.... Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct. -- Justice Antonin Scalia   Nowhere else in the Constitution does a 'right' attributed to 'the people' refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention 'the people,' the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset... The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms... The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be infringed.' -- Justice Antonin Scalia   In the eyes of government we are just one race here. It is American. -- Justice Antonin Scalia   There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all. -- Justice Antonin Scalia   As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to ‘do what the people want,’ instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically. -- Justice Antonin Scalia   The virtue of a democratic system with a [constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech] is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly. -- Justice Antonin Scalia   The Declaration of Independence, however, is not a legal prescription conferring powers upon the courts; and the Constitution's refusal to "deny or disparage" other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges' list against laws duly enacted by the people. -- Justice Antonin Scalia   We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government -- even the Third Branch of Government -- the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad... Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct. -- Justice Antonin Scalia   The basic problem is simply that the Congress has become professionalized. It has interest much higher than ever existed before in remaining in office. It has a bureaucracy that is serving it. It is much more subject to the power of individualized pressure groups as opposed to the unorganized feelings of the majority of the citizens. -- Justice Antonin Scalia   In Torcaso v. Watkins, (1961), we did indeed refer to ‘secular humanism’ as a ‘religion.' -- Justice Antonin Scalia   If we can ever make red tape nutritional, we can feed the world. -- Robert Schaeberle   No one understood better than Stalin that the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself as a jarring dissonance. -- Leonard Schapiro   Surely a large part of the zealous repression of radical protest in America has its roots in the fact that millions of men who are apparently “insiders” know how vulnerable the system is because they know how ambiguous their own attachments to it are. The slightest challenge exposes the fragile foundations of legitimacy of the state. -- John Scharr   -- E Schaub   The Truth is not a thing. It is alive. It cannot be grasped. It is spoken. -- Eric Schaub   Life is but a blink, and it matters. -- Eric Schaub   Americans find it intolerable that one constitutional right should have to be surrendered in order to assert another. America is the land of the free and home of the brave -- we don't need a Patriot Act, because we are already patriots. We know freedom means responsibility, but I am not sure Congress and its domestic enforcement agencies do. More often than not, new security measures enacted by the government have resulted in more violations of the citizenry than terrorists have ever done. The terrorists want us to be afraid -- well, we are not afraid. Stop wasting dollars on this program -- it is not good for America. To give up essential liberty for a little security provides neither. The right to be left alone from government intrusion is the beginning of all freedoms. -- Eric Schaub   It's worth what it's worth when it's worth it. -- Eric Schaub   Speak honestly, and the truth will make itself known. -- Eric Schaub   Freedom is risky. Nature makes no promises. -- Eric Schaub   I cannot free another, and no one can free me. Freedom is acquired with the responsibility that sustains it. -- Eric Schaub   If you want to know the big 'T' Truth, tell the little 't' truth without fail. Then listen closely to what you say. -- Eric Schaub   A seeker of truth is no stranger to controversy. -- Eric Schaub   Some mistakes cannot be redeemed but by forgiveness. -- Eric Schaub   Truth need only be spoken. -- Eric Schaub   When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires. -- Eric Schaub   The more I truly learn, I realize the less I truly know. -- Eric Schaub   We are the living. There are those that have preceded us, and there are those that will follow us, but we are here now.. The river flows, we are but a drop, and it matters... -- Eric Schaub   Remember, the sky starts at your feet. -- Eric Schaub   Freedom has never been free. Sometimes it costs everything you've got. -- Eric Schaub   Standing up to a tyrant has always been illegal and dangerous. There is no guarantee but one -- to not live like a slave, nor to die like one. -- Eric Schaub   Among the mighty are those who recognize beauty as power, and power as beautiful. -- Eric Schaub   It takes two wings to fly. -- Eric Schaub   Every party skews the facts to their advantage, and inevitably, the minority party must resort to telling the truth. -- Eric Schaub   Can we truly expect those who aim to exploit us to be trusted to educate us? -- Eric Schaub   There is no Freedom without Courage. -- Eric Schaub   Life is a gift. Freedom is a responsibility. -- Eric Schaub   By a Declaration, Liberty is born. With Courage she is nourished, and with unceasing Commitment she is guarded. -- Eric Schaub   The truth is more important than its teller. -- Eric Schaub   The process of liberation is continuous. -- Eric Schaub   Some truths need to be learned from the inside. -- Eric Schaub   I am not free until I say so.\\ And there's a good chance\\ I am going to have to fight once I do.\\ Ever since I declared my Independence, \\ I have had to support and defend it. -- Eric Schaub   The truth doesn't sell. It is high in supply, but low in demand. -- Eric Schaub   Our inalienable rights cannot shield us from our own follies. -- Eric Schaub   The 'strength' of the People becomes weak when we don't 'exercise' our rights. -- Eric Schaub   A juror who is forced by the judge’s instructions to convict a defendant whose conduct he applauds or at the least feels is justifiable, will lose respect for the legal system. . . . A juror compelled to decide against his own judgment will rebel at the system that made him a traitor to himself. -- Alan W. Scheflin   True education makes for inequality; the inequality of individuality, the inequality of success; the glorious inequality of talent, of genius; for inequality, not mediocrity, individual superiority, not standardization, is the measure of the progress of the world. -- Felix Emmanuel Schelling   True education makes for inequality; the inequality of individuality, the inequality of success, the glorious inequality of talent, of genius; for inequality, not mediocrity, individual superiority, not standardization, is the measure of the progress of the world. -- Felix E. Schelling   If you want irresponsible politicians to spend less, you must give them less to spend. -- Irwin Schiff   Families would be in better shape if our tax code didn’t push married mothers who wish to raise their own children into the labor force, in large part to pay for a welfare state that encourages unskilled, unmarried teenagers to bear illegitimate children the rest of us must support. -- Lisa Schiffen   No, there is a limit to the tyrant's power! \\ When the oppressed man finds no justice, \\ When the burden grows unbearable, he appeals \\ With fearless heart to Heaven, \\ And thence brings down his everlasting rights, \\ Which there abide, inalienably his, \\ And indestructible as stars themselves. \\ The primal state of nature reappears, \\ Wherein man confronts his fellow man; \\ And if all other means shall fail his need, \\ One last resort remains—his own good sword. \\ The dearest of our goods we may defend From violence. \\ We stand before our country, \\ We stand before our wives, before our children!\\ -- Friedrich Schiller   For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life. -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.   Righteousness is easy in retrospect. -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.   Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics. -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.   Liberalism regards all absolutes with profound skepticism, including both moral imperatives and final solutions... Insistence upon any particular solution is the mark of an ideologue... -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.   Integrity is its own reward. -- Dr. Laura Schlessinger   The Declaration of Independence...is not a legal prescription conferring powers upon the courts; and the Constitution's refusal to 'deny or disparage' other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges' list against laws duly enacted by the people. -- Dr. Laura Schlessinger   Privacy is absolutely essential to maintaining a free society. The idea that is at the foundation of the notion of privacy is that the citizen is not the tool or instrument of government – but the reverse… If you have no privacy, it will tend to follow that you have no political freedom… -- Benno C. Schmidt   The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses. The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind….Attitudes on campuses often presage tendencies in the larger society. If that is so with respect to freedom of expression, the erosion of principle we have seen throughout our society in recent years may be only the beginning… -- Benno C. Schmidt   Decriminalization would take the profit out of drugs and greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the drug-related violence that is currently plaguing our streets. -- Kurt L. Schmoke   It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state. -- Bruce Schneier   For thousands of years, the tireless effort of productive men and women has been spent trying to reduce the distance between communities of the world by reducing the costs of commerce and trade. Over the same span of history, the slothful and incompetent protectionist has endlessly sought to erect barriers in order to prohibit competition—thus, effectively moving communities farther apart. When trade is cut off entirely, the real producers may as well be on different planets. The protectionist represents the worst in humanity: fear of change, fear of challenge, and the jealous envy of genius. The protectionist is not against the use of every kind of force, even warfare, to crush his rival. If mankind is to survive, then these primeval fears must be defeated. -- Ken Schoolland   Using governmental force to impose a vision on others is intellectual sloth. -- Ken Schoolland   He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom. -- Arthur Schopenhauer   All truth passes through 3 stages.\\ First, it is ridiculed.\\ Second, it is violently opposed.\\ Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. -- Arthur Schopenhauer   Gun control advocates need to realize that passing laws that honest gun owners will not obey is a self-defeating strategy. Gun owners are not about to surrender their rights, and only the most foolish of politicians would risk the stability of the government by trying to use the force of the state to disarm the people. -- J. Neil Schulman   Do we still recognize [the Constitution of the United States of America] as the basis of our system of government in America, or not? Do we still have a constitution that guarantees our unalienable rights as the sovereign citizens of a great and free nation, or not? Do we have a federal government and state governments that honor and defend the fundamental principles of equal justice, due process or law, the right to life, liberty, and property - the principles that represent the very foundation of our constitutional form of government, or not? We the People have a right to know the truth. We have a right to know if we still have a Constitution. -- Bob Schultz   Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. -- Charles M. Schulz   The religious quality of Marxism also explains a characteristic attitude of the orthodox Marxist toward opponents. To him, as to any believer in a faith, the opponent is not merely in error but in sin. Dissent is unapproved of not only intellectually but also morally. -- Joseph A. Schumpeter   The uneven impact of actual enforcement measures tends to mirror and reinforce more general patterns of discrimination (along socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, sexual, and perhaps generational lines) within the society. As a consequence, such enforcement (ineffective as it may be in producing conformity) almost certainly reinforces feelings of alienation already prevalent within major segments of the population. -- Edwin M. Schur   [When a victimless criminal] is treated as an enemy of society, he almost necessarily becomes one. Forced into criminal acts, immersed in underworld-related supply networks, and ever-conscious of the need to evade the police, his outlooks as well as behavior become more and more anti-social. -- Edwin M. Schur   If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other. -- Carl Schurz   From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor's rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own. -- Carl Schurz   The core of racism is the notion that the individual is meaningless and that membership in the collective -- the race -- is the source of his identity and value. ... The notion of  'diversity' entails exactly the same premises as racism -- that one's ideas are determined by one's race and that the source of an individual's identity is his ethnic heritage. -- Peter Schwartz   Character is the single most important ingredient of leadership. Proper leadership would have prevented the wars in Kosovo and Somalia. -- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf   Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy. -- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf   The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it. -- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf   I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end. -- Albert Schweitzer   I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found a way to serve. -- Albert Schweitzer   The newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly, and its first duty is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation, must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free but facts are sacred. -- C. P. Scott   CRIMINAL: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. -- Howard Scott   The aspiration to such uniformity and order alerts us to the fact that modern statecraft is largely a project of internal colonization, often glossed, as it is in its imperial rhetoric, as a 'civilizing mission'. -- James C. Scott   It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law. It is at just such times that the constitutional right to self-defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach. -- Rick Scott   O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive! -- Sir Walter Scott   O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive! -- Sir Walter Scott   We believe we are creating the beginning of a new world order coming out of the collapse of the U.S.-Soviet antagonisms. -- Brent Scowcroft   The welfare state that is built upon this conception seems to prove precisely away from the conservative conception of authoritative and personal government, towards a labyrinthine privilege sodden structure of anonymous power, structuring a citizenship that is increasingly reluctant to answer for itself, increasingly parasitic on the dispensations of a bureaucracy towards which it can feel no gratitude. -- Roger Scruton   Socialism, failing to work as it always does. This time in Venezuela. You talk about giving everybody something free and all of a sudden, there’s no food to eat. And who do you think is the richest person in Venezuela? The daughter of Hugo Chavez. Hello! -- Vin Scully   The net poses a fundamental threat not only to the authority of the government, but to all authority, because it permits people to organize, think, and influence one another without any institutional supervision whatsoever. -- John Seabrook   True Liberty and Justice may require resistance to law . -- Second Monument to Shays' Rebellion   If the prisoner should ask the judge whether he would be content to be hanged, were he in his case, he would answer no. Then, says the prisoner, do as you would be done to. -- John Selden   Union bosses will continue to use workers’ dues money as a slush fund to support controversial causes and organizations as long as union officials are empowered to order a worker fired simply for refusing to pay money to the union. -- Patrick Semmons   Since March 9, 1933, the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency....Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens. ... A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency rule. For 40 years, freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws brought into force by states of national emergency....from, at least, the Civil War in important ways shaped the present phenomenon of a permanent state of national emergency. -- Senate Report, 93rd Congress   Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   It is quality rather than quantity that matters. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Freedom can't be kept for nothing. If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   A sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   What is freedom? It means not being a slave to any circumstance, to any restraint, to any chance. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   No man is free who is a slave to the flesh. [Lat., Nemo liber est, qui corpori servit.] -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   As long as you live, keep learning how to live. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Death is a release from and an end of all pains: beyond it our sufferings cannot extend: it restores us to the peaceful rest in which we lay before we were born. If anyone pities the dead, he ought also to pity those who have not been born. Death is neither a good nor a bad thing, for that alone which is something can be a good or a bad thing: but that which is nothing, and reduces all things to nothing, does not hand us over to either fortune, because good and bad require some material to work upon. Fortune cannot take ahold of that which Nature has let go, nor can a man be unhappy if he is nothing. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   It would be some consolation for the feebleness of ourselves and our works, if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Growth is slow but collapse is rapid. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Nothing lasts forever, few things even last for long: all are susceptible of decay in one way or another; moreover all that begins also ends. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   A great fortune is a great slavery. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Who profits by a sin has done the sin. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Unjust rule never abides continually. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Who can be forced has not learned how to die. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Who vaunts his race, lauds what belongs to others. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Things ’twas hard to bear ’tis pleasant to recall. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Worse than war is the very fear of war. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Arms observe no bounds; nor can the wrath of the sword, once drawn, be easily checked or stayed; war delights in blood. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Unrighteous fortune seldom spares the highest worth; no one with safety can long front so frequent perils. Whom calamity oft passes by she finds at last. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Tis the upright mind that holds true sovereignty. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Of war men ask the outcome, not the cause. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Impurity is caused by attitude, not events. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Once again prosperous and successful crime goes by the name of virtue; good men obey the bad, might is right and fear oppresses law. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   He who, when he may, forbids not sin, commands it. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   'Tis the first art of kings, the power to suffer hate. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   All art is but imitation of nature. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   What," say you, "are you giving me advice? Indeed, have you already advised yourself, already corrected your own faults? Is this the reason why you have leisure to reform other men?" No, I am not so shameless as to undertake to cure my fellow-men when I am ill myself. I am, however, discussing with you troubles which concern us both, and sharing the remedy with you, just as if we were lying ill in the same hospital. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Live among men as if God beheld you; speak with God as if men were listening. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   That is why we give to children a proverb, or that which the Greeks call Chreia, to be learned by heart; that sort of thing can be comprehended by the young mind, which cannot as yet hold more. For a man, however, whose progress is definite, to chase after choice extracts and to prop his weakness by the best known and the briefest sayings and to depend upon his memory, is disgraceful; it is time for him to lean on himself. He should make such maxims and not memorize them. For it is disgraceful even for an old man, or one who has sighted old age, to have a note-book knowledge. "This is what Zeno said." But what have you yourself said? "This is the opinion of Cleanthes." But what is your own opinion? How long shall you march under another man's orders? Take command, and utter some word which posterity will remember. Put forth something from your own stock. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   It is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   If you are wise, mingle these two elements: do not hope without despair, or despair without hope. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   A great step towards independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   For love of bustle is not industry – it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   A golden bit does not make a better horse. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Don't ask for what you'll wish you hadn't got. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   My master Attalus used to say: "Evil herself drinks the largest portion of her own poison." The poison which serpents carry for the destruction of others, and secrete without harm to themselves, is not like this poison; for this sort is ruinous to the possessor. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   What fools these mortals be! -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Of course, however, the living voice and the intimacy of a common life will help you more than the written word. You must go to the scene of action, first, because men put more faith in their eyes than in their ears, and second, because the way is long if one follows precepts, but short and helpful, if one follows patterns. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed and rightly. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Not lost, but gone before. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   A trifling debt makes a man your debtor; a large one makes him an enemy. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Friendship is always helpful, but love sometimes even does harm -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   The best ideas are common property. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Besides, he who follows another not only discovers nothing but is not even investigating. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   We are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much-vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples? There are no limits to our greed, none to our cruelty. And as long as such crimes are committed by stealth and by individuals, they are less harmful and less portentous; but cruelties are practised in accordance with acts of senate and popular assembly, and the public is bidden to do that which is forbidden to the individual. Deeds that would be punished by loss of life when committed in secret, are praised by us because uniformed generals have carried them out. Man, naturally the gentlest class of being, is not ashamed to revel in the blood of others, to wage war, and to entrust the waging of war to his sons, when even dumb beasts and wild beasts keep the peace with one another. Against this overmastering and widespread madness philosophy has become a matter of greater effort, and has taken on strength in proportion to the strength which is gained by the opposition forces. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   A sword by itself does not slay; it is merely the weapon used by the slayer. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   That most knowing of persons – gossip. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Virtue alone affords everlasting and peace-giving joy; even if some obstacle arise, it is but like an intervening cloud, which floats beneath the sun but never prevails against it. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is rent. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   You can tell the character of every man when you see how he gives and receives praise. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   The shortest way to wealth is through the contempt of wealth. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Remember, however, before all else, to strip things of all that disturbs and confuses, and to see what each is at bottom; you will then comprehend that they contain nothing fearful except the actual fear. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   The wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Just as we suffer from excess in all things, so we suffer from excess in literature; thus we learn our lessons, not for life, but for the lecture room. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   The old Romans had a custom which survived even into my lifetime. They would add to the opening words of a letter: "If you are well, it is well; I also am well." Persons like ourselves would do well to say. "If you are studying philosophy, it is well." For this is just what "being well" means. Without philosophy the mind is sickly. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Who is everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives and dies. It is just as possible for you to see in him a free-born man as for him to see in you a slave. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   You are doing an excellent thing, one which will be wholesome for you, if, as you write me, you are persisting in your effort to attain sound understanding; it is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself. We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol's ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. A god is near you, with you, and in you. This is what I mean, Lucilius: there sits a holy spirit within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our a guardian. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Man is a reasoning animal. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Just as an enemy is more dangerous to a retreating army, so every trouble that fortune brings attacks us all the harder if we yield and turn our backs. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   It is quality rather than quantity that matters. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Before I became old I tried to live well; now that I am old, I shall try to die well; but dying well means dying gladly. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   The much occupied man has no time for wantonness, and it is an obvious commonplace that the evils of leisure can be shaken off by hard work. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   If one doesn't know his mistakes, he won't want to correct them. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   What then? Shall I not follow in the footsteps of my predecessors? I shall indeed use the old road, but if I find one that makes a shorter cut and is smoother to travel, I shall open the new road. Men who have made these discoveries before us are not our masters, but our guides. Truth lies open for all; it has not yet been monopolized. And there is plenty of it left even for posterity to discover. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   For no man is free who is a slave to his body. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   But how much more highly do I think of these men! They can do these things, but decline to do them. To whom that ever tried have these tasks proved false? To what man did they not seem easier in the doing? Our lack of confidence is not the result of difficulty. The difficulty comes from our lack of confidence. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   And yet life, Lucilius, is really a battle. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Although," said he [Cato], "all the world has fallen under one man's sway, although Caesar's legions guard the land, his fleets the sea, and Caesar's troops beset the city gates, yet Cato has a way of escape; with one single hand he will open a wide path to freedom. This sword, unstained and blameless even in civil war, shall at last do good and noble service: the freedom which it could not give to his country it shall give to Cato! -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Our minds must have relaxation: rested, they will rise up better and keener. Just as we must not force fertile fields (for uninterrupted production will quickly exhaust them), so continual labor will break the power of our minds. They will recover their strength, however, after they have had a little freedom and relaxation. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Fire tries gold, misfortune tries brave men. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   We are all chained to fortune: the chain of one is made of gold, and wide, while that of another is short and rusty. But what difference does it make? The same prison surrounds all of us, and even those who have bound others are bound themselves; unless perchance you think that a chain on the left side is lighter. Honors bind one man, wealth another; nobility oppresses some, humility others; some are held in subjection by an external power, while others obey the tyrant within; banishments keep some in one place, the priesthood others. All life is slavery. Therefore each one must accustom himself to his own condition and complain about it as little as possible, and lay hold of whatever good is to be found near him. Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it. Small tablets, because of the writer's skill, have often served for many purposes, and a clever arrangement has often made a very narrow piece of land habitable. Apply reason to difficulties; harsh circumstances can be softened, narrow limits can be widened, and burdensome things can be made to press less severely on those who bear them cleverly. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   There is no great genius without some touch of madness. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   No one is able to rule unless he is also able to be ruled. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   The cause of anger is the belief that we are injured; this belief, therefore, should not be lightly entertained. We ought not to fly into a rage even when the injury appears to be open and distinct: for some false things bear the semblance of truth. We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the truth. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Virtue runs no risk of becoming contemptible by being exposed to view, and it is better to be despised for simplicity than to be tormented by continual hypocrisy. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   That man lives badly who does not know how to die well. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Why does God afflict the best of men with ill-health, or sorrow, or other troubles? Because in the army the most hazardous services are assigned to the bravest soldiers: a general sends his choicest troops to attack the enemy in a midnight ambuscade, to reconnoitre his line of march, or to drive the hostile garrisons from their strong places. No one of these men says as he begins his march, "The general has dealt hardly with me," but "He has judged well of me." -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   A good judge condemns wrongful acts, but does not hate them. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Should I be surprised that dangers which have always surrounded me should at last attack me? A great part of mankind, when about to sail, do not think of a storm. I shall never be ashamed of a reporter of bad news in a good cause. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Whether we believe the Greek poet, "it is sometimes even pleasant to be mad", or Plato, "he who is master of himself has knocked in vain at the doors of poetry"; or Aristotle, "no great genius was without a mixture of insanity"; the mind cannot express anything lofty and above the ordinary unless inspired. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   All savageness is a sign of weakness. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Toward good men God has the mind of a father, he cherishes for them a manly love, and he says, "Let them be harassed by toil, by suffering, by losses, in order that they may gather true strength." Bodies grown fat through sloth are weak, and not only labour, but even movement and their very weight cause them to break down. Unimpaired prosperity cannot withstand a single blow; but he who has struggled constantly with his ills becomes hardened through suffering; and yields to no misfortune; nay, even if he falls, he still fights upon his knees. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first installment of it. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   This is the worst trait of minds rendered arrogant by prosperity, they hate those whom they have injured. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Valor withers without adversity. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   No man expects such exact fidelity as a traitor. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the ground: it takes two men to fight. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   I do not trust my eyes to tell me what a man is: I have a better and more trustworthy light by which I can distinguish what is true from what is false: let the mind find out what is good for the mind. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca   Tocqueville saw the brute repression of deviants as a necessity if men were to keep convincing themselves of their collective dignity through their collective sameness. The “poets of society,” the men who challenged the norms, would have to be silenced so that sameness could be maintained. -- Richard Sennett   Sound money and free banking are not impossible; they are merely illegal. Freedom of money and freedom of banking...are the principles that must guide our steps. -- Hans F. Sennholz   Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. -- Dr. Seuss   The bigger the information media, the less courage and information they allow. Bigness means weakness. -- Eric Sevareid   The merit of our Constitution was, not that it promotes democracy, but checks it. -- Horatio Seymour   The idea of creating systems designed to threaten, coerce, and kill, and to imbue such agencies with principled legitimacy, and not expect them to lead to wars, genocides, and other tyrannical practices, expresses an innocence we can no longer afford to indulge. -- Butler D. Shaffer   The State…has had a vested interest in promoting attitudes that would tend to make us skeptical of our own abilities, fearful of the motives of others, and emotionally dependent upon external authorities for purpose and direction in our lives. -- Butler D. Shaffer   It is collectivism that is the unrealistic expression of utopian belief systems.  In its worst form -- the state -- collectivism is the institutionalized exertion of violence to compel living beings to behave contrary to their natural self-interest inclinations.  So strong are the motivations for individual preferences that the state must resort to attacks upon the very nature of life to satisfy the ambitions of those who see others as nothing more than resources to be exploited for such ends. -- Butler D. Shaffer   Because we fear the responsibility for our actions, we have allowed ourselves to develop the mentality of slaves. Contrary to the stirring sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, we now pledge "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor" not to one another for our mutual protection, but to the state, whose actions continue to exploit, despoil, and destroy us. -- Butler D. Shaffer   Our lack of constant awareness has also permitted us to accept definitions of freedom that are not necessarily consistent with the actuality of being free. Because we have learned to confuse the word with the reality the word seeks to describe, our vocabulary has become riddled with distorted and contradictory meanings smuggled into the language. -- Butler D. Shaffer   Republics are formed only after revolution. The change to the empire is slow and gradual. One of the saddest lessons of history is that whenever these schools of politics have met in the republics of old, the imperial school, with its dazzling influence of wealth and power, has always won. -- John F. Shafroth   Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists. -- Ben Shahn   The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation. -- William Shakespeare   To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. -- William Shakespeare   Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. -- William Shakespeare   The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. -- William Shakespeare   Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous. -- William Shakespeare   The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power. -- William Shakespeare   No legacy is so rich as honesty. -- William Shakespeare   If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul. -- William Shakespeare   To willful men, the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters. -- William Shakespeare   With devotion's visage and pious action we do sugar o'er the devil himself. -- William Shakespeare   True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. -- William Shakespeare   When the mind's free, The body's delicate. -- William Shakespeare   So every bondman in his own hand bear\\ The power to cancel his captivity. -- William Shakespeare   True nobility is exempt from fear. -- William Shakespeare   Freedom? you asking me about freedom? you asking me about freedom? I’ll be honest with you, I know a whole lot more, about what freedom isn’t than what it is ... -- Assata Shakur   Liberty's view of the government could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it works, work with it. If it doesn't, work against it. If it works you over, abolish it. -- Angel Shamaya   Loud speech, profusion of words, and possessing skillfulness in expounding scriptures are merely for the enjoyment of the learned. They do not lead to liberation. -- Adi Shankaracharya   When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children. -- Albert Shanker   It is time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy. It's a bureaucratic system where everybody's role is spelled out in advance, and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's not a surprise when a school system doesn't improve. It more resembles a Communist economy than our own market economy. -- Albert Shanker   The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable. Our current ideas about evolution have to incorporate this basic fact of life. -- James Shapiro   Cells constantly adjust their metabolism to available nutrients, control their progress through their cell cycle to make sure that all progeny are complete at the time of division, repair damage as it occurs, and interact appropriately with other cells. In a multicellular context, they even undergo programmed cell death when suicide is beneficial to the entire population or to the multicellular organism as a whole. -- James Shapiro   Can you imagine working at the following Company? It has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics: 29 have been accused of spousal abuse. 7 have been arrested for fraud. 19 have been accused of writing bad checks. 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses. 3 have been arrested for assault. 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit. 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges. 8 have been arrested for shoplifting. 21 are current defendants in law suits. 84 were stopped for drunk driving in 1998 alone. Can you guess which organization this is? Give up? It's the 535 members of your United States Congress. The same group that perpetually cranks out hundreds upon hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line. -- Jack Sharp   GDP is an important metric for determining how much the United States could afford to spend on defense, but it provides no insight into how much the United States should spend. Defense planning is a matter of matching limited resources to achieve carefully scrutinized and prioritized objectives. When there are more threats, a nation spends more. When there are fewer threats, it spends less. As threats evolve, funding should evolve along with them. ... Unfortunately, setting defense spending at four percent of GDP would shield the Pentagon from careful scrutiny and curtail a much-needed transparent national debate. -- Travis Sharp   In the twentieth century the number of people killed by their own governments under authoritarian regimes is four times the number killed in all this century’s wars combined. -- John Shattuck   There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it. -- George Bernard Shaw   You have to choose [as a voter] between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the Government. And, with due respect for these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the Capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold. -- George Bernard Shaw   If you do not say a thing in an irritating way, you may as well not say it at all because people will not trouble themselves about anything that does not trouble them. -- George Bernard Shaw   Martyrdom is the only way a person can become famous without ability. -- George Bernard Shaw   The right to know is like the right to live. It is fundamental and unconditional in its assumption that knowledge, like life, is a desirable thing. -- George Bernard Shaw   The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business. -- George Bernard Shaw   An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it. -- George Bernard Shaw   The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. -- George Bernard Shaw   Imprisonment, as it exists today, is a worse crime than any of those committed by its victims. -- George Bernard Shaw   The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- George Bernard Shaw   A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth. -- George Bernard Shaw   It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid. -- George Bernard Shaw   We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don't dress well and we've no manners. -- George Bernard Shaw   The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it. -- George Bernard Shaw   Marx’s Kapital is not a treatise on socialism; it is a gerrymand against the bourgeoisie. It was supposed to be written for the working class, but the working man respects the bourgeoisie and wants to be a bourgeoisie. Marx never got a hold of him for a moment. It was the revolting sons of the bourgeoisie itself, like myself, that painted the flag red. The middle and upper classes are the revolutionary element in society. The proletariat is the conservative element. -- George Bernard Shaw   When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. -- George Bernard Shaw   A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. -- George Bernard Shaw   If the governments devalue the currency in order to betray all creditors, you politely call this procedure 'inflation'. -- George Bernard Shaw   One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't. -- George Bernard Shaw   All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships. -- George Bernard Shaw   If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. -- George Bernard Shaw   Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. -- George Bernard Shaw   Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. -- George Bernard Shaw   This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for it's own sake. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations. -- George Bernard Shaw   -- George Bernard Shaw   Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. -- George Bernard Shaw   There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses. -- George Bernard Shaw   Nobody can live in society without conventions. The reason why sensible people are as conventional as they can bear to be is that conventionality saves so much time and thought and trouble and social friction of one sort or another that it leaves them much more leisure time for freedom than unconventionality does. -- George Bernard Shaw   You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?' -- George Bernard Shaw   Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. -- George Bernard Shaw   Socialism means equality of income or nothing... under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well. -- George Bernard Shaw   The American Constitution, one of the few modern political documents drawn up by men who were forced by the sternest circumstances to think out what they really had to face, instead of chopping logic in a university classroom. -- George Bernard Shaw   Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another. -- George Bernard Shaw   We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it. -- George Bernard Shaw   Lack of money is the root of all evil. -- George Bernard Shaw   You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live. -- George Bernard Shaw   Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. -- George Bernard Shaw   The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. -- George Bernard Shaw   A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic. -- George Bernard Shaw   My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity. -- George Bernard Shaw   The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw   Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. -- George Bernard Shaw   The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. -- George Bernard Shaw   Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads. -- George Bernard Shaw   Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history. -- George Bernard Shaw   I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize. -- George Bernard Shaw   The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school. -- George Bernard Shaw   When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth. -- George Bernard Shaw   If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. -- George Bernard Shaw   All great truths began as blasphemies. -- George Bernard Shaw   People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. -- George Bernard Shaw   The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essense of inhumanity. -- George Bernard Shaw   A socialist is somebody who doesn't have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody. -- George Bernard Shaw   Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week. -- George Bernard Shaw   Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. -- George Bernard Shaw   It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind. -- George Bernard Shaw   The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one. -- George Bernard Shaw   My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself. -- George Bernard Shaw   I also made it quite clear that Socialism means equality of income or nothing, and that under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well. -- George Bernard Shaw   Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. -- George Bernard Shaw   Whether you think Jesus was God or not, you must admit he was a first-rate political economist. -- George Bernard Shaw   It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind. -- George Bernard Shaw   A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. -- George Bernard Shaw   The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. -- George Bernard Shaw   A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. -- George Bernard Shaw   Liberty, like chastity, once lost, can never be regained in its original purity. -- Henry Wheeler Shaw   There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience. -- Hartley Shawcross   If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure? -- Harry Shearer   [A]nd obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men and of the human frame, A mechanized automaton. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley   There is no real wealth but the labor of man. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley   Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley   Power, like a desolating pestilence,\\ Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,\\ Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,\\ Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame,\\ A mechanized automaton. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley   There is as much chance of repealing the 18th Amendment as there is for a humming-bird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail. -- Morris Sheppard   Give them a corrupt House of Lords, give them a venal House of Commons, give they a tyrannical Prince, give them a truckling court, and let me have but an unfettered press. I will defy them to encroach a hair’s breadth upon the liberties of England. -- Richard Brinsley Sheridan   A committee is a group of individuals who all put in a perfectly good color, and it comes out gray. -- Alan Sherman   The few who could understand the system will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favours, that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of the people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests. -- John Sherman   The Government made by a number of Sovereign States. -- Roger Sherman   If the president alone was vested with the power of appointing all officers, and was left to select a council for himself, he would be liable to be deceived by flatterers and pretenders to patriotism. -- Roger Sherman   The Executive should be able to repel and not to commence war. -- Roger Sherman   The Executive should be able to repel and not to commence war. -- Roger Sherman   I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast. -- William Tecumseh Sherman   War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it. -- William Tecumseh Sherman   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   It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. -- Adam Smith   I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. -- Adam Smith   The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security is so powerful a principle 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 incumbers its operations; though the effect of these obstructions is always more or less either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its security. -- Adam Smith   How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. -- Adam Smith   It is the right of our people to organize to oppose any law and any part of the constitution with which they are not in sympathy. -- Alfred E. Smith   The entire American political system is a con, a sleazy mix of legalized bribes, auctioning off of favors, revolving doors between government agencies and the corporations they enrich and the blatant hypocrisy of snake-oil salespeople who know the marks (voters) face a false choice between two parties that are the same poison sold under different labels. -- Charles Hugh Smith   Protection of political speech advanced two important democratic goals:\\1) an informed citizenry that would be capable of making educated decisions on matters of public concern, and \\2) a free and open marketplace of ideas wherein the truth would ultimately prevail… Only through a vigorous and spirited public debate could citizens be educated about the actions of their government and react responsibly. -- Craig R. Smith   The idea that political speech had to be protected at any cost dates to Colonial days, during which the press and the public were not allowed to express themselves freely on matters of public concern. The King and his government often used restrictive measures, such as licensing of printing presses and the doctrine of seditious libel, to silence unfavorable public comment. -- Craig R. Smith   The physical capacity to coerce others can never generate a moral obligation to obey the dictates of [government] power. -- George H. Smith   I do not subscribe to the doctrine that the people are the slaves and property of their government. I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of the government. -- Gerrit Smith   This is precisely the purpose of censorship – not only to block unwanted views, but to keep people who are unhappy from knowing how many millions of others share their unhappiness; to keep the dormant opposition from awakening to its own developing strength. -- Hedrick Smith   It is a general maxim that all governments find a use for as much money as they can raise. Indeed, they have commonly demands for more...I take this as a settled truth, that they will all spend as much as their revenue; that is, will live up to their income. -- James Smith   I have sat on many a promotion panel where the first question of panel members was 'How many seizures have you made?' -- Joseph R. Smith   Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college. -- Lillian Smith   Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior. -- Logan Pearsall Smith   Politicians need human misery. ... Government’s a disease masquerading as its own cure. -- L. Neil Smith   One thing about a police state, you can always find the police. -- L. Neil Smith   Nine tenths of everything is tax. Everything you buy has a complicated history of robbery: land, raw materials, energy, tools, buildings, transport, storage, sales, profits. Don’t forget the share you contribute toward the personal income tax of every worker who has anything to do with the process. Inflation by taxation: there are a hundred taxes on a loaf of bread. What kind of living standard would we enjoy if everything cost a tenth of what it does? What kind of world? Think of your home, your car, your TV, your shoes, your supper—all at a 90% discount! Government can’t fight poverty—poverty is its proudest achievement! -- L. Neil Smith   People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically 'right.' Guns ended that, and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work. -- L. Neil Smith   Few things are more laughably pitiable than authority once it has been successfully defied. -- L. Neil Smith   Guns cause crime like flies cause garbage. -- L. Neil Smith   Each day, it seemed, another law was passed to impoverish and diminish them, punishing them for whatever success they achieved and rewarding their less competent and industrious neighbors. -- L. Neil Smith   [N]o one’s ever been able to show me any difference between democracy and brute force. It’s just a majority ganging up on a minority with the minority giving in to avoid getting massacred. -- L. Neil Smith   Congress will ever exercise their powers to levy as much money as the people can pay. They will not be restrained from direct taxes by the consideration that necessity does not require them. -- Melancton Smith   It is necessary that the powers vested in government should be precisely defined, that the people may be able to know whether it moves in the circle of the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 is intolerably vague. The Federal government will push its taxing power to the limit. It is a general maxim that all governments find a use for as much money as they can raise. Indeed, they have commonly demands for more. Hence it is that all as far as we are acquainted are in debt. I take this to be a settled truth that they will all spend as much as their revenue. That is, will live at least up to their income. Congress will ever exercise their powers to levy as much money as the people can pay. They will not be restrained from direct taxes by the consideration that necessity does not require them. -- Melancton Smith   My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died! Land of the Pilgrims' pride! From ev'ry mountainside, Let freedom ring! -- Rev. Samuel Francis Smith   Freedom of thought, conscience, and expression are numinous values, linked to the defining characteristics of man. The time has come for societies around the world to embrace the idea of an open culture as an aspiration of transcendent importance. -- Rodney A. Smola   A nation committed to an open culture will defend human expression and conscience in all its wonderful variety, protecting freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and freedom of peaceful mass protest. -- Rodney A. Smola   The ultimate aim of the Council on Foreign Relations … is … to create a one-world socialist system and make the United States an official part of it. -- Dan Smoot   Unable to maintain their government-granted monopoly, the powerful railroad interests turned to government to do the regulating and price-fixing which they were unable to do themselves. In fact, the pressure that induced Congress to enact the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 did not come from reformers bemoaning abuses by the powerful railroad interests; it came from the railroad interests themselves, asking Congress to shield them against the harsh winds of competition. -- Dan Smoot   The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen. -- Tommy Smothers   Democracy, with its promise of international peace, has been no better guarantee against war than the old dynastic rule of kings. -- Jan C. Smuts   I think I have served the purpose that I came here for, which was to provide a credible election product for our members. -- Brenda Snipes   No one is fit to be trusted with power. ... No one. ... Any man who has lived at all knows the follies and wickedness he's capable of. ... And if he does know it, he knows also that neither he nor any man ought to be allowed to decide a single human fate. -- C. P. Snow   The last person to achieve unambiguous victory in an air war was Zeus. -- Tony Snow   The ['Hillary Care'] plan prescribed some eye popping maximum fines:$5,000 for refusing to join the government mandated health plan; $5,000 for failing to pay premiums on time; 15 years in prison for doctors who received ‘anything of value’ in exchange for helping patients short circuit bureaucracy; $10,000 a day for faulty physician paperwork; and $50,000 for unauthorized patient treatment. When told the plan could bankrupt small businesses, Mrs. Clinton said, 'I can’t be responsible for every under-capitalized small business in America.' -- Tony Snow   Saying it’s okay for the government to spy on you because you’re innocent and you have “nothing to hide”... Is like saying it’s okay for the government to censor free speech because you have “nothing to say.” -- Edward Snowden   It also occurred to me that you might have had Ideas to that Purport when you disapproved of the Meetings of the Democratic-Societies, which appeared to me to be a Branch of that Order, though many Members may be entirely ignorant of the Plan. Those Men who are so much attached to French Principles, have all the Marks of Jacobinism. They first cast off all religious Restraints, and then became fit for perpetrating every Act of Inhumanity. And, it is remarkable, that most of them are actually Scoffers at all religious Principles. -- George Washington Snyder   But to ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow. ... For society does not control crime, ever, by forcing the law-abiding to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of criminals. Society controls crime by forcing the criminals to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of the law-abiding. -- Jeffrey R. Snyder   Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose responsibility is it to protect it? ... How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself? -- Jeffrey R. Snyder   [O]ne who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back, and will retaliate when threatened with death or grievous bodily injury to himself or a loved one. He will never be content to rely solely on others for his safety.... -- Jeffrey R. Snyder   Fortunately, there is a weapon for preserving life and liberty that can be wielded effectively by almost anyone -- the handgun. Small and light enough to be carried habitually, lethal, but unlike the knife or sword, not demanding great skill or strength, it truly is the 'great equalizer.' Requiring only hand-eye coordination and a modicum of ability to remain cool under pressure, it can be used effectively by the old and the weak against the young and the strong, by the one against the many. -- Jeffrey R. Snyder   If you believe it reprehensible to possess the means and will to use lethal force to repel a criminal assault, how can you call upon another to do so for you? -- Jeffrey R. Snyder   Crime is rampant because the law-abiding, each of us, condone it, excuse it, permit it, submit to it. We permit and encourage it because we do not fight back, immediately, then and there, where it happens. Crime is not rampant because we do not have enough prisons, because judges and prosecutors are too soft, because the police are hamstrung with absurd technicalities. The defect is there, in our character. We are a nation of cowards and shirkers. -- Jeffrey R. Snyder   Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people. -- Jeffrey R. Snyder   As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant of the people... The Bill of Rights does not grant rights to the people, such that its repeal would legitimately confer upon government the powers otherwise proscribed. The Bill of Rights is the list of the fundamental, inalienable rights, endowed in man by his Creator, that define what it means to be a free and independent people, the rights which must exist to ensure that government governs only with the consent of the people. -- Jeffrey R. Snyder   To own firearms is to affirm that freedom and liberty are not gifts from the state. It is to reserve final judgment about whether the state is encroaching on freedom and liberty, to stand ready to defend that freedom with more than mere words, and to stand outside the state’s totalitarian reach. -- Jeffrey R. Snyder   As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people. -- Jeffrey R. Snyder   If Communism was liberalism in a hurry, liberalism is Communism in slow motion. -- Joseph Sobran   Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money --- only for wanting to keep your own money. -- Joseph Sobran   Liberals have a new wish every time their latest wish is granted. Conservatives should make them spell out their principles and ideals. Instead of doing this, conservatives allow liberals to pursue incremental goals without revealing their ultimate destination. So, thanks to the negligence of their opponents, liberals control the terms of every debate by always demanding 'more' while never defining 'enough.' The predictable result is that they always get more, and it's never enough. -- Joseph Sobran   The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honour you can bestow on him. It means that you recognise his superiority to yourself. -- Joseph Sobran   At the end of a century that has seen the evils of communism, Nazism and other modern tyrannies, the impulse to centralize power remains amazingly persistent. -- Joseph Sobran   Politicians never accuse you of ‘greed’ for wanting other people’s money—only for wanting to keep your own money. -- Joseph Sobran   The difference between a politician and a pickpocket is that the pickpocket doesn't get indignant when you tell him to keep his hands to himself. -- Joseph Sobran   In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching Remedial English in college. -- Joseph Sobran   Can the real Constitution be restored? Probably not. Too many Americans depend on government money under programs the Constitution doesn't authorize, and money talks with an eloquence Shakespeare could only envy. Ignorant people don't understand The Federalist Papers, but they understand government checks with their names on them. -- Joseph Sobran   Tyranny seldom announces itself. ...In fact, a tyranny may exist without an individual tyrant. A whole government, even a democratically elected one, may be tyrannical. -- Joseph Sobran   Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right. -- Joseph Sobran   People who create things nowadays can expect to be prosecuted by highly moralistic people who are incapable of creating anything. There is no way to measure the chilling effect on innovation that results from the threats of taxation, regulation and prosecution against anything that succeeds. We’ll never know how many ideas our government has aborted in the name protecting us. -- Joseph Sobran   By a very conservative estimate, a hundred million people have died at the hands of their own governments in this century. Given that record, how bad could anarchy be? -- Joseph Sobran   All in all, the framers would probably agree that it's better to impeach too often than too seldom. If presidents can't be virtuous, they should at least be nervous. -- Joseph Sobran   Not surprisingly, the federal judiciary nearly always rules in favor of the federal government. Judicial review, contrary to the assurances of its advocates, has hardly restrained Congress at all. Instead it has progressively stripped the states of their traditional powers, while allowing federal power to grow unchecked. -- Joseph Sobran   In the current political vocabulary, ‘need’ means wanting to get someone else’s money. ‘Greed,’ which used to mean what “need” now means, has come to mean wanting to keep your own. ‘Compassion’ means the politician’s willingness to arrange the transfer. -- Joseph Sobran   If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you're conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist. -- Joseph Sobran   False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. -- Socrates   Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul? -- Socrates   Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults. -- Socrates   I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world. -- Socrates   The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways: I to die, and you to live. Which is better, God only knows. -- Socrates   The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today. Starting with nothing whatever of their own, they have got the whole world into their debt irredeemably, by a trick. This money comes into existence every time the banks 'lend' and disappears every time the debt is repaid to them. So that if industry tries to repay, the money of the nation disappears. This is what makes prosperity so 'dangerous' as it destroys money just when it is most needed and precipitates a slump. There is nothing left now for us but to get ever deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion and growth. An honest money system is the only alternative. -- Frederick Soddy   The most sinister and anti-social feature about bank-deposit money is that it has no existence. The banks owe the public for a total amount of money which does not exist. In buying and selling, implemented by cheque transactions, there is a mere change in the party to whom the money is owed by the banks. As the one depositor's account is debited, the other is credited and the banks can go on owing for it all the time. The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today. Starting with nothing whatever of their own, they have got the whole world into their debt irredeemably, by a trick. This money comes into existence every time the banks 'lend' and disappears every time the debt is repaid to them. So that if industry tries to repay, the money of the nation disappears. This is what makes prosperity so 'dangerous' as it destroys money just when it is most needed and precipitates a slump. There is nothing left now for us but to get ever deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion and growth. An honest money system is the only alternative. -- Frederick Soddy   These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. -- King Solomon   For often evil men are rich, and good men poor; But we will not exchange with them Our virtue for their wealth since one abides always, While riches change their owners every day. -- Solon   If through your vices you afflicted are, Lay not the blame of your distress on God; You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards, So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod. -- Solon   A half truth is the worst of all lies, because it can be defended in partiality. -- Solon   We can have justice whenever those who have not been injured by injustice are as outraged by it as those who have been. -- Solon   You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power - he's FREE again. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   There also exists another alliance -- at first glance a strange one, a surprising one -- but if you think about it, in fact, one which is well grounded and easy to understand. This is the alliance between our Communist leaders and your capitalists. This alliance is not new. ... We observe continuous and steady support by the businessmen of the West of the Soviet Communist leaders. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialization. Neither a market economy nor even general abundance constitutes the crowning achievement of human life. If a nation’s spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development. A tree with a rotten core cannot stand. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   I would like to call upon America to be more careful with its trust ... and prevent those ... because of short-sightedness and still others out of self-interest, from falsely using the struggle for peace and for social justice to lead you down a false road. Because they are trying to weaken you; they are trying to disarm your strong and magnificent country in the face of this fearful threat. ... I call upon you: ordinary working men of America ... do not let yourselves become weak. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   At what exact point, then should one resist the communists? ... How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: what would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if during periods of mass arrests people had simply not sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. ... The Organs [police] would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers ... and notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... Ideology - that is what gives devildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation… We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn   Wisdom outweighs any wealth. -- Sophocles   Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud. -- Sophocles   Without labor nothing prospers. -- Sophocles   Although I have made a fortune in the financial markets, I now fear that the untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society. The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat. -- George Soros   He who shits on the road will meet flies on his return. -- South African Saying   Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed. -- Southern California Oracle   Easier were it To hurl the rooted mountain from its base, Than force the yoke of slavery upon men Determin'd to be free. -- Robert Southey   Just as any moron can destroy a priceless Ming vase, so the shallow and ill-educated people who run our schools can undermine and destroy from within a great civilization that took centuries of dedicated effort to create and maintain. -- Dr. Thomas Sowell   The economic disasters of socialism and communism come from assuming a blanket superiority of those who want to run a whole economy. -- Thomas Sowell   It doesn't matter what rights you have under the Constitution of the United States, if the government can punish you for exercising those rights. And it doesn't matter what limits the Constitution puts on government officials' power, if they can exceed those limits without any adverse consequences. In other words, the Constitution cannot protect you, if you don't protect the Constitution with your votes against anyone who violates it. Those government officials who want more power are not going to stop unless they get stopped. As long as millions of Americans vote on the basis of who gives them free stuff, look for their freedom -- and all our freedom -- to be eroded away, bit by bit. Our children and grandchildren may yet come to see the Constitution as just some quaint words from the past that people once took seriously. -- Thomas Sowell   While rationalism at the individual level is a plea for more personal autonomy from cultural norms, at the social level it is often a claim -- or arrogation -- of power to stifle the autonomy of others. -- Thomas Sowell   A recent poll showed that nearly half the American public believes that the government should redistribute wealth. That so many people are so willing to blithely put such an enormous and dangerous arbitrary power in the hands of politicians -- risking their own freedom, in hopes of getting what someone else has -- is a painful sign of how far many citizens and voters fall short of what is needed to preserve a democratic republic. -- Thomas Sowell   What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long. -- Thomas Sowell   The reason so many problems do not get solved in Washington is that solving those problems is not the No. 1 priority: Re-election is. -- Thomas Sowell   One of the reasons for conspiracy theories is an assumption that people in high places always know what they are doing. When they do something that makes no sense, devious reasons are imagined by conspiracy theorists, when in fact it may be due to plain old ignorance and incompetence. -- Thomas Sowell   The talkers and writers resent being left on the sidelines by the doers. -- Thomas Sowell   The fatal attraction of government is that it allows busybodies to impose decisions on others without paying any price themselves. That enables them to act as if there were no price, even when there are ruinous prices -- paid by others. -- Thomas Sowell   When your response to everything that is wrong with the world is to say, 'there ought to be a law,' you are saying that you hold freedom very cheap. -- Thomas Sowell   Ego trips by coteries of self-exalting people are treated in the media as idealism, rather than the petty tyranny it is. -- Thomas Sowell   Freedom... refer[s] to a social relationship among people -- namely, the absence of force as a prospective instrument of decision making. Freedom is reduced whenever a decision is made under threat of force, whether or not force actually materializes or is evident in retrospect. -- Thomas Sowell   One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them. -- Thomas Sowell   Given that some social processes must convey inherent constraints, the choice is among various mixtures of persuasion, force, and cultural inducement. The less of one, the more of the others. The degree of freedom that is possible is therefore tied to the extent to which people respond to persuasion or inducement. -- Thomas Sowell   We enjoy freedom and the rule of law on which it depends, not because we deserve it, but because others before us put their lives on the line to defend it. -- Thomas Sowell   The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves. You can talk about 'social justice' all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get re-elected. That is not social justice or any other kind of justice. -- Thomas Sowell   Neither your life nor my life, nor the future of this country, will be affected in the slightest by whether Linda Tripp is naughty or nice. But if any president is able to commit crimes with impunity by using the vast powers and perquisites of his office to cover up, then we will have a danger of corruption and abuse of power that can only grow with the passing years and generations. -- Thomas Sowell   If you have ever seen a four-year-old trying to lord it over a two-year-old, then you know what the basic problem of human nature is and why government keeps growing larger and ever more intrusive. -- Thomas Sowell   If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago, and a racist today. -- Thomas Sowell   One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain. -- Thomas Sowell   Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. -- Thomas Sowell   When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. -- Thomas Sowell   Compassion is the use of public funds to buy votes. -- Thomas Sowell   It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. -- Thomas Sowell   'What freedom does a starving man have?' The answer is that starvation is a tragic human condition- perhaps more tragic than loss of freedom. That does not prevent these from being two different things. -- Thomas Sowell   Liberals seem to assume that, if you don't believe in their particular political solutions, then you don't really care about the people that they claim to want to help. -- Thomas Sowell   Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric. -- Thomas Sowell   Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. -- Thomas Sowell   There are only two ways of telling the complete truth - anonymously and posthumously. -- Thomas Sowell   To include freedom in the very definition of democracy is to define a process not by its actual characteristics as a process but by its hoped for results. This is not only intellectually invalid, it is, in practical terms, blinding oneself in advance to some of the unwanted consequences of the process. -- Thomas Sowell   Force is the antithesis of freedom, but force must be used, if only to defend against other force. -- Thomas Sowell   'For every $1.00 major corporations gave to conservative and free-market groups, they gave $4.61 to organizations seeking more government,' according to a study by the Capital Research Center, a Washington think tank. -- Thomas Sowell   To those who feel that their values are THE values, the less controlled systems necessarily present a spectacle of "chaos," simply because such systems respond to a diversity of values. The more successfully such systems respond to diversity, the more "chaos" there will be, by definition, according to the standards of ANY specific set of values- other than diversity or freedom as values. Looked at another way, the more self-righteous observers there are, the more chaos (and "waste") will be seen. -- Thomas Sowell   The death of media influence has been greatly exaggerated. -- Thomas Sowell   The next time somebody in the media denies that there is media bias, ask how they explain the fact that there are at least a hundred stories about the shrinking arctic ice cap for every one about the expanding antarctic ice cap, which has now grown to record size. -- Thomas Sowell   Any politician who starts shouting election-year demagoguery about the rich and the poor should be asked, "What about the other 90 percent of the people? -- Thomas Sowell   We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did. -- Thomas Sowell   No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: 'But what would you replace it with?' When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with? -- Thomas Sowell   Whenever people talk glibly of a need to achieve educational "excellence," I think of what an improvement it would be if our public schools could just achieve mediocrity. -- Thomas Sowell   Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good. -- Thomas Sowell   With all the pious talk about "tolerance" in the media and in academia, there is virtually none for those who challenge the dogmas of political correctness in most of our colleges and universities. -- Thomas Sowell   Journalists cannot serve two masters. To the extent that they take on the task of suppressing information or biting their tongue for the sake of some political agenda, they are betraying the trust of the public and corrupting their own profession. -- Thomas Sowell   One of the most pathetic — and dangerous — signs of our times is the growing number of individuals and groups who believe that no one can possibly disagree with them for any honest reason. -- Thomas Sowell   One of the painfully sobering realizations that come from reading history is the utter incompetence that is possible among leaders of whole nations and empires — and the blind faith that such leaders can nevertheless inspire among the people who are enthralled by their words or their posturing. -- Thomas Sowell   The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid. -- Art Spander   Lucifer comes to give us the final … Luciferic initiation … that many people now and in the days ahead, will be facing—for it is an initiation into the New Age. … No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian initiation. -- David Spangler   No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation. -- David Spangler (False)   Lucifer comes to give to us the final gift of wholeness. If we accept it then he is free and we are free. This is the Luciferic initiation. It is one that many people now, and in the days ahead, will be facing, for it is an initiation in the New Age. -- David Spangler   Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked. -- Robert D. Specht   Hitler’s dictatorship differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. It was the first dictatorship in the present period of modern technical development, a dictatorship which made complete use of all technical means for the domination of its own country. Through technical devices like the radio and the loud-speaker, eighty million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man. -- Albert Speer   Nearly every day on the television set the hero cop breaks into the bad guy’s house and beats a confession out of him and we cheer on the cop. Propaganda smears our clear vision. It causes us to accept the diminishment of our constitutional protections as something to be lauded – after all, the cop was protecting us. -- Gerry Spence   Although we give lip service to the notion of freedom, we know that government is no longer the servant of the people but, at last, has become the people's master. We have stood by like timid sheep while the wolf killed -- first the weak, then the strays, then those on the outer edges of the flock, until at last the entire flock belonged to the wolf. -- Gerry Spence   While birds can fly, only humans can argue. Argument is the affirmation of our being. It is the principal instrument of human intercourse. Without argument the species would perish.\\ As a subtle suggestion, it is the means by which we aid another.\\ As a warning, it steers us from danger.\\ As exposition, it teaches.\\ As an expression of creativity, it is the gift of ourselves.\\ As a protest, it struggles for justice.\\ As a reasoned dialogue, it resolves disputes.\\ As an assertion of self, it engenders respect.\\ As an entreaty of love, it expresses our devotion\\ As a plea, it generates mercy.\\ As charismatic oration it moves multitudes and changes history.\\ We must argue -- to help, to warn, to lead, to love, to create, to learn, to enjoy justice, to be. -- Gerry Spence   A new fascism promises security from the terror of crime. All that is required is that we take away the criminals’ rights – which, of course, are our own. Out of our desperation and fear we begin to feel a sense of security from the new totalitarian state. -- Gerry Spence   The Internet…has become the voice of the people in the first genuine experiment in democracy yet conducted in America. It stands ready to serve every facet, every faction. -- Gerry Spence   These are dangerous times.  When we are afraid, we want to be protected, and since we cannot protect ourselves against such horrors as mass murder by bombers, we are tempted to run to the government, a government that is always willing to trade the promise of protection for our freedom, which left, as always, the question: How much freedom are we willing to relinquish for such a bald promise?    Already the President was calling for more power, more power for the FBI.  He wanted a thousand more men.  And he wanted to use the army, no less, in situations like Oklahoma City.  And he wanted more power to tap our phones and to invade our privacy.  He wanted express authority from Congress to infiltrate the fringe groups and, in short, to snoop and to peer and to spy on the citizenry, especially those who hold different beliefs from those that flow in the phlegmatic and murky mainstream of America.  But the question remains, will we really be safer with a thousand more, or even a hundred thousand more FBI agents armed with even greater power to more easily tap our phone that are already so easily tapped and to break into our homes that are no longer safe under the much-mangled exclusionary rule? -- Gerry Spence   Be it or be it not true that Man is shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, it is unquestionably true that Government is begotten of aggression, and by aggression. -- Herbert Spencer   Feudalism, serfdom, slavery, all tyrannical institutions, are merely the most vigorous kind to rule, springing out of, and necessarily to, a bad state of man. The progress from these is the same in all cases -- less government. -- Herbert Spencer   All socialism involves slavery.... That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labors under coercion to satisfy another's desires. The relation admits of many gradations. Oppressive taxation is a form of slavery of the individual to the community as a whole. The essential question is -- How much is he compelled to labor for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labor for his own benefit? -- Herbert Spencer   The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer   There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is a proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is condemnation before investigation. -- Herbert Spencer (Questionable)   If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making? -- Herbert Spencer   The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature -- a type nowhere at present existing. -- Herbert Spencer   A man’s liberties are none the less aggressed upon because those who coerce him do so in the belief that he will be benefited. -- Herbert Spencer   The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature -- a type nowhere at present existing. -- Herbert Spencer   For what is meant by saying that a government ought to educate the people? Why should they be educated? What is the education for? Clearly, to fit the people for social life -- to make them good citizens. And who is to say what are good citizens? The government: there is no other judge. And who is to say how these good citizens may be made? The government: there is no other judge. Hence the proposition is convertible into this -- a government ought to mold children into good citizens, using its own discretion in settling what a good citizen is and how the child may be molded into one. -- Herbert Spencer   The authoritarian sets up some book, or man, or tradition to establish the truth. The freethinker sets up reason and private judgment to discover the truth... It takes the highest courage to utter unpopular truths. -- Herbert Spencer   The liberty the citizen enjoys is to be measured not by governmental machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, but by the paucity of restraints it imposes upon him. -- Herbert Spencer   Liberty is not the right of one, but of all. -- Herbert Spencer   Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic opinions. -- Herbert Spencer   Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom. -- Herbert Spencer   The greatest of all infidelities is the fear that the truth will be bad. -- Herbert Spencer   What we call the freedom of the individual is not just the luxury of one intellectual to write what he likes to write but his being a voice which can speak for those who are silent. -- Stephen Spender   Formerly no one was allowed to think freely; now it is permitted, but no one is capable of it any more. Now people want to think only what they are supposed to think, and this they consider freedom. -- Oswald Spengler   There is no proletarian, not even a Communist movement, that has not operated in the interests of money, and for the time being permitted by money - and that without the idealists among its leaders having the slightest suspicion of the fact. -- Oswald Spengler   Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them. -- Baruch Spinoza   He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason. -- Baruch Spinoza   Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. -- Baruch Spinoza   The most tyrannical governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his own thoughts. -- Baruch Spinoza   Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds. -- Baruch Spinoza   Only free men are thoroughly grateful one to another. -- Baruch Spinoza   Laws directed against opinions affect the generous-minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright. -- Baruch Spinoza   The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work without injury to himself or others. No, the object of government is not to change men from rational beings into beasts or puppets, but to enable them to develope their minds and bodies in security, and to employ their reason unshackled; neither showing hatred, anger, or deceit, nor watched with the eyes of jealousy and injustice. In fact, the true aim of government is liberty. -- Baruch Spinoza   A man who is without capital, and who, by prohibitions upon banking, is practically forbidden to hire any, is in a condition elevated but one degree above that of a chattel slave. He may live; but he can live only as the servant of others; compelled to perform such labor, and to perform it at such prices, as they may see fit to dictate. -- Lysander Spooner   The 'nations,' as they are called, with whom our pretended ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators profess to make treaties, are as much myths as our own. On general principles of law and reason, there are no such 'nations.' ... Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades. -- Lysander Spooner   And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived. -- Lysander Spooner   If, then, it became so difficult, so nearly impossible, in most cases, to determine what is, and what is not, vice; and especially if it be so difficult, in nearly all cases, to determine where virtue ends, and vice begins; and if these questions, which no one can really and truly determine for anybody but himself, are not to be left free and open for experiment by all, each person is deprived of the highest of all his rights as a human being, to wit: his right to inquire, investigate, reason, try experiments, judge, and ascertain for himself, what is, to him,virtue, and what is, to him, vice; in other words: what, on the whole, conduces to his happiness, and what, on the whole, tends to his unhappiness. If this great right is not to be left free and open to all, then each man’s whole right, as a reasoning human being, to "liberty and the pursuit of happiness," is denied him. -- Lysander Spooner   The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that -- however bloody -- can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave. -- Lysander Spooner   If those persons, who fancy themselves gifted with both the power and the right to define and punish other men’s vices, would but turn their thoughts inwardly, they would probably find that they have a great work to do at home; and that, when that shall have been completed, they will be little disposed to do more towards correcting the vices of others, than simply to give to others the results of their experience and observation. -- Lysander Spooner   ...only those who have the will and the power to shoot down their fellow men, are the real rulers in this, as in all other (so-called) civilized countries; for by no others will civilized men be robbed, or enslaved. -- Lysander Spooner   No government knows any limits to its power except the endurance of the people. -- Lysander Spooner   If a jury have not the right to judge between the government and those who disobey its laws, the government is absolute, and the people, legally speaking, are slaves. -- Lysander Spooner   But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave. -- Lysander Spooner   Our constitutions purport to be established by 'the people,' and, in theory, 'all the people' consent to such government as the constitutions authorize. But this consent of 'the people' exists only in theory. It has no existence in fact. Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given. -- Lysander Spooner   In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot -- which is a mere substitute for a bullet -- because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him. -- Lysander Spooner   The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this -- that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot. -- Lysander Spooner   And the so-called sovereigns, in these different governments, are simply the heads, or chiefs, of different bands of robbers and murderers. -- Lysander Spooner   -- Lysander Spooner   If our fathers, in 1776, had acknowledged the principle that a majority had the right to rule the minority, we should never have become a nation; for they were in a small minority, as compared with those who claimed the right to rule over them. -- Lysander Spooner   No attempt or pretence, that was ever carried into practical operation amongst civilized men -- unless possibly the pretence of a “Divine Right,” on the part of some, to govern and enslave others -- embodied so much of shameless absurdity, falsehood, impudence, robbery, usurpation, tyranny, and villany of every kind, as the attempt or pretence of establishing a government by consent, and getting the actual consent of only so many as may be necessary to keep the rest in subjection by force. Such a government is a mere conspiracy of the strong against the weak. It no more rests on consent than does the worst government on earth. -- Lysander Spooner   That no government, so called, can reasonably be trusted, or reasonably be supposed to have honest purposes in view, any longer than it depends wholly upon voluntary support. -- Lysander Spooner   The strong are always free by virtue of their superior strength. So long as government is a mere contest as to which of two parties shall rule the other, the weaker must always succumb. And whether the contest be carried on with ballots or bullets, the principle is the same; for under the theory of government now prevailing, the ballot either signifies a bullet, or it signifies nothing. And no one can consistently use a ballot, unless he intends to use a bullet, if the latter should be needed to insure submission to the former. -- Lysander Spooner   A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases. The result -- and a natural one -- has been that we have had governments, State and national, devoted to nearly every grade and species of crime that governments have ever practised upon their victims; and these crimes have culminated in a war that has cost a million of lives; a war carried on, upon one side, for chattel slavery, and on the other for political slavery; upon neither for liberty, justice, or truth. And these crimes have been committed, and this war waged, by men, and the descendants of men, who, less than a hundred years ago, said that all men were equal, and could owe neither service to individuals, nor allegiance to governments, except with their own consent. -- Lysander Spooner   [T]he only security men can have for their political liberty, consists in keeping their money in their own pockets ... -- Lysander Spooner   The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: \\1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth. \\2. Dupes—a large class, no doubt—each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a “free man,” a “sovereign”; that this is “a free government”; “a government of equal rights,” “the best government on earth,” and such like absurdities. \\3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change. -- Lysander Spooner   Vices are not crimes. -- Lysander Spooner   Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another. Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property. In vices, the very essence of crime—that is, the design to injure the person or property of another—is wanting. It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practices a vice with any such criminal intent. He practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others. Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property, and the corresponding coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property. -- Lysander Spooner   For more than six hundred years -- that is, since the Magna Carta in 1215 -- there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust, oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating or resisting the execution of such laws. -- Lysander Spooner   In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot -- which is a mere substitute for a bullet -- because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him. -- Lysander Spooner   [F]or everybody has a natural right to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defence of everybody else, whose person or property is invaded. The natural right of each individual to defend his own person and property against an aggressor, and to go to the assistance and defence of every one else whose person or property is invaded, is a right without which men could not exist on earth. -- Lysander Spooner   A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. -- Lysander Spooner   For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be a falsehood, or falsehood a truth. -- Lysander Spooner   The Rothschilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the representatives and agents - men who never think of lending a shilling to their next-door neighbors, for purposes of honest industry, unless upon the most ample security, and at the highest rate of interest - stand ready, at all times, to lend money in unlimited amounts to those robbers and murderers, who call themselves governments, to be expended in shooting down those who do not submit quietly to being robbed and enslaved. -- Lysander Spooner   Does it not seem a vast waste of valuable human material that the pioneers of thought, those who by their genius dare to clear unknown paths in the arts and sciences and in government, should have to conform to the dictates of that non-creative, slow-moving mass, the majority? An appeal to the majority is a resort to force and not an appeal to intelligence; the majority is always ignorant, and by increasing the majority we multiply ignorance. The majority is incapable of initiative, its attitude being one of opposition toward everything that is new. If it had been left to the majority, the world would never have had the steamboat, the railroad, the telegraph, or any of the conveniences of modern life. -- Charles T. Sprading   Custom may suffice as the basis of law, but is inadequate as the basis of justice. Tyranny, not liberty, has been the custom in the past; and so Libertarians reject custom as a guiding principle, just as they reject power or might. They know that justice is not something that was, or is, but that is to be. -- Charles T. Sprading   Ethical right is largely abstract; legal right is mostly concrete. Ethical right the just man wishes to be established; legal right is already established. Ethical right and legal right mutually exclude each other; where one prevails, the other cannot endure. One is founded on power, on might; the other on justice, on equality. One appeals to the sword to settle matters, the other appeals to the judgment of men. For illustration: Governments have the right to do wrong; that is, they have the power, the legal right, to do anything they choose, regardless of whether it is good or bad — and their choice is usually bad from the ethical standpoint. Governments can and do invade nations, rob the people of their property, enslave or kill the inhabitants; all in perfect accord with legal rights, but in gross violation of ethical right. Let it be understood that the right of a government is coextensive with its power; it has not the right to invade, enslave or kill the people of a stronger nation or government, for it lacks the power on which this right is based; but, having the power, it has the right to commit these acts against a weaker nation. Let us not mistake things as they are for things as they ought to be. -- Charles T. Sprading   The greatest violator of the principle of equal liberty is the State. Its functions are to control, to rule, to dictate, to regulate, and in exercising these functions it interferes with and injures individuals who have done no wrong. The objection to government is, not that it controls those who invade the liberty of others, but that it controls the non-invader. It may be necessary to govern one who will not govern himself, but that in no wise justifies governing one who is capable of and willing to govern himself. To argue that because some need restraint all must be restrained is neither consistent nor logical. -- Charles T. Sprading   If all men had the same interests, there would be less harm in permitting a part of the people to legislate for all; but this is not the case. There is a great conflict of interests between the possessed and the dispossessed, between the poor and the rich, between the weak and the strong, between the ruler and the ruled, between the worker and the shirkers, between the producer and the appropriator, which is apparent in existing laws, always made by those powerful enough to take advantage of the State and of the law-abiding sentiment of the people. That their laws conflict with justice is no concern of theirs, for profit and not justice is their object. The object is legitimate because they make it legitimate. The game they play is lawful because they make the law to uphold their game; but they raise a hue and cry for "law and order" if they find any game conflicting with theirs, and declare it unlawful. It is easy to see that laws thus enacted are unjust, for to be just a law must be enacted for the benefit of all; thus it is in no wise logical to presume that the "legal" is the just. -- Charles T. Sprading   A political convention illustrates the workings of majority rule: If the minority in a party advocate a progressive move which is defeated when put to a vote in the convention, the minority are prohibited from advancing it during the campaign; if this minority refuse to advocate what the convention has decided to be right, they are barred from the platform and press, the cry of majority rule is raised against them, and they are called "traitors to the party;" but if they abandon their progressive ideas and advocate the wishes of the majority they are rewarded with office. Thus majority rule develops the dishonest politician: in order to rule sometime, he consents to being ruled at other times. The desire to rule and the willingness to be ruled ends in degradation; and no one who accepts the principles of equal liberty can endorse majority rule. -- Charles T. Sprading   The Law of Equal Freedom, as Adopted by The Libertarian League Since life itself contains the impulse of physical growth and the development of faculties and therefore needs room and freedom to function; and since liberty is necessary to the exercise of faculties; and since the exercise of faculties is essential to happiness; therefore, to attain happiness one must have liberty. And since liberty, being essential to the individual, is also necessary to the race; and since this necessitates limiting the liberty of each to the like liberty of all, we therefore arrive at the sociological Law of Equal Freedom. Libertarian Principles Freedom of thought is essential to the discovery of truth. Freedom of speech is essential to the vindication of truth. Freedom of the press is requisite for the dissemination of knowledge. Freedom of assembly is essential for the discussion of public questions. Freedom in education is essential to the development of correct principles of study and teaching. Freedom in science is essential to the demonstration of fact, through investigation and experimentation. Freedom in literature, art and music is necessary for the highest expression of conceptions and emotions. Freedom in amusements and sports is essential to the fullest enjoyment of recreation. Freedom in religion is necessary to avert persecution (as, e.g., for adopting and professing religious opinions, and for worshiping or not worshiping, according to the dictates of conscience). Freedom of initiative and association is necessary for efficiency and economic in individual or co-operative enterprise. -- Charles T. Sprading   Although the legal and ethical definitions of right are the antithesis of each other, most writers use them as synonyms.  They confuse power with goodness, and mistake law for justice. -- Charles T. Sprading   And here is the difference between the Libertarians and the Authoritarians: the latter have no confidence in liberty; they believe in compelling people to be good, assuming that people are totally depraved; the former believe in letting people be good, and maintain that humanity grows better and better as it gains more and more liberty. If Libertarians were merely to ask that liberty be tried in any one of the other fields of human expression they would meet the same opposition as their pioneer predecessors; but such is their confidence in the advantages of liberty that they demand, not that it be tried in one more instance only, but that it be universally adopted. -- Charles T. Sprading   The first great struggle for liberty was in the realm of thought. The libertarians reasoned that freedom of thought would be good for mankind; it would promote knowledge, and increased knowledge would advance civilization. But the authoritarians protested that freedom of thought would be dangerous, that people would think wrong, that a few were divinely appointed to think for the people. -- Charles T. Sprading   A reasonable action on the part of the majority is very rare, while the evidence of mob stupidity and brutality is overwhelming. The majority in power make laws for their own financial benefit, disregarding the interests of the minority, and when the weak minority, by adding to its numbers, becomes powerful, it, in turn, does the same thing; thus, by appealing to power to settle their conflicting interests, the conflict would go on forever. -- Charles T. Sprading   When we compare the laws made today and the method and purpose of their making, with those of the past, we find them to be in perfect harmony. It was the law and custom of the past to provide for a class of idlers, it was customary for the powerful to enslave the weak, for the rich to rob the poor, for the unscrupulous to make laws in their own interests, even as it is the law and custom today. Surely it must be evident that law does not have its basis in justice, but rather in custom. To both law and custom, justice is a total stranger. -- Charles T. Sprading   The history of civilized man is the history of the incessant conflict between liberty and authority. Each victory for liberty marked a new step in the world's progress; so we can measure the advance of civilization by the amount of freedom acquired by human institutions. -- Charles T. Sprading   Behold! in Liberty's unclouded blaze\\ We lift our heads, a race of other days. -- Charles Sprague   Men cannot see truth, because they love falsehood. The gospel is not seen, because it is too pure for their loose lives and lewd thoughts. -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon   Print is dead... Get over it. -- John Squires   Anger manages everything badly. -- Stadius   Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. -- Josef Stalin   If the opposition (citizen) disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves. -- Josef Stalin   The press must grow day in and day out — it is our Party's sharpest and most powerful weapon. -- Josef Stalin   Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed. -- Josef Stalin   [After Communism succeeds] ...then, there will come a peace across the earth. -- Josef Stalin   Comrades, I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how. But what is extraordinarily important is this: who will count the votes, and how. -- Josef Stalin   World dictatorship can be established only when the victory of socialism has been achieved in certain countries or groups of countries … [and] when these federation of republics have finally grown into a world union of Soviet Socialist Republics uniting the whole of mankind under the hegemony of the international proletariat organized as a state. -- Josef Stalin   America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within. -- Josef Stalin   One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths are a statistic. -- Josef Stalin   Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits. -- Sir Josiah Stamp   Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. -- Dan Stanford   The production of wealth is the result of agreement between labor and capital, between employer and employed. Its distribution, therefore, will follow the law of its creation, or great injustice will be done. -- Leland Stanford   When money is controlled by a few it gives that few an undue power and control over labor and the resources of the country. Labor will have its best return when the laborer can control its disposal. -- Leland Stanford   I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself what- ever he pleases, except a great poet. -- Philip Stanhope   The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet. -- Philip Dormer Stanhope   To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton   We are the only class in history that has been left to fight its battles alone, unaided by the ruling powers. White labor and the freed black men had their champions, but where are ours? -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton   Government is like fire. If it is kept within bounds and under the control of the people, it contributes to the welfare of all. But if it gets out of place, if it gets too big and out of control, it destroys the happiness and even the lives of the people. -- Harold E. Stassen   The United States Program for General and Complete Disarmament... -- State Department Paper 7277   No free government was ever founded or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state.... Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the  freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen. -- State Gazette (Charleston)   The maintenance of the right to bear arms is a most essential one to every free people and should not be whittled down by technical constructions. -- State vs. Kerner   Disobedience or evasion of a constitutional mandate may not be tolerated, even though such disobedience may, at least temporarily, promote in some respects the best interests of the public. -- State v. Board of Examiners   When any court violates the clean and unambiguous language of the constitution, a fraud is perpetrated and no one is bound to obey it. -- State v. Sutton   Freedom always carries a burden of proof, always throws us back on ourselves. -- Shelby Steele   Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense. -- Gertrude Stein   Man is the only kind of varmint that sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it. -- John Steinbeck   And this I must fight against: any idea, religion or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for this is the one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. -- John Steinbeck   And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in all the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. -- John Steinbeck   We may be thankful that frightened civil authorities ... have not managed to eradicate from the country the tradition of the possession and use of firearms, that profound and almost instinctive tradition of Americans. Luckily for us, our tradition of bearing arms has not gone from the country, the tradition is so deep and so dear to us that it is one of the most treasured parts of the Bill of Rights -- the right of all Americans to bear arms, with the implication that they will know how to use them. -- John Steinbeck   The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes. -- Saul Steinberg   Law and justice are not always the same. -- Gloria Steinem   No man can call himself liberal, or radical, or even a conservative advocate of fair play, if his work depends in any way on the unpaid or underpaid labor of women at home, or in the office. -- Gloria Steinem   What is necessary to keep providing good care to nature has completely fallen into ignorance during the materialism era. -- Rudolf Steiner   Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable actions. -- Stendhal   The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same. -- Stendhal   They said it couldn't be done but sometimes it doesn't work out that way. -- Casey Stengel   The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep. -- George Stephanopolous   If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt, that atheists are as plentiful as blackberries. -- Leslie Stephen   Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant? Is it not a spectacle to make the angels laugh? We are a company of ignorant beings, feeling our way through mists and darkness, learning only by incessantly repeated blunders, obtaining a glimmering of truth by falling into every conceivable error, dimly discerning light enough for our daily needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe the ultimate origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one of us ventures to declare that we don't know the map of the universe as well as the map of our infintesimal parish, he is hooted, reviled, and perhaps told that he will be damned to all eternity for his faithlessness. -- Leslie Stephen   Till then we shall be content to admit openly, what you (religionists) whisper under your breath or hide in technical jargon, that the ancient secret is a secret still; that man knows nothing of the Infinite and Absolute; and that, knowing nothing, he had better not be dogmatic about his ignorance. And, meanwhile, we will endeavour to be as charitable as possible, and whilst you trumpet forth officially your contempt for our skepticism, we will at least try to believe that you are imposed upon by your own bluster. -- Leslie Stephen   Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions. -- Sir Leslie Stephen   The only shape in which equality is really connected with justice is this – justice presupposes general rules. If these general rules are to be maintained at all, it is obvious that they must be applied equally to every case which satisfies their terms. -- James Fitzjames Stephens   So, what the cultural elites are doing is what plenty of other authoritarian and totalitarian societies have done in the past. They are making the cost of telling the truth high enough that a general mass of people will be afraid to declare it publicly or even privately. -- Jarrett Stepman   When you think about it if somebody is a legal and responsible gun owner, let’s say in Massachusetts, why all of a sudden when he crossed the border is he an outlaw? -- Howard Stern   Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom, so also the individual’s freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority. -- Justice John Paul Stevens   The government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion. -- Justice John Paul Stevens   As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it. The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship. -- Justice John Paul Stevens   The agency that is so strict on the way Americans keep their books cannot even pass a financial audit. -- Ted Stevens   Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than the freedom to stagnate. -- Adlai E. Stevenson II   Newspaper editors separate the wheat from the chaff -- and print the chaff. -- Adlai E. Stevenson II   My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. -- Adlai E. Stevenson II   The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. -- Adlai E. Stevenson II   Freedom rings where opinions clash. -- Adlai E. Stevenson II   We in America today would limit our freedom of expression and of conscience. In the name of unity, they would impose a narrow conformity of ideas and opinion… Only a government which fights for civil liberties and equal rights for its own people can stand for freedom in the rest of the world. -- Adlai E. Stevenson II   If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow it wherever the search may lead us. -- Adlai E. Stevenson II   The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum. -- Adlai E. Stevenson II   A hungry man is not a free man. -- Adlai E. Stevenson II   It is a common heresy and its graves are to be found all over the earth. It is the heresy that says you can kill an idea by killing a man, defeat a principle by defeating a person, bury truth by burying its vehicle. -- Adlai E. Stevenson II   Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary. -- Robert Louis Stevenson   The cruelest lies are often told in silence. -- Robert Louis Stevenson   To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. -- Robert Louis Stevenson   Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences. -- Robert Louis Stevenson   Liberty's too precious a thing to be buried in history text books. -- Jimmy Stewart   The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation, no less that the right to speak out or the right to travel is, in truth, a “personal” right. -- Justice Potter Stewart   The dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights. People have rights... . In fact, a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right in property. -- Justice Potter Stewart   Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is the landmark of an authoritarian regime... -- Justice Potter Stewart   The 4th Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion. -- Justice Potter Stewart   The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it need not be honored when it’s invalid on its face. -- Justice Potter Stewart   [A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve it’s high purpose when it indices a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with things as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for understanding. -- Justice Potter Stewart   Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. -- Justice Potter Stewart   The state may not establish a ‘religion of secularism’ in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus ‘preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.' -- Justice Potter Stewart   The salient feature of America in the Age of Obama is a failed government class institutionally committed to living beyond its means, and a citizenry too many of whom are content to string along. -- Mark Steyn   If gun control bore any relation to homicide rates, Washington, DC would be the safest place in the country. -- Mark Steyn   In 1897, troops from the greatest empire the world had ever seen marched down London’s mall for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee. Seventy years later, Britain had government health care, a government-owned car industry, massive government housing, and it was a shriveled high-unemployment socialist basket-case living off the dwindling cultural capital of its glorious past. In 1945, America emerged from the Second World War as the preeminent power on earth. Seventy years later ... Let’s not go there. -- Mark Steyn   To put it baldly, there are two ways to become wealthy: to create wealth or to take wealth away from others. The former adds to society. The latter typically subtracts from it, for in the process of taking it away, wealth gets destroyed. A monopolist who overcharges for his product takes money from those whom he is overcharging and at the same time destroys value. To get his monopoly price, he has to restrict production. -- Joseph E. Stiglitz   Illegitimati non carborundum. (Don't let the bastards grind you down.) -- General Joseph W. Stilwell   When the news first came that Japan had attacked us my first feeling was of relief that … a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people. This continued to be my dominant feeling in spite of the news of catastrophes which quickly developed. -- Henry Stimson   We face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure Japan is put into the wrong and makes the first bad move. … The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot. -- Henry Stimson   The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime.  -- Max Stirner   The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime. -- Max Stirner   A race of altruists is necessarily a race of slaves. A race of free men is necessarily a race of egoists. -- Max Stirner   The major function of secrecy in Washington is to keep the U.S. people ... from knowing what the nation’s leaders are doing. -- John Stockwell   Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the U.S. military machine to turn. -- John Stockwell   To call Congress emasculated is to insult eunuchs. -- David C. Stolinsky   The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided. -- Harlan F. Stone   If a juror feels that the statute involved in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes upon the defendant's natural god-given unalienable or constitutional rights, then it is his duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is no crime at all, for no one is bound to obey an unjust law. -- Harlan F. Stone   The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided. -- Harlan F. Stone   It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting. -- Tom Stoppard   The media. It sounds like a convention of spiritualists. -- Tom Stoppard   It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting. -- Tom Stoppard   The pretence is made that to do away with right and wrong would produce uncivilized people, immorality, lawlessness, and social chaos. The fact is that most psychiatrists and psychologists and other respected people have escaped from moral chains and are able to think freely. -- J. A. Stormer   The truth is, that, even with the most secure tenure of office, during good behavior, the danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion, and in defence of private rights or public liberties; but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day. -- Joseph Story   Another not unimportant consideration is, that the powers of the general government will be, and indeed must be, principally employed upon external objects, such as war, peace, negotiations with foreign powers, and foreign commerce. In its internal operations it can touch but few objects, except to introduce regulations beneficial to the commerce, intercourse, and other relations, between the states, and to lay taxes for the common good. The powers of the states, on the other hand, extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, and liberties, and property of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state. -- Joseph Story   A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the objects of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be best attained. -- Joseph Story   Men, to act with vigour and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They must not be hurried on to their conclusions by the passions, or the fears of the multitude. They must deliberate, as well as resolve. -- Joseph Story   This provision (the 4th Amendment) speaks for itself. Its plain object is to secure the perfect enjoyment of that great right of the common law, that a man's house shall be his own castle, privileged against all civil and military intrusion. -- Justice Joseph Story   Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them. -- Justice Joseph Story   If aliens might be admitted indiscriminately to enjoy all the rights of citizens at the will of a single state, the Union might itself be endangered by an influx of foreigners, hostile to its institutions, ignorant of its powers, and incapable of a due estimate of its privileges. -- Justice Joseph Story   I started out by viewing the marketplace as a cruel place, where you need intervention by government and lawyers to protect people. But after watching the regulators work, I have come to believe that markets are magical and the best protectors of the consumer. It is my job to explain the beauties of the free market. -- John Stossel   The history books say that during the Progressive era, government trustbusters reined in business. Nonsense. Progressive 'reforms' -- railroad regulation, meat inspection, drug certification and the rest -- were done at the behest of big companies that wanted competition managed. They knew regulation would burden smaller companies more than themselves. The strategy works. -- John Stossel   There are two kinds of statistics the kind you look up and the kind you make up. -- Rex Stout   Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching. -- Jim Stovall   Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. -- Harriet Beecher Stowe   The literature of a people must so ring from the sense of its nationality; and nationality is impossible without self-respect, and self-respect is impossible without liberty. -- Harriet Beecher Stowe   I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred -- that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt. -- Harriet Beecher Stowe   We are socialists, we are enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalistic economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its unjust wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system! -- Gregor Strasser   When you elevate victimhood as virtue, you will create a culture in which people are tripping over themselves to be oppressed. -- Allie Beth Stuckey   Justice is open to everyone in the same way as the Ritz Hotel. -- Judge Sturgess   Indifference must be a crime in us, to be ranked but one degree below treachery; for deserting the commonwealth is next to betraying it. -- Henry St. John   Liberty is to the collective body what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society. -- Henry St. John   Handgun controls do little to stop criminals from obtaining handguns. -- Josh Sugarmann   Freedom of the press, or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press, belongs to everyone – to the citizen as well as the publisher… The crux is not the publisher’s ‘freedom to print’; it is, rather, the citizen’s ‘right to know.’ -- Arthur Hays Sulzberger   Give me the centralism of liberty; give me the imperialism of equal rights. -- Charles Sumner   In “A jury’s duty” (11/8) by Mike Romano, John Junker asserts that juries have the right to nullify laws in principle but should not use this right in practice. Would he then be willing to give up the rights of free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom to organize a labor union, abolition of slavery in the North, and the repeal of alcohol prohibition—all of which were given to us by juries who put the principle of nullification into practice? Without jury nullification no systematic veto exists for the people and tyranny ensues. -- Patricia Michl Sumner   Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare. -- William Graham Sumner   Everywhere you go on the continent of Europe at this hour you see the conflict between militarism and industrialism. You see the expansion of industrial power pushed forward by the energy, hope, and thrift of men, and you see the development arrested, diverted, crippled, and defeated by measures which are dictated by military considerations. -- William Graham Sumner   The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man. -- William Graham Sumner   The great foe of democracy now and in the near future is plutocracy. Every year that passes brings out this antagonism more distinctly. It is to be the social war of the twentieth century. In that war militarism, expansion and imperialism will all favor plutocracy. In the first place, war and expansion will favor jobbery, both in the dependencies and at home. In the second place, they will take away the attention of the people from what the plutocrats are doing. In the third place, they will cause large expenditures of the people’s money, the return for which will not go into the treasury, but into the hands of a few schemers. In the fourth place, they will call for a large public debt and taxes, and these things especially tend to make men unequal, because any social burdens bear more heavily on the weak than on the strong, and so make the weak weaker and the strong stronger. Therefore expansion and imperialism are a grand onslaught on democracy. -- William Graham Sumner   -- William Graham Sumner   If I want to be free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control. -- William Graham Sumner   Gentlemen, the time is coming when there will be two great classes, Socialists, and Anarchists. The Anarchists want the government to be nothing, and the Socialists want government to be everything. There can be no greater contrast. Well, the time will come when there will be only these two great parties, the Anarchists representing the laissez faire doctrine and the Socialists representing the extreme view on the other side, and when that time comes I am an Anarchist. -- William Graham Sumner   If I want to be free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control. -- William Graham Sumner   All history is one long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their fellow men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others, might shift the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others. -- William Graham Sumner   -- William Graham Sumner   No scheme which has ever been devised by them has ever made a collapsed boom go up again. -- William Graham Sumner   Constitutional rights may not be infringed simply because the majority of the people choose that they be. -- Supreme Court of the United States   What I do know is, in little more than 30 years, we have gone from a nation where the “quiet enjoyment” of one’s private property was a sacred right, to a day when the so-called property “owner” faces a hovering hoard of taxmen and regulators threatening to lien, foreclose, and “go to auction” at the first sign of private defiance of their collective will ... a relationship between government and private property rights which my dictionary defines as “fascism.” -- Vin Suprynowicz   [T]his is why the tyrants are moving so quickly to take away our guns. Because they know in their hearts that if they continue the way they’ve been going, boxing Americans into smaller and smaller corners, leaving us no freedom to decide how to raise and school and discipline our kids, no freedom to purchase (or do without) the medical care we want on the open market, no freedom to withdraw $2,500 from our own bank accounts (let alone move it out of the country) without federal permission, no freedom even to arrange the dirt and trees on our own property to please ourselves ... if they keep going down this road, there are going to be a lot more Carl Dregas, hundreds of them, thousands of them, fed up and not taking it any more, a lot more pools of blood drawing flies in the municipal parking lots, a lot more self-righteous government weasels who were “only doing their jobs” twitching their death-dances in the warm afternoon sun ... and soon. -- Vin Suprynowicz   Nut cases only succeed in multiple killings when they can be confident their prospective victims are disarmed. -- Vin Suprynowicz   A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves. -- Justice George Sutherland   Do the people of this land…desire to preserve those [liberties] protected by the First Amendment… If so, let them withstand all beginnings of encroachment. For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanquished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch for a saving hand while yet there was time. -- Justice George Sutherland   It is important to bear in mind that we are here dealing not alone with an authority vested in the President by an exertion of legislative power, but with such an authority plus the very delicate, plenary and exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations — a power which does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress, but which, of course, exists as long as it is not contravened by any act of Congress. -- Justice George Sutherland   The broad statement that the federal government can exercise no powers except those specifically enumerated in the Constitution, and such implied powers as are necessary and proper to carry into effect the enumerated powers, is categorically true only in respect of our internal affairs. In the field of international relations, the President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. He makes treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude; and Congress itself is powerless to invade it. -- Justice George Sutherland   [T]he power system continues only as long as individuals try to get something for nothing. The day when a majority of individuals declares or acts as if it wants nothing from the government, declares that it will look after its own welfare and interests, then on that day the power elites are doomed. -- Anthony Sutton   It is a rather pleasent experience to be alone in a bank at night. -- Willie Sutton   Finally, the fundamental flaw, which will ultimately destroy this prohibition as it did the last one, is that criminal sanctions cannot, and should not attempt to, prohibit personal conduct which does no harm to others. -- Judge Robert Sweet   Liberty must be a mighty thing; for by it God punishes and rewards nations. -- Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine   [T]he child should be taught to consider his instructor... superior to the parent in point of authority.... The vulgar impression that parents have a legal right to dictate to teachers is entirely erroneous.... Parents have no remedy as against the teacher. -- John Swett   As a general thing the only persons who have a legal right to give orders to the teacher are his employers, namely, the committee in some States, and in others the directors or trustees. If his conduct is approved by his employers the parents have no remedy as against him or them. -- John Swett   The vulgar impression that parents have a legal right to dictate to teachers is entirely erroneous. -- John Swett   It is a maxim among lawyers that whatever hath been done before may be done again, and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions, and the judges never fail of directing them accordingly. -- Jonathan Swift   Whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together. -- Jonathan Swift   By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England. -- Jonathan Swift   I would rather be a freeman among slaves than a slave among freemen. -- Jonathan Swift   Liberty of conscience is nowadays only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavoring to propagate that belief as much as they can. -- Jonathan Swift   Laws are like cobwebs which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. -- Jonathan Swift   There is no such thing ... in America as an independent press. -- John Swinton   The first duty of a newspaper is to be accurate. If it is accurate, it follows that it is fair. -- Herbert B. Swope   The public expects too much from teachers because educationists have led it to believe teachers could be substitute parents, psychotherapists, cops, social workers, dieticians, nursemaids, babysitters, and nose wipers and still do a decent job teaching kids to read, write, and do math. Instead of saying no, educationists have added courses in environmental education, death education, personal hygiene, self-esteem, driver's ed, job readiness, sexual harassment, radon studies, yoga, yogurt awareness, and god-knows-what-else. -- Charlie Sykes   The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts a medium of expression commonly used for the preservation and communication of information and ideas, thus triggering First Amendment scrutiny. Illinois has criminalized the nonconsensual recording of most any oral communication, including recordings of public officials doing the public’s business in public and regardless of whether the recording is open or surreptitious. Defending the broad sweep of this statute, the State’s Attorney relies on the government’s interest in protecting conversational privacy, but that interest is not implicated when police officers are performing their duties in public places and engaging in public communications audible to persons who witness the events. Even under the more lenient intermediate standard of scrutiny applicable to content-neutral burdens on speech, this application of the statute very likely flunks. The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests; as applied to the facts alleged here, it likely violates the First Amendment’s free-speech and free-press guarantees. -- Judge Diane Schwerm Sykes   Audio and audiovisual recording are communication technologies, and as such, they enable speech. Criminalizing all nonconsensual audio recording necessarily limits the information that might later be published or broadcast -- whether to the general public or to a single family member or friend -- and thus burdens First Amendment rights. If, as the State’s Attorney would have it, the eavesdropping statute does not implicate the First Amendment at all, the State could effectively control or suppress speech by the simple expedient of restricting an early step in the speech process rather than the end result. We have no trouble rejecting that premise. Audio recording is entitled to First Amendment protection. -- Judge Diane Schwerm Sykes   I think the inherent right of the government to lie to save itself when faced with nuclear disaster is basic -- basic. -- Arthur Sylvester   I consider marijuana the worst of all narcotics, far worse than the use of morphine or cocaine. Under its influence men become beasts... Marijuana destroys life itself. I have no sympathy with those who sell this weed. The government is going to enforce this new law to the letter. -- Judge John Foster Symes   Those who cannot afford to sue currently have no protection of their property rights if they come in conflict with a regulation. -- Steve Symms   Take care that no one hates you justly. -- Publilius Syrus   Keep the golden mean between saying too much and too little. -- Publilius Syrus   The battle for the world is the battle for definitions. -- Thomas Szasz   The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should if it prevents you from feeding yourself. -- Thomas Szasz   Men love liberty because it protects them from control and humiliation by others, thus affording them the possibility of dignity; they loathe liberty because it throws them back on their own abilities and resources, thus confronting them with the possibility of insignificance. -- Thomas Szasz   Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic. -- Thomas Szasz   Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility. -- Thomas Szasz   Men are rewarded and punished not for what they do, but rather for how their acts are defined. This is why men are more interested in better justifying themselves than in behaving themselves. -- Thomas Szasz   Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought. -- Albert Szent-Gyorgi   The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. -- Cornelius Tacitus   The lust for power in dominating others inflames the heart more than any other passion. -- Cornelius Tacitus   Formerly we suffered from crimes; now we suffer from laws. -- Cornelius Tacitus   Such being the happiness of the times, that you may think as you wish, and speak as you think. [Lat., Rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, et quae sentias dicere licet.] -- Cornelius Tacitus   Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges. (The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.) -- Cornelius Tacitus   So, as you go into battle, remember your ancestors and remember your descendants. -- Cornelius Tacitus   In the struggle between those seeking power there is no middle course. -- Cornelius Tacitus   The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion. -- Cornelius Tacitus   [That form of] eloquence, the foster-child of licence, which fools call liberty. [Lat., Eloquentia, alumna licentiae, quam stulti libertatem vocabant.] -- Cornelius Tacitus   Liberty is given by nature even to mute animals. [Lat., Liberatem natura etiam mutis animalibus datam.] -- Cornelius Tacitus   It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks. -- Cornelius Tacitus   We are corrupted by prosperity. And when the state is corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied. -- Publius Cornelius Tacitus   When I say liberty…I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life as he desires to think and live; the liberty of the family to decide how they wish to live, what they wanted to eat for breakfast and for dinner, and how they wish to spend their time; liberty of a man to develop his ideas and get other people to teach those ideas, if he can convince them that they have some value to the world… -- Robert A. Taft   Every Republican candidate for President since 1936 has been nominated by the Chase National Bank. -- Robert A. Taft   Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority. -- William Howard Taft   Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race. -- William Howard Taft   Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity. -- William Howard Taft   If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out. -- Rabindrnath Tagore   An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public. -- Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord   An important art of politcians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public. -- Talleyrand   Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act. -- The Talmud   You see what power is -- holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them! -- Amy Tan   In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances you were born with. -- Amy Tan   [A]s recent advances in genetic and molecular science increasingly challenge the tenets of Neo-Darwinism, the teaching of non-random, intelligence-based alternatives should be permitted under the Establishment Clause provided such alternatives are supported by scientific evidence and are presented in a secular manner. -- Roger L. Tarbutton   Illusions are like mistresses. We can have many of them without tying ourselves down to responsibility. But truth insists on marriage. Once a person embraces truth, he is in its ruthless, but gentle, grasp. -- Rebazar Tarzs   The Constitution is like my old blue dress ... it doesn't fit anymore. -- Rep. Ellen Tauscher   Bankruptcies of governments have, on the whole, done less harm to mankind than their ability to raise loans. -- R. H. Tawney   It is probable that democracy owes more to nonconformity than to any other single movement. -- R. H. Tawney   Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history. -- A. J. P. Taylor   No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic. -- A. J. P. Taylor   Conscience is, in most, an anticipation of the opinion of others. -- Henry Taylor   If the means to which the government of the union may resort for executing the power confided to it, are unlimited, it may easily select such as will impair or destroy the powers confided to the state governments. -- John Taylor   Constitutions are violated, and it would be absurd to expect the federal government to enforce the Constitution against itself. If the very federal judges the Constitution was partly intended to restrain were the ones exclusively charged with enforcing it, then “America possesses only the effigy of a Constitution.” The states, the very constituents of the Union, had to do the enforcing. -- John Taylor   ... I suggest that the more the state intervenes in such situations, the more 'necessary' (on this view) it becomes, because positive altruism and voluntary cooperative behaviour atrophy in the presence of the state and grow in its absence. Thus, again, the state exacerbates the conditions which are supposed to make it necessary. We might say that the state is like an addictive drug: the more of it we have, the more we 'need' it and the more we come to 'depend' on it. -- Michael Taylor   It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have it. -- Edwin Way Teale   Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.\\ Trouble no one about his religion.\\ Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours.\\ Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.\\ Seek to make your life long and of service to your people.\\ Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.\\ Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.\\ Show respect to all people, but grovel to none.\\ When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. \\ Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.\\ Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.\\ When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.\\ Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home. -- Tecumseh   When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl! -- Brad Templeton   No human has yet grasped 1% of what can be known about spiritual realities ... I grew up Presbyterian. Presbyterians thought the Methodists were wrong. Catholics thought all Protestants were wrong. The Jews thought the Christians were wrong. So, what I'm financing is humility. I want people to realize that you shouldn't think you know it all. -- John Templeton   That government being instituted for the common benefit, the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. -- Tennessee Constitution   This declaration ... gives to every man the right to arm himself in any manner he may choose, however unusual or dangerous the weapons he may employ, and thus armed, to appear wherever he may think proper, without molestation or hindrance, and that any law regulating his social conduct, by restraining the use of any weapon or regulating the manner in which it shall be carried, is beyond the legislative competency to enact, and is void. -- Tennessee Supreme Court   Ring out the old, ring in the new,\\ Ring, happy bells, across the snow:\\ The year is going, let him go;\\ Ring out the false, ring in the true.\\ -- Alfred Lord Tennyson   Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. -- Alfred Lord Tennyson   If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. -- Mother Teresa   Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or sovereign. ... You must weep that your own government, at present, seems blind to this truth. -- Mother Teresa   It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. One man’s religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion, to which free will and not force should lead us. -- Tertullian   In the twenty-first century, the robot will take the place which slave labor occupied in ancient civilization. -- Nikola Tesla   ...and in all cases of libels, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts, under the direction of the court, as in other cases. -- Texas Constitution   When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression. When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the everready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants. When, long after the spirit of the constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet. When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abdication on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements. In such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness. ... These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government. The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation. -- Texas Declaration of Independence   These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. -- Texas Declaration of Independence   Not only, therefore, can there be no loss of separate and independent autonomy to the states, through their union under the Constitution, but it may be not unreasonably said that the preservation of the states, and the maintenance of their governments, are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the national government. The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible states. -- Texas v. White   To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forgo even ambition when the end is gained -- who can say this is not greatness? -- William Makepeace Thackeray   Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. -- Margaret Thatcher   Perhaps I can summarise it best by saying this -- Nations that have pursued equality, like the Iron Curtain countries, I think have finished up with neither equality, nor liberty. Nations, which like us, in the past have pursued liberty, as a fundamental objective, extending it to all, have finished up with liberty, human dignity, and far fewer inequalities than other people. -- Margaret Thatcher   Where law ends, tyranny begins. -- Margaret Thatcher   We want a society in which we are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. That is what we mean by a moral society – not a society in which the State is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the State. -- Margaret Thatcher   Liberty, human dignity, a higher standard of living is fundamental. And, steadily, I think, people are beginning to realise that you don't have those things unless you have a pretty large private enterprise sector. Any Iron Curtain country has neither liberty, nor a very high standard of living. The two things go, economic and political freedom, go together. I've been right in the forefront of saying that, here, in the States, and it's very interesting to me now, to see a number of articles from people who are taking up the same theme. They are disturbed that Socialism is reducing liberty and freedom for ordinary people, and that's really what matters. -- Margaret Thatcher   Look, I think you're tackling public expenditure from the wrong end, if I might say so. Why don't you look at it as any housewife has to look at it? She has to look at her expenditure every week or every month, according to what she can afford to spend, and if she overspends one week or month, she's got to economise the next. Now governments really ought to look at it from the viewpoint of "What can we afford to spend?" They've already put up taxes, and yet the taxes they collect are not enough for the tremendous amount they're spending. They're having to borrow to a greater extent than ever before, and future generations will have to repay. Now, if anyone tells me that a Chancellor of the [Denis Healey] Exchequer can put up public expenditure in two years by -- and it's a tremendous figure -- twenty thousand million pounds, and he doesn't know where to get it down by about three thousand million pounds, then he ought never to have been in charge of the nation's finances ... never! -- Margaret Thatcher   All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. It must be business as usual. -- Margaret Thatcher   There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves. -- Margaret Thatcher   I think they've made the biggest financial mess that any government's ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they're now trying to control everything by other means. They're progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people. -- Margaret Thatcher   But don't forget that we fought a 1974 election on saying really that pay couldn't go on going up as it was. The important thing … you must never look at pay on its own, what you've got to look at is pay in relation to the amount produced. It's when those two get badly out of line that you get inflation. And now obviously, we've got very much higher pay, but we're producing less than we were in 1970, so it's the relationship that you've got to watch. Don't look at pay separately. Once you start to cut off a man's pay from the fruits of his labour, he will inevitably feel enormous resentment. If he's going to work harder, of course he deserves more pay, and he doesn't want it all taken away in tax. But there are two sides of the equation you've got to look at. -- Margaret Thatcher   We should not expect the state to appear in the guise of an extravagant good fairy at every christening, a loquacious companion at every stage of life's journey, and the unknown mourner at every funeral. -- Margaret Thatcher   America, my friends, is the only country in the world actually founded on liberty -- the only one. People went to America to be free. -- Margaret Thatcher   I'm never quite sure what you mean by consensus politics. I believe that what most people want in their lives, is what the Conservative Party wants to have for them. I believe that our policies are fundamentally common sense policies. Just let's take taxation for an example. Wherever I go I hear enormous resentment about the amount which people are paying out of their own pay packet in tax. And, this goes right across the income ranges. Socialism started by saying it was going to tax the rich, very rapidly it was taxing the middle income groups. Now, it's taxing people quite highly with incomes way below average and pensioners with incomes way below average. You look at the figure on the beginning of a pay slip, sometimes it can look quite high, look along the slip to the other end, and see how many deductions you've had off, those deductions have increased enormously under Socialism ... Public expenditure, which they always boast about, is financed out of the pay packet in our pockets. People are saying that they really think too much is being taken out of the pay packet for someone to spend on their behalf, and they'd rather be left with more, and it's now well-known that Socialist Governments put up taxes and Conservative Governments take them down. It's part of our fundamental belief giving the people more choice to spend their own money in their own way. -- Margaret Thatcher   Jobs really come in the productive sector of the economy. The real jobs are where people are producing goods or services which other people will buy. Now, dependent on those people producing those goods, are a lot of others in the public sector. Now if you run up the public sector, you can only do it by draining money out of industry and commerce. But that's where the jobs are. And one of the reasons why you have to cut public expenditure is to get the money back out of the public sector, into industry and commerce, so that they, in fact, can invest, and improve, and expand; because that's where the secure jobs are. -- Margaret Thatcher   The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom. -- Margaret Thatcher   The Senate being tied is a start. Now, if only it could be gagged. -- Bob Thaves   I don't know if I can live on my income or not -- the government won't let me try it. -- Bob Thaves   Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws. He was wholly unopposed, for the boldest spirits had fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while the remaining nobles, the readier they were to be slaves, were raised the higher by wealth and promotion, so that, aggrandised by revolution, they preferred the safety of the present to the dangerous past. -- The Annals of Tacitus   When the US government ended 'welfare as we know it' in 1996, it handed responsibility for reform to the states. In so doing, it also created a real-world test of two competing economic strategies used to fight poverty. The results are in and the lessons are clear: Low tax rates lift up the lives of America's poor. -- The Christian Science Monitor   Under federal law the government is allowed to seize a person’s assets and distribute them, even if the accused is acquitted, or the charges eventually dropped, those assets may be transferred to state law enforcement agencies. -- The Daily Oklahoman   For as long as one hundred of us shall remain alive, we shall never in any wise consent submit to the rule of the English, for it is not for glory we fight, nor riches, or for honour, but for freedom alone, which no good man loses but with his life. -- The Declaration of Arbroath 1320   If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. -- The Holy Bible   Unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: That the Lord thy God bless thee. -- The Holy Bible   Take no usury of him, or increase... thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury. -- The Holy Bible   For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. -- The Holy Bible   For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. -- The Holy Bible   Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. -- The Holy Bible   While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. -- The Holy Bible   Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. -- The Holy Bible   So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever. And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts. -- The Holy Bible   But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. -- The Holy Bible   Therefore thus saith the Lord; Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbour: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. -- The Holy Bible   Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. -- The Holy Bible   He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh. -- The Koran   The ordinary "horseless carriage" is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle. -- The Literary Digest   This is the sum of all true righteousness: deal with others as thou wouldst thyself be dealt by. Do nothing to thy neighbor which thou wouldst not have him do to thee hereafter. -- The Mahabharata   [N]one are so emboldened as thugs who, in spite of the law are armed, in confrontations with law-abiding citizens who, because of the law, are disarmed. -- The New American   I may die a beggar, but with the Grace of God, I will not die a slave. I will not be filed, stamped, briefed, debriefed, or numbered... My life is my own. -- The Prisoner   If you add to the truth, you subtract from it. -- The Talmud   If that mischievous financial policy which had its origin in the North American Republic [i.e., honest Constitutionally authorized debt-free money] should become indurated down to a fixture, then that government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without a debt (to the International Bankers). It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe! -- The Times of London   [President Clinton] ... ordered the Justice Department to begin studying gun licensing, registration, and collection proposals. -- The Washington Times   Let me get this straight. For the past quarter-century or more, the central government has been stealing hundreds of billions of dollars each year from competent, hard-working, successful people and giving it to incompetent, lazy failures. As a result, middle-class America has increasingly been impoverished while the poor are even poorer. Now come calls for reforming the system, and liberals are denouncing reformers in the vilest language. What planet did you say liberals are from? -- Paul Thiel   Thus, individualism is not antithetical to community. Rather, it can involve free association and a belief in an over-arching harmony of interests. In a free socety, individuals join with others because of love and mutual benefit, not because they are programmed or coerced. -- Prof. Clifford Thies   When you walked through working-class neighbourhoods, you would sometimes see a cop slipping shamefacedly into his own house by a side door. -- André Thirion   For this future emancipation, we have to rule out ideologies that aim at reinforcing the state, the police and controls in general, and at reducing liberty. -- André Thirion   What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient. -- Bodie Thoene   If there are those who think we are to jump immediately into a new world order, actuated by complete understanding and brotherly love, they are doomed to disappointment. If we are ever to approach that time, it will be after patient and persistent effort of long duration. The present international situation of mistrust and fear can only be corrected by a formula of equal status, continuously applied, to every phase of international contacts, until the cobwebs of the old order are brushed out of the minds of the people of all lands. -- Dr. Augustus O. Thomas   Welfare mostly subsidizes people in poverty, helping few escape from it. In their hearts, most people who are poor would like to be rich, or at least self-sustaining, but this president never talks about how they might achieve that goal. Instead, he criticizes those who made the right choices and now enjoy the fruits of their labor. Rather than use successful people as examples for the poor to follow, the president seeks to punish the rich with higher taxes and more regulations on their businesses. -- Cal Thomas   A theory deeply etched in our law [is that] a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse the rights of free speech after they break the law rather than to throttle them and all others beforehand. -- Justice Clarence Thomas   If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything ... quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. -- Justice Clarence Thomas   A good argument diluted to avoid criticism is not nearly as good as the undiluted argument, because we best arrive at truth through a process of honest and vigorous debate. Arguments should not sneak around in disguise, as if dissent were somehow sinister… For it is bravery that is required to secure freedom. -- Justice Clarence Thomas   Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law. That [affirmative action] programs may have been motivated, in part, by good intentions cannot provide refuge from the principle that under our Constitution, the government may not make distinctions on the basis of race. -- Justice Clarence Thomas   I believe that there is a moral and constitutional equivalence between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality.... In my mind, government-sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just as noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice. -- Justice Clarence Thomas   I don’t believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights. -- Justice Clarence Thomas   Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law. -- Justice Clarence Thomas   [T]he courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.... The mere fact that a school is black does not mean that it is the product of an unconstitutional violation. -- Justice Clarence Thomas   In the beginning, there was nothing. Then God said 'Let there be light,' and there was still nothing, but you could see it. -- Dave Thomas   No government of the Centre would seek powers to imprison individuals who have committed no crime merely on the say-so of "experts" who believe they might commit a crime. No libertarian government would want to reduce our right to trial by jury, to curfew children, to place "anti-social behaviour orders" on citizens, to conduct compulsory DNA and drug tests on all offenders. No government that was concerned with freedom would seek to ban pursuits that harm no one, such as foxhunting, simply because they are unpopular. No government that has respect for its citizens would seek to interfere so intimately with so many of their private activities -- for instance, what right does a government have to tell me under what terms and conditions I may sell my house. The transaction should, quite simply, be none of their business. -- George Thomas   History suggests that the cause of national decline is, as a rule, that the state in the nation concerned has sought to do too much rather than too little. This applies as much to the Roman Empire as to the Spanish. -- Hugh Thomas   We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people; we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other. -- Lewis Thomas   Dissent... is a right essential to any concept of the dignity and freedom of the individual; it is essential to the search for truth in a world wherein no authority is infallible. -- Norman Thomas   The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. -- Norman Thomas   After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to others, to win advancement. -- Norman Thomas   All statutes are presumed constitutional and the party challenging the constitutionality of a statute has the burden of clearly establishing that it violates the constitution. -- Justice Robert R. Thomas   Political censorship is necessarily based on fear of what will happen if those whose work is censored get their way, or if they are effecting in persuading a large number of readers to share their point of view. The nature of political censorship at any given time depends on the censor’s answer to the simple question, “What are you afraid of?” -- Donald Thompson   When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered. -- Dorothy Thompson   It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives. -- Dorothy Thompson   It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives. -- Dorothy Thompson   Of all forms of government and society, those of free men and women are in many respects the most brittle. They give the fullest freedom for activities of private persons and groups who often identify their own interests, essentially selfish, with the general welfare. -- Dorothy Thompson   Jurors have found, again and again, and at critical moments, according to what is their sense of the rational and just. If their sense of justice has gone one way, and the case another, they have found “against the evidence,” ... the English common law rests upon a bargain between the Law and the people: The jury box is where the people come into the court: The judge watches them and the people watch back. A jury is the place where the bargain is struck. The jury attends in judgment, not only upon the accused, but also upon the justice and the humanity of the Law. -- E. P. Thompson   After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood. -- Fred Thompson   It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top. -- Hunter S. Thompson   It is suggested that the solution lies in the United Nations Security Council. It is interesting to note that each solution it achieves invariably results either in the country involved going communist or vast territories being turned to communist-type socialism. The United Nations is the great Trojan horse within our gates, and we can hope for absolutely no help from that quarter, especially while it promotes and arranges finances, encouragement, and prestige to dissenting groups involved in so-called liberation movements of terrorist revolutionary groups. -- J. Ralph Thompson   Nothing is plainer than that, if the principles of the church of Rome prevail here, our Constitution would fall. The two cannot exist together. They are in open and direct antagonism with the fundamental theory of our government and of all popular government everywhere. -- Richard Thompson   Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. -- Henry David Thoreau   The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. -- Henry David Thoreau   Goodness is the only investment that never fails. -- Henry David Thoreau   Must a citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. -- Henry David Thoreau   Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison ... the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. -- Henry David Thoreau   Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. -- Henry David Thoreau   Law never made men a whit more just. -- Henry David Thoreau   Somehow strangely the vice of men gets well represented and protected but their virtue has none to plead its cause -- nor any charter of immunities and rights. -- Henry David Thoreau   If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. -- Henry David Thoreau   I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. -- Henry David Thoreau   What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? -- Henry David Thoreau   To be awake is to be alive. -- Henry David Thoreau   Others -- as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders -- serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few -- as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men -- serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part ... -- Henry David Thoreau   Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one. -- Henry David Thoreau   If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. -- Henry David Thoreau   The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. -- Henry David Thoreau   Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw. -- Henry David Thoreau   Trade and commerce, if they were not made of Indian rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way. -- Henry David Thoreau   Why does it [government] always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels? -- Henry David Thoreau   Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe... till we come to the hard bottom of rocks in place, which we can call reality. -- Henry David Thoreau   There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. -- Henry David Thoreau   I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least'; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe -- 'That government is best which governs not at all'; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have. -- Henry David Thoreau   I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen. -- Henry David Thoreau   That government is best which governs least. -- Henry David Thoreau   The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. -- Henry David Thoreau   A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote. -- Henry David Thoreau   Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen. -- Henry David Thoreau   Things do not change, we change. -- Henry David Thoreau   The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls -- the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning. -- Henry David Thoreau   If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them. -- Henry David Thoreau   There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. -- Henry David Thoreau   If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life. -- Henry David Thoreau   Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it. -- Henry David Thoreau   Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? -- Henry David Thoreau   The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals. -- Henry David Thoreau   Wherever you may seek solitude, men will ferret you out and compel you to belong to their desperate company of oddfellows. -- Henry David Thoreau   I heartily accept the motto, that government is best which governs least ... Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, that government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. -- Henry David Thoreau   If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. -- Henry David Thoreau   Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. -- Henry David Thoreau   To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? -- in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. -- Henry David Thoreau   Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. -- Henry David Thoreau   When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? -- Henry David Thoreau   As for adopting the ways which the state has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life will be gone. -- Henry David Thoreau   That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest. -- Henry David Thoreau   I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. -- Henry David Thoreau   I make my own time. I make my own terms. I cannot see how God or Nature can ever get the start of me. -- Henry David Thoreau   A gun gives you the body, not the bird. -- Henry David Thoreau   The creation of money exclusively as debt is the critical, destabilizing flaw in the American Economy. -- Theodore R. Thoren   Before the creation of the welfare state, immigrants who came to this country were for the most part attracted by America’s reputation as a land of freedom and opportunity. Laws and customs that then prevailed required immigrants to carve out their individual destinies by their own labor, perseverance, intelligence, and determination. -- James Thornton   It is natural that citizens of great and powerful nations see themselves, collectively speaking, as immortal and immune to the processes that have brought down other illustrious nations and peoples. -- James Thornton   The new puritans have been highly successful. All of the preconditions for new prohibitions on alcohol and tobacco are in place. ... Indeed, the future agenda of the federal government has already been established to outlaw alcohol and tobacco in the near future. ... If current trends persist, America will be moving toward stricter prohibitions, greater restrictions, and more centralized control over consumption. This represents an erosion of liberty at its most fundamental level. -- Mark Thornton   Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war. -- Thucydides   For it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy. -- Thucydides   The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage. -- Thucydides   As the world goes, right is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. -- Thucydides   It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. -- James Thurber   Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and nobody to be kicked? -- Lord Chancellor Thurlow   Power can rarely be wielded effectively over long periods of time unless it is perceived by the community in which it is exercised as a form of legitimate authority, not as mere coercive force. -- Brian Tierney   I do not believe there are more than a very limited number of persons, perhaps a hundred who really know what is in the Constitution of the United States. -- Dr. John J. Tigert   The first duty of love is to listen. -- Paul Tillich   Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. -- Paul Tillich   From that point on, the extraordinary system of spies and informers which has played an important part in the political work of the French state into our own time took shape. (Sartine, who became lieutenant general de police in 1759, is supposed to have said to Louis XV, "Sire, when three people are chatting in the street one of them is surely my man.") Eighteenth-century police manuals like those of Colquhoun in England or Lemaire in France are no less than general treatises on the government's full repertoire of domestic regulation, coercion, and surveillance. -- Charles Tilly   At the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco, Nelson Rockefeller was in the forefront of the struggle to establish not only an American system of political and economic security but a new world order. -- New York Times   When men get in the habit of helping themselves to the property of others, they cannot be easily cured of it. -- New York Times   Nelson Rockefeller was in the forefront of the struggle to establish not only an American system of political and economic security but a new world order. -- New York Times   We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. -- Preamble To The United States Constitution   The things that are wrong with the country today are the sum total of all the things that are wrong with us as individuals. -- Charles W. Tobey   Man’s drive for self-expression, which over the centuries has built his monuments, does not stay within its bounds; the creations which yesterday were detested and the obscene become the classics of today. -- Matthew Tobriner   The Rothschild family is the head of the organization in which I entered in Colorado. All the Occult Brotherhoods are part of it. It is a Lucifer Organization to install his reign in the whole world. … Supposedly the Rothschilds have personal dealings with the Devil. I have personally been in his villa and have experienced it. And I know it is true. -- John Todd   The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. -- Alvin Toffler   One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition. -- Alvin Toffler   You may not be interested in war, but war is very interested in you. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning and cruelty. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   Governments need armies to protect them against their enslaved and oppressed subjects. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   The misapprehension springs from the fact that the learned jurists, deceiving themselves as well as others, depict in their books an ideal of government -- not as it really is, an assembly of men who oppress their fellow-citizens, but in accordance with the scientific postulate, as a body of men who act as the representatives of the rest of the nation. They have gone on repeating this to others so long that they have ended by believing it themselves, and they really seem to think that justice is one of the duties of governments. History, however, shows us that governments, as seen from the reign of Caesar to those of the two Napoleons and Prince Bismarck, are in their very essence a violation of justice; a man or a body of men having at command an army of trained soldiers, deluded creatures who are ready for any violence, and through whose agency they govern the State, will have no keen sense of the obligation of justice. Therefore governments will never consent to diminish the number of those well-trained and submissive servants, who constitute their power and influence. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   The strongest of all warriors are these two -- Time and Patience. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal -- that there is no human relation between master and slave. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   I know that most men -- not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic, problems -- can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty -- conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   Hypocrisy is anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   The more that is given, the less people will work for themselves, and the less they work, the more their poverty will increase. -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi   The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. -- Lily Tomlin   It is said, mostly by Libertarians, that ‘taxation is theft.’ Theft is too mild a word. Typically, a thief strikes only once, and doesn’t pretend that his robbery is legitimate. Taxation is actually slavery. -- Rick Tompkins   [T]hroughout history the unarmed have been safe only as long as the armed (criminals or government agents) have allowed them to be safe. We should beware of any politician, bureaucrat, or intellectual who claims the Second Amendment is outdated, or that it does no more than guarantee the National guard’s right to bear arms. Many of these same people did their best to obstruct investigations of government wrongdoing at Ruby Ridge and Waco. -- William R. Tonso   The human race's prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves. -- Arnold J. Toynbee   Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor. -- Arnold J. Toynbee   The last stage but one of every civilisation, is characterised by the forced political unification of its constituent parts, into a single greater whole. -- Arnold J. Toynbee   An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide. -- Arnold J. Toynbee   We differ from Tory Socialism in so far as we are in favour, not of paternal, but of fraternal government, and we differ from Continental Socialism because we accept the principle of private property, and repudiate confiscation and violence. With Mazzini, we say the worst feature in Continental Socialism is its materialism. It is this indeed which utterly separates English Radical Socialists from Continental Socialists — our abhorrence and detestation of their materialistic ideal. -- Arnold J. Toynbee   The Radical creed, as I understand it, is this: We have not abandoned our old belief in liberty, justice, and Self-help, but we say that under certain conditions the people cannot help themselves, and that then they should be helped by the State representing directly the whole people. In giving this State help, we make three conditions: first, the matter must be one of primary social importance; next, it must be proved to be practicable; thirdly, the State interference must not diminish self-reliance. Even if the chance should arise of removing a great social evil, nothing must be done to weaken those habits of individual self-reliance and voluntary association which have built up the greatness of the English people. -- Arnold J. Toynbee   To a reluctant admission of the necessity for State action, we join a burning belief in duty, and a deep spiritual ideal of life. And we have more than an abstract belief in duty, we do not hesitate to unite the advocacy of social reform with an appeal to the various classes who compose society to perform those duties without which all social reform must be merely delusive. -- Arnold J. Toynbee   Mr. Speaker, we are now in Chapter 11... Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any bankrupt entity in world history. -- James A. Traficant, Jr.   Mr. Speaker, in 1848, Karl Marx said, a progressive income tax is needed to transfer wealth and power to the state. Thus, Marx's Communist Manifesto had as its major economic tenet a progressive income tax. Think about it, 1848 Karl Marx, Communism.... I say it is time to replace the progressive income tax with a national retail sales tax, and it is time to abolish the IRS, my colleagues. I yield back all the rules, regulations, fear, and intimidation of our current system. -- James A. Traficant, Jr.   America is in trouble... not from without, but from within! The Central Government has become too powerful. Citizens fear the Government. This is wrong. This is dangerous! I know the Government covered-up and promulgated LIES about Waco, Ruby Ridge, Pan Am Flight 103, Hoffa, and J.F.K. The Government knew I was right when I called Janet Reno a traitor. Janet Reno sold us out when she refused to investigate a $10-million payoff to the Democratic Party from a general in the Red Chinese Army (no less!). Think about it! And the Government knew that I had known why Reno was forced to betray America! I’m proud that I tried to do something about it! Someday the truth will come out. (I hope China never attacks us!) -- James A. Traficant, Jr.   A memory is the life past, no one can take from you, forever it lasts. -- Verka Paunovska Trajcesica   Those prepared to give their lives in freedom’s cause, come over to me... -- Col. William Barrett Travis   Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted. -- Treason Clause   As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. -- Treaty of Tripoli, 1796   It's the misfortune of all Countries, that they sometimes lie under a unhappy necessity to defend themselves by Arms against the ambition of their Governors, and to fight for what's their own. If those in government are heedless of reason, the people must patiently submit to Bondage, or stand upon their own Defence; which if they are enabled to do, they shall never be put upon it, but their Swords may grow rusty in their hands; for that Nation is surest to live in Peace, that is most capable of making War; and a Man that hath a Sword by his side, shall have least occasion to make use of it. -- John Trenchard   Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the blood of real civilization. -- G. M. Trevelyan   It bothers me that the executive branch is taking the amazing position that just on the president's say-so, any American citizen can be picked up, not just in Afghanistan, but at O'Hare Airport or on the streets of any city in this country, and locked up without access to a lawyer or court just because the government says he's connected somehow with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. That's not the American way. It's not the constitutional way. -- Laurence Tribe   [The Bill of Rights is] designed to protect individuals and minorities against the tyranny of the majority, but it's also designed to protect the people against bureaucracy, against the government. -- Laurence Tribe   [I]f we won’t choose to pay the price of liberty, then by default we shall suffer the cost of servitude -- whether it be the iron chains of a tyrannical oligarchy or the regulatory chains of unelected, faceless bureaucrats. When we witness our neighbors abused by tyrants, will we skulk away and hope we’re not next? Or will we stand by them and challenge -- as freedom-loving Americans -- the tyranny of lawless leaders. -- Phil Trieb   [I]f we won’t choose to pay the price of liberty, then by default we shall suffer the cost of servitude -- whether it be the iron chains of a tyrannical oligarchy or the regulatory chains of unelected, faceless bureaucrats. When we witness our neighbors abused by tyrants, will we skulk away and hope we’re not next? Or will we stand by them and challenge -- as freedom-loving Americans -- the tyranny of lawless leaders. -- Phil Trieb   ...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire. -- Srdja Trifkovic   It is a known fact that the policies of the government today, whether Republican or Democrat are closer to the 1932 platform of the Communist Party than they are to either of their own party platforms in that critical year. -- Walter Trohan   If our generation happens to be too weak to establish Socialism over the earth, we will hand the spotless banner down to our children. The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind. It will be severe, it will be lengthy. Whoever seeks physical comfort and spiritual calm let him step aside. In time of reaction it is more convenient to lean on the bureaucracy than on the truth. But all those for whom the word ‘Socialism’ is not a hollow sound but the content of their moral life - forward! Neither threats nor persecutions nor violations can stop us! Be it even over our bleaching bones the future will triumph! We will blaze the trail for it. It will conquer! Under all the severe blows of fate, I shall be happy as in the best days of my youth; because, my friends, the highest human happiness is not the exploitation of the present but the preparation of the future. -- Leon Trotsky   Religions are illogical primitive ignorance. There is nothing as ridiculous and tragic as a religious government. -- Leon Trotsky   A country, after all, is not something you build as the pharaohs built the pyramids, and then leave standing there to defy eternity. A country is something that is built every day out of certain basic shared values. -- Pierre Trudeau   As against the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith, there has to be a visible hand of politicians whose objective is to have the kind of society that is caring and humane. -- Pierre Trudeau   Obviously, the state's responsibility should be to legislate rules for a well-ordered society. It has no right or duty to creep into the bedrooms of the nation. -- Pierre Trudeau   What is considered sinful in one of the great religions to which citizens belong isn't necessarily sinful in the others. Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin; it is crimes that it must define. -- Pierre Trudeau   Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. -- Harry S. Truman   Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix. -- Harry S. Truman   I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. -- Harry S. Truman   I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo. -- Harry S. Truman   When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. -- Harry S. Truman   When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril. -- Harry S. Truman   If you cannot convince them, confuse them. -- Harry S. Truman   Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship. -- Harry S. Truman   It's not the hand that signs the laws that holds the destiny of America. It's the hand that casts the ballot. -- Harry S. Truman   You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook. -- Harry S. Truman   I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell. -- Harry S. Truman   If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military. -- Harry S. Truman   It's an old political trick: "If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em." But this time it won't work. -- Harry S. Truman   There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country we punish men for the crimes they commit but never for the opinions they have. -- Harry S. Truman   Fight! Fight! Fight! -- Donald J. Trump   Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. -- Mao Tse-Tung   Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.'  Our principle is that the [Communist] Party commands the gun and the gun will never be allowed to command the Party. -- Mao Tse-tung   Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. -- Mao Tse-Tung   I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more if they had known they were slaves. -- Harriet Tubman   We enact many laws that manufacture criminals, and then a few that punish them. -- Benjamin R. Tucker   No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session. -- Judge Gideon J. Tucker   No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session. -- Gideon J. Tucker   To secure their enjoyment, however, certain protections or barriers have been erected which serve to maintain inviolate the three primary rights of personal security, personal liberty, and private property. These may in America be said to be: 1. The bill of rights and written constitutions ...\\ 2. The rights of bearing arms -- which with us is not limited and restrained by an arbitrary system of game laws as in England, but is particularly enjoyed by every citizen, and is among his most valuable privileges, since it furnishes the means of resisting as a freeman ought, the inroads of usurpation.\\ 3. The right of applying to the courts of justice for the redress of injuries. -- Henry St. George Tucker   Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government. -- St. George Tucker   This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty. ... The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. -- St. George Tucker   Let no Negroe or mulattoe be cabable of taking, holding, or exercising any public office, freehold, franchise or privilege. ... Nor of keeping, or bearing arms, unless authorized to do by some act of the general assembly, whose duration shall be limited to three years. -- St. George Tucker   Whilst America hath been the land of promise to Europeans, and their descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions of the wretched sons of Africa ... Whilst we were offering up vows at the shrine of Liberty ... whilst we swore irreconcilable hostility to her enemies ... whilst we adjured the God of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free or die ... we were imposing on our fellow men, who differ in complexion from us, a slavery, ten thousand times more cruel than the utmost extremity of those grievances and oppressions, of which we complained. -- St. George Tucker   To the extent that these [New Deal policies] developed, they were tortured interpretations of a document [the Constitution] intended to prevent them. -- Rexford Tugwell   Characteristically, however, the overthrow of the dictator simply means that there will be another dictator. ... the policies they follow will probably not be radically different. If we look around the world, we quickly realize that these policies will not be radically different from those that would be followed by a democracy either. -- Gordon Tullock   Our system is changing and [Congress] is the one branch that must act if we are to reverse those changes. We are seeing the emergence of a different model of government, a model long-ago rejected by the framers. ... A dominant presidency has occurred with very little congressional opposition. Indeed, when President Obama pledged to circumvent Congress, he received rapturous applause from the very body that he was proposing to make practically irrelevant. Now many members are contesting the right of this institution to even be heard in federal court. ... This body is moving from self-loathing to self-destruction in a system that is in crisis. The president's pledge to effectively govern alone is alarming, and what is most alarming is his ability to fulfill that pledge. When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger the framers sought to avoid. -- Jonathan Turley   Marijuana leads to homosexuality ... and therefore to AIDS. -- Carlton Turner   History does not exist for us until and unless we dig it up, interpret it, and put it together. Then the past comes alive, or, more accurately, it is revealed for what it has always been - a part of the present. -- Frederick W. Turner III   We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose. We cannot afford to use methods of which we will be ashamed when we look back, when we say, '...we shouldn't have done that.' We must remember, my friends, that we have been given a wonderful cause. The cause of freedom! And you and I must be those who will walk with heads held high. We will say, 'We used methods that can stand the harsh scrutiny of history.' -- Bishop Desmond Tutu   If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. -- Bishop Desmond Tutu   Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility. -- Bishop Desmond Tutu   Whenever there is a simple error that most laymen fall for, there is always a slightly more sophisticated version of the same problem that experts fall for. -- Amos Tversky   There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress. -- Mark Twain   Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned. -- Mark Twain   How you can win the population for war: At first, the statesman will invent cheap lying, that impute the guilt of the attacked nation, and each person will be happy over this deceit, that calm the conscience. It will study it detailed and refuse to test arguments of the other opinion. So he will convince step for step even therefrom that the war is just and thank God, that he, after this process of grotesque even deceit, can sleep better. -- Mark Twain   Now what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffers, not the state. -- Mark Twain   A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -- Mark Twain   We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read. -- Mark Twain   When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! 'O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with hurricanes of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.' [After a pause.] Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits. -- Mark Twain   A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. -- Mark Twain   No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the congress is in session. -- Mark Twain   Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't.  You cannot shirk this and be a man.  To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let me label you as they may. -- Mark Twain   If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging? -- Mark Twain   A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. -- Mark Twain   Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. -- Mark Twain   Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it. -- Mark Twain   In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. -- Mark Twain   Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain't so. -- Mark Twain   Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. -- Mark Twain   Often, the surest way to convey information is to tell the strict truth. -- Mark Twain   A classic is a book which people praise and don't read. -- Mark Twain   Observe, I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay or interruption -- no, for the Lie, as Virtue, as Principle, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this club remains. My complaint, simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted. ... If this finest of the fine art arts had everywhere received the attention, encouragement, and conscientious practice and development which this club has devoted to it, I should not need to utter this lament, or cry a single tear. I do not say this to flatter. I say it in a spirit of just and appreciative recognition. -- Mark Twain   Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain   -- Mark Twain   Congressman is the trivialist distinction for a full grown man. -- Mark Twain   It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. -- Mark Twain   Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. -- Mark Twain   Carlye said, A lie cannot live; it shows he did not know how to tell them. -- Mark Twain   It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either. -- Mark Twain   It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races. -- Mark Twain   Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. -- Mark Twain   One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. -- Mark Twain   Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either. -- Mark Twain   ... if it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer, but if it is a Fact, proof is necessary. -- Mark Twain   The history of the race, and each individual's experience, are thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. -- Mark Twain   One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed in it. They have also believed the world was flat. -- Mark Twain   Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first. -- Mark Twain   Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception. -- Mark Twain   We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express; and another one - the one we use - which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us comfortable in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore it, and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at it in politics. -- Mark Twain   Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can. -- Mark Twain   I am aware that when even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition... (more) -- Mark Twain   Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. -- Mark Twain   When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. -- Mark Twain   All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity. -- Mark Twain   I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. -- Mark Twain   Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. -- Mark Twain   Travel is lethal to prejudice. -- Mark Twain   When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. -- Mark Twain   My kind of loyalty was to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. -- Mark Twain   We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove. -- Mark Twain   It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either. -- Mark Twain   The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivaly of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise. -- Mark Twain   Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. -- Mark Twain   Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let man label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country- hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of. -- Mark Twain   Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. -- Mark Twain   Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden, however, and does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant. -- Mark Twain   For in a Republic, who is "the country?" Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. -- Mark Twain   Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -- Mark Twain   I wasn't worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two million dollars. -- Mark Twain   Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. -- Mark Twain   Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed. -- Mark Twain   Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain   It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. -- Mark Twain   If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. -- Mark Twain   Duties are not performed for duty's sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty -- the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself. -- Mark Twain   Few things are more irritating than when someone who is wrong is also very effective in making his point. -- Mark Twain   When in doubt, tell the truth. -- Mark Twain   Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. -- Mark Twain   There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. -- Mark Twain   Often the less there is to justify a traditional custom the harder it is to get rid of it. -- Mark Twain   It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many people can successfully resist. What is its seat? The inborn requirement of self-approval. -- Mark Twain   I reverently believe that the maker who made us all makes everything in New England, but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather-clerks factory who experiment and learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it. -- Mark Twain   The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. -- Mark Twain   [N]o country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more. -- Mark Twain   Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain   It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. -- Mark Twain   God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board. -- Mark Twain   If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed. -- Mark Twain   Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it. -- Mark Twain   Prev pageNext page	Daily Quotes Ready to be inspired? Sign up for a daily dose of Liberty Quotes! Leave us your email address to subscribe. Email: Here's the Daily Quote history. Browse quotes by Authors, Categories, and Cryptograms! 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. 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