Famous Quotations / Quotes Famous Quotes about Liberty
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	[Self-defense is] justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the laws of society. -- Sir William Blackstone   Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery. -- Lawana Blackwell   I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance. -- Reuben Blades   More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul. -- William Blake   You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. -- William Blake   A truth that's told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent. -- William Blake   Where there is money there is no art. -- William Blake   I think the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average high school child acquires a high school education, and this militates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history. When I was one of the editors of The Nation in the twenties, I wrote an editorial explaining that golf and intelligence were the two primary reasons that men did not attend church. Perhaps today I would say golf and a high school diploma. -- Paul Blanchard   To be paranoid means to believe in delusions of danger and persecution. If the danger is real, and the evidence credible, then it cannot be delusional. To ignore the evidence, and hope that it CANNOT be true, is more an evidence of mental illness. -- William Blase   Freedom of religion means the right of the individual to choose and to adhere to whichever religious beliefs he may prefer, to join with others in religious associations to express these beliefs, and to incur no civil disabilities because of his choice… -- Joseph L. Blau   The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes. -- Lady Marguerite Blessington   Protectionism is a misnomer. The only people protected by tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions are those engaged in uneconomic and wasteful activity. Free trade is the only philosophy compatible with international peace and prosperity. -- Dr. Walter Block   Protectionism is a misnomer. The only people protected by tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions are those engaged in uneconomic and wasteful activity. Free trade is the only philosophy compatible with international peace and prosperity. -- Walter Block   Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially, the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts. The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity, but the one that removes awareness of other possibilities. -- Alan Bloom   Q. What is meant by the term “constitution”? A. A constitution embodies the fundamental principles of a government. Our constitution, adopted by the sovereign power, is amendable by that power only. To the constitution all laws, executive actions, and judicial decisions must conform, as it is the creator of the powers exercised by the departments of government. Q. Why has our Constitution been classed as “rigid”? A. The term “rigid” is used in opposition to “flexible” because the provisions are in a written document which cannot be legally changed with the same ease and in the same manner as ordinary laws. The British constitution, which is unwritten, can, on the other hand be changed overnight by an act of Parliament. ... Q. Where, in the Constitution, is there mention of education? A. There is none; education is a matter reserved for the States. ... Q. Does the Constitution give us our rights and liberties? A. No, it does not, it only guarantees them. The people had all their rights and liberties before they made the Constitution. The Constitution was formed, among other purposes, to make the people’s liberties secure -- secure not only as against foreign attack but against oppression by their own government. They set specific limits upon their national government and upon the States, and reserved to themselves all powers that they did not grant. The Ninth Amendment declares: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” -- Sol Bloom   Government should not tell you what to do unless there's a compelling public purpose. -- Michael Bloomberg   A free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought. -- Leon Blum   Morality may consist solely in the courage of making a choice. -- Léon Blum   What is so mind boggling is that all of this is being financed by the American people themselves through their own taxes. In other words, the American people are underwriting the destruction of their own freedom and way of life by lavishly financing through federal and state grants the very social scientists who are undermining our national sovereignty and preparing our children to become the dumbed-down vassals of the new world order. -- Samuel L. Blumenfeld   When we think of the past, we forget the fools and remember the sage. We reverse the process for our own time. -- George Boas   The real reason to abolish departments like Energy and Education is not to promote efficiency, nor even to save taxpayers’ money. It is that many agencies perform functions that are not Federal responsibility. The founders delegated to the Government only strictly defined authority in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution. Search the entire Constitution, and you will find no authorization for Congress to subsidize the arts, finance and regulate education or invest tax revenues in energy research. -- David Boaz   Maybe that's because guns are sold at a profit, while schools are provided by the government. -- David Boaz   American [public] schools are failing because they are organized according to a bureaucratic, monopolistic model; their organizing principle is basically the same as that of a socialist economy. -- David Boaz   Power always corrupts, and the power of government to tell people how to live their lives or to transfer money from those who earn it to others is always a temptation to corruption. Taxes and regulations reduce people’s incentive to produce wealth, and government transfer programs reduce people’s incentive to work, to save, and to help family and friends in case of sickness, disability, or retirement. ...[I]t is nonetheless clear that government enterprises are less efficient, less innovative, and more wasteful than private firms.... [C]ompare what it’s like to call American Express versus the IRS to correct problems. Or compare a private apartment building with public housing. -- David Boaz   The median family of four ... paid $4,722 in federal taxes last year. That’s enough to pay for a new curtain for the secretary of commerce’s office, to bribe a farmer not to plant 38 acres with corn ... seven weeks of salary for a Customs man assigned to save us from the terror of high-quality, low priced foreign TV sets, or the subsidy on 6,000 bushels of wheat to prop up the Soviet regime. Surely civilization would collapse without such essential services. -- Alan Bock   You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.\\ You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.\\ You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.\\ You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer.\\ You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.\\ You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.\\ You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.\\ You cannot establish security on borrowed money.\\ You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.\\ You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. -- William Boetcker   The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness. -- Niels Bohr   The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Niels Bohr   Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return. -- Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux   In the whole history of law and order, the biggest step was taken by primitive man when...the tribe sat in a circle and allowed only one man to speak at a time. An accused who is shouted down has no rights whatever. -- Curtis Bok   It will be asked whether one would care to have one's young daughter read these books. I suppose that by the time she is old enough to wish to read them she will have learned the biologic facts of life and the words that go with them. There is something seriously wrong at home if those facts have not been met and faced and sorted by then; it is not children so much as parents that should receive our concern about this. I should prefer that my own three daughters meet the facts of life and the literature of the world in my library than behind a neighbor's barn, for I can face the adversary there directly. If the young ladies are appalled by what they read, they can close the book at the bottom of page one; if they read further, they will learn what is in the world and in its people, and no parents who have been discerning with their children need fear the outcome. Nor can they hold it back, for life is a series of little battles and minor issues, and the burden of choice is on us all, every day, young and old -- Judge Curtis Bok   Some people are calling for the federal government to restrict the right to keep and bear arms of people who are on the federal government’s terrorism watch list. This is not only unconstitutional, but sets an extremely dangerous precedent for all our rights. If the federal government can take away someone else’s right to defend themselves simply because it has unilaterally decided to place them on a secret, wildly inaccurate list that’s virtually impossible to be removed from, eventually, some bureaucrat is going to find some way to put you on that list for another reason. -- Michael Boldin   Whatever power you give politicians and bureaucrats to use against other people will eventually be used by future politicians and bureaucrats against you. -- Michael Boldin   Not one cent should be raised unless it is in accord with the law. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes… Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   While I live I will never resort to irredeemable paper. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of people would die for Him. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   It is an approved maxim in war, never to do what the enemy wishes you to do, for this reason alone, that he desires it. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   I want a situation without censorship, because I do not want to be responsible for whatever they may say. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. -- Napoleon Bonaparte   I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do. -- Kit Bond   From the rostrum of the United Nations, we shall convince the colonial and semicolonial people to liberate themselves and to spread the Communist theory all over the world. -- Soviet General Pantelei Bondarenko   The trouble with gold is that it turns its back on world improvers, empire builders and do-gooders. -- Bill Bonner   The entire world economy rests on the consumer; if he ever stops spending money he doesn't have on things he doesn't need -- we're done for. -- Bill Bonner   Whose service is perfect freedom. -- Book of Common Prayer   We must abandon the prevalent belief in the superior wisdom of the ignorant. -- Daniel Boorstin   Government schools will teach children that government is wonderful. -- Neal Boortz   I can’t think of anything that would do more toward putting us back on the road to liberty and personal responsibility than for the average American, and for the news media, to come to the understanding that we are not a democracy, nor were we supposed to be. -- Neal Boortz   You have to ask yourself, 'Who owns me? Do I own myself or am I just another piece of government property?' -- Neal Boortz   Why is it when times get rough only the people have to look for ways to cut back?  Why is this always just absolutely impossible for government? -- Neal Boortz   Our founding fathers detested the idea of a democracy and labored long to prevent America becoming one.  Once again -- the word 'democracy' does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, or the constitution of any of the fifty states.  Not once. Furthermore, take a look at State of the Union speeches.  You won’t find the 'D' word uttered once until the Wilson years. -- Neal Boortz   THE most widespread form of child abuse in the United States is parents' sending children to the government to be educated. -- Neal Boortz   How many Catholic schools do you think teach the students to question the authority of the Pope? Do you believe Christian schools teach students to question or challenge the authority of Jesus Christ? Do military schools teach the cadets to challenge the authority of superior officers? Well, why should we then expect government schools to teach children to question the authority of government? -- Neal Boortz   This kind of rhetoric should be familiar to any who lived through the McCarthy era of the 1950s. It allows for no differences, not agreement to disagree, among adults or children. -- David Booth   No more fatuous chimera has ever infested the brain than that you can control opinions by law or direct belief by statute, and no more pernicious sentiment ever tormented the heart than the barbarous desire to do so. The field of inquiry should remain open, and the right of debate must be regarded as a sacred right. -- William E. Borah   Who could impose such socialistic confiscatory rates? -- William E. Borah   The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. -- William E. Borah   Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense -- the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen. -- William E. Borah   Social Security is an unfunded pay-as-you-go system, fundamentally flawed and analogous in design to illegal pyramid schemes. Government accounting creates the illusion of a trust fund, but in fact, excess receipts are spent immediately. The government’s own actuaries predict the system will be bankrupt by 2030, but Social Security could face financial crisis as early as 2014. Moreover, Social Security’s relatively poor rate of return makes the program an increasingly worse investment for today’s young worker. ... The system design itself is fundamentally flawed and cannot be repaired. It must instead be replaced by one derived from free markets and operated by free citizenry making individual economic decisions in their own self-interest. ... Reform is long overdue. If we fail to act soon, our children will either inherit a bankrupt system or be forced to pay an impossibly high level of taxes. Only private pensions with individual property rights to accumulate fund balances can create a secure pension system. Chile, which privatized its system in 1981, provides evidence of such a system’s effectiveness. -- Karl Borden   If a state militia guarantee rather than an individual right of citizens to keep and bear arms were the purpose of the second Amendment, it would have been totally unnecessary and irrelevant to include any guarantee of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” since by its very nature a militia is necessarily an armed force and without arms it would be impossible to carry out its constitutional functions of suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions. -- Bernard J. Bordonet   Bureaucracy is the epoxy that greases the wheels of progress. -- Dr. Jim Boren   Every bureaucrat has a constitutional right to fuzzify, profundify and drivelate. It's a part of our freedom of speech...If people can understand what is being said in Washington, they might want to take over their own government again. -- Dr. Jim Boren   Public apathy is more powerful than public opinion. There's more of it. -- Dr. Jim Boren   When in charge, ponder... When in trouble, delegate... When in doubt, mumble. -- Dr. Jim Boren   Censorship is the mother of metaphor. -- Jorge Luis Borges   I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges   Reality is not always probable, or likely. -- Jorge Luis Borges   As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness. Habit is a powerful force, and we no longer feel as intensely as we once would have [the] constriction of our liberties that would have been utterly intolerable a mere half century ago. -- Judge Robert Bork   The American press is extraordinarily free and vigorous, as it should be. It should be, not because it is free of inaccuracy, oversimplification and bias, but because the alternative to that freedom is worse than those failings. -- Judge Robert Bork   [A] society deadened by a smothering network of laws while finding release in moral chaos is not likely to be either happy or stable. -- Robert Bork   I don't think the Constitution is studied almost anywhere, including law schools. In law schools, what they study is what the court said about the Constitution. They study the opinions. They don't study the Constitution itself. -- Robert Bork   Only the suppressed word is dangerous. -- Ludwig Börne   A functioning police state needs no police. -- William S. Borroughs   This country is not pro-American. It is United States property. -- Juan Bosch   Who lies for you will lie against you. -- Bosnian Proverb   [It is] a natural Right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the [English] Bill of rights, to keep arms for their own defense; and as Mr. Blackstone observes, it is to be made use of when the sanctions of Society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression. -- Boston Evening Post   When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover that check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money. -- Boston Federal Reserve Bank   Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience. -- James Boswell   Firearms, especially long guns, occupy a noble place in Canadian history since they are no doubt responsible for the exploitation of a vast and wild territory that had long remained untouched. From 1534 until 1979 (!), the importance of firearms remained uncontested. More than a simple tool of everyday life, they became truly a phenomenon of civilization. At all times and whoever he was, the Canadian was directly in contact with firearms, and he cannot be imagined otherwise. Even today, this symbol of liberty remains intimately related to wide, open spaces, and to a tolerant society. It is the distinctive mark of today's and yesterday's America. Here, in New France, let's repeat it, it is not only soldiers and nobles who have the possibility or privilege to bear arms. Century-old Canadian customs recognize equally to everybody the legal and moral right to acquire a firearm and to use it freely and noncoercively. -- Russel Bouchard   Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow. -- Elias Boudinot   Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist. -- Kenneth Boulding   A world of unseen dictatorship is conceivable, still using the forms of democratic government. -- Kenneth Boulding   Ideas are to literature what light is to painting. -- Paul Bourget   War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society these irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. -- Randolph Bourne   War is the health of the State. -- Randolph Bourne   Every ambitious would-be empire clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie, and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it! ... If America ever does seek Empire, and most nations do, then planned reforms in our domestic life will be abandoned, States Rights will be abolished -- in order to impose a centralized government upon us for the purpose of internal repudiation of freedom, and adventures abroad. The American Dream will then die -- on battlefields all over the world -- and a nation conceived in liberty will destroy liberty for Americans and impose tyranny on subject nations. -- George S. Boutwell   To blindly trust government is to automatically vest it with excessive power. To distrust government is simply to trust humanity - to trust in the ability of average people to peacefully, productively coexist without some official policing their every move. The State is merely another human institution - less creative than Microsoft, less reliable than Federal Express, less responsible than the average farmer husbanding his land, and less prudent than the average citizen spending his own paycheck. -- James Bovard   Its contempt for citizens ... is so routine, and so unlimited, that the agency has become a kind of Frankenstein, running wild and terrorizing Americans at will. The IRS hypocritically requires mistake-free returns when its own books are in shambles. It demands exorbitant sums of money without regard to the accuracy of its claims. It doesn’t hesitate to use every possible maneuver to get what it wants, sometimes destroying businesses -- and lives -- in the process. -- James Bovard   As we learned from the Clinton administration and much of the media, a machine gun in the hands of a federal agent is now a symbol of benevolence and concern for a child's well-being. -- James Bovard   The people = government doctrine is equivalent to political infantilism -- an agreement to pretend that the citizen's wishes animate each restriction or exaction inflicted upon him. -- James Bovard   Subsidies entail politicians’ taking the citizen’s paycheck and then using it to buy his submission. -- James Bovard   Assault weapons laws resemble hate speech laws. Hate speech laws usually begin by targeting a few words that almost no one approves. Once the system for controlling and punishing “hate speech” is put into place, there is little or nothing to stop it from expanding to punish more and more types of everyday speech. Similarly, once an assault weapons law is on the books, there is little to prevent politicians from vastly increasing the number of weapons banned under the law. The main effect of banning assault weapons is to give government an excuse to arrest and imprison millions of Americans while doing little or nothing to reduce crime. America has a limited number of police, and politicians must decide who the real public enemies are. If Mr. Clinton signs an assault weapons ban, it could signal the start of an attack on gun owners’ constitutional rights that could far surpass all previous gun bans. -- James Bovard   The first step in saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it, and how we will continue to lose it unless fundamental political changes occur. -- James Bovard   However accurate or inaccurate the agency’s numbers may be, tax law explicitly presumes that the IRS is always right -- and implicitly presumes that the taxpayer is always wrong -- in any dispute with the government. In many cases, the IRS introduces no evidence whatsoever of its charges; it merely asserts that a taxpayer had a certain amount of unreported income and therefore owes a proportionate amount in taxes, plus interest and penalties. -- James Bovard   No-knock police raids destroy Americans’ right to privacy and safety. People’s lives are being ruined or ended as a result of unsubstantiated assertions by anonymous government informants. ... Unfortunately, no-knock raids are becoming more common as federal, state, and local politicians and law enforcement agencies decide that the war on drugs justified nullifying the Fourth Amendment. ... No-knock raids in response to alleged narcotics violations presume that the government should have practically unlimited power to endanger some people’s lives in order to control what others ingest. -- James Bovard   Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. -- James Bovard   Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians. -- Chester Bowles   The government expands at will, based on what might be charitably called flimsy constitutional reasoning and less charitably and more accurately called arrogant judicial tyranny. Government authority these days rarely comes from the Constitution as written but from the last carefully crafted misinterpretation of it. This is called legal precedent. -- Linda Bowles   The task of weaning various people and groups from the national nipple will not be easy. The sound of whines, bawls, screams and invective will fill the air as the agony of withdrawal pangs finds voice. -- Linda Bowles   The cause of freedom is the cause of God. -- William Lisle Bowles   This [audit] was made extremely difficult because [IRS] existing Systems were not designed to provide reliable financial information... on their operations. -- Charles A. Bowsher   Constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed. It is the duty of the courts to be watchful of constitutional rights against any stealthy encroachments thereon. -- Boyd v. U.S.   If all were to share alike, and all were to do alike, then all were on an equality throughout, and one was as good as another; and so, if it did not actually abolish those very relations which God himself has set among men, it did at least greatly diminish the mutual respect that is so important should be preserved amongst them. Let none argue that this is due to human failing, rather than to this communistic plan of life in itself.... -- William Bradford   The experience that was had in ... the taking away of private property, and the possession of it in community, by a commonwealth ... was found to breed much confusion and discontent; and retard much employment which would have been to the general benefit.... For the young men that were most able and fit for labor and service objected that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children, without any recompense.... The strong man or the resourceful man had no more share of food, clothes, etc., than the weak man who was not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men, who were ranked and equalized in labor, food, clothes, etc., with the meaner and younger ones, thought it some indignity and disrespect to them. -- William Bradford   Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful. Better a thousand fold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people. -- Charles Bradlaugh   If special honor is claimed for any, then heresy should have it as the truest servitor of human kind. -- Charles Bradlaugh   We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. -- General Omar Bradley   In a small Swiss city sits an international organization so obscure and secretive....Control of the institution, the Bank for International Settlements, lies with some of the world's most powerful and least visible men: the heads of 32 central banks, officials able to shift billions of dollars and alter the course of economies at the stroke of a pen. -- Keith Bradsher   If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. -- Anne Bradstreet   Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish. -- Anne Bradstreet   Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish. -- Anne Bradstreet   Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed. -- Sarah Brady (False)   I honestly believe that sound commercialism is the best test of true value in art. People work hard for their money and if they won’t part with it for your product the chances are that your product hasn’t sufficient value. An artist or writer hasn’t any monopoly .... If the public response to his artistry is lacking, he’d do well to spend more time analyzing what’s the matter with his work, and less time figuring what’s the matter with the public. -- Berton Braley   Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   Most of the things worth doing in the world have been declared impossible before they were done. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen... If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   'Stare decisis' is usually the wise policy.... [b]ut where correction through legislative action is practically impossible, this Court has often overruled its earlier decisions... -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   [The founding fathers] conferred, as against the Government, the right to be left alone -- the right most valued by civilized men. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   The makers of our constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness... They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone – the most comprehensive of the rights and the right most valued by civilized men. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means – to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retribution. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   They: The makers of the Constitution: conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   No danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is an opportunity for full discussion. Only an emergency can justify repression. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system, that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   The most important political office is that of private citizen. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis   A depression is a large-scale decline in production and trade... there is nothing in the nature of a free-market economy to cause such an event. -- Nathaniel Branden   The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When practiced by a government, it is called statism ... -- Nathaniel Branden   Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights ... -- Nathaniel Branden   Force, governmental coercion, is the instrument by which the ethics of altruism -- the belief that the individual exists to serve others -- is translated into political reality. -- Nathaniel Branden   As teachers, we enter the minds of others; thus we live in eternity. We help others live better lives, thus teaching remains a mercy. -- Dr. Paul F. Brandwein   Every child who believes in God is mentally ill. -- Dr. Paul F. Brandwein (False)   Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true. -- Robert Brault   There is no wisdom without knowledge. -- Tom Braun   If you think we are free today, you know nothing about tyranny and even less about freedom. -- Tom Braun   Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk. -- Bertolt Brecht   Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came? Why then, the war would come to you! -- Bertolt Brecht   All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance – unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion, have the full protection of the guarantees [of the First Amendment]. -- Justice William J. Brennan   The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to “create” rights. Rather they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting. -- Justice William J. Brennan   The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any government regulation of religious beliefs as such. Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief, nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold views abhorrent to the authorities. -- Justice William J. Brennan   There is no such thing as a false idea. -- Justice William J. Brennan   If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. -- Justice William J. Brennan   The concept of military necessity is seductively broad, and has a dangerous plasticity. Because they invariably have the visage of overriding importance, there is always a temptation to invoke security "necessities" to justify an encroachment upon civil liberties. For that reason, the military-security argument must be approached with a healthy skepticism. -- Justice William J. Brennan   If there is a bedrock principle of the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. -- Justice William J. Brennan   Historians and economists are very good at creating and perpetuating myths that justify increasing the power placed in the hands of government. -- Reuven Brenner   Universities should be safe havens where ruthless examination of realities will not be distorted by the aim to please or inhibited by the risk of displeasure. -- Kingman Brewster   And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, [President Trump] could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control what people think. And that, that is our job. -- Mika Brezinski   No man has ever been born a Negro hater, a Jew hater, or any other kind of hater. Nature refuses to be involved in such suicidal practices. -- Harry Bridges   Absolutism is a guarantee of objectionable morals in the same way that absolutism in government is a guarantee of objectionable government. -- Robert Briffault   Force is not a remedy. -- John Bright   I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. -- Ashleigh Brilliant   To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target. -- Ashleigh Brilliant   I waited and waited, and when no message came, I knew it must have been from you. -- Ashleigh Brilliant   By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me. -- Ashleigh Brilliant   It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. -- David Brin   The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were. -- David Brinkley   Anybody that wants the Presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office. -- David Broder   There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility. -- Jacob Bronowski   But while capitalism may be a convenient scapegoat, it did not cause any of these problems. Indeed, whatever one wishes to call the unruly mixture of freedom and government controls that made up our economic and political system during the last three decades, one cannot call it capitalism. -- Yaron Brook   . . . for righteous monarchs, Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see; To rule o'er freemen, should themselves be free. -- Henry Brooke   Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. -- Bellamy Brooks   I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk. -- Dr. Joyce Brothers   Free speech is about as good a cause as the world has ever known. But it…gets shoved aside in favor of things which at a given moment more vital…everybody favors free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground. -- Heywood Broun   The censor believes that he can hold back the mighty traffic of life with a tin whistle and a raised right hand. For after all, it is life with which he quarrels. -- Heywood Broun   The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil. -- Heywood Hale Broun   Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will turn vegetarian. -- Heywood Hale Broun   The American communists worked energetically and tirelessly to lay the foundations for the United Nations which we were sure would come into existence. … It can be said, without exaggeration, that ever closer relations between our nation and the Soviet Union are an unconditional requirement for the United Nations as a world coalition. … The United Nations is the instrument for victory. Victory is required for the survival of our nation. The Soviet Union is an essential part of the United Nations. Mutual confidence between our country and the Soviet Union and joint work in the leadership of the United Nations are absolutely necessary. -- Earl Browder   Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. -- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.   People take different roads seeking fulfillment & happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost. -- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.   Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority. -- James A. C. Brown   There exists a “fear of freedom” of selfhood, which makes people want to submerge themselves in the mass and confession is one of the obvious means by which they can do so, for thereby they lose those traits which cause them to feel separate. -- James A. C. Brown   The quixotic desire to do good, be universally fair and make everybody happy is understandable [...] There is only one problem with this approach. We are a court. -- Justice Janice Brown   As we all learned from the sorry experience of state-sanctioned bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, decentralization [in education] is crucial to both freedom and excellence. -- Jerry Brown   Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. -- Norman O. Brown   [T]he best elements of the national and state bars are seriously and energetically working for practical reforms in legal procedure, in the manner of the selection of judges, and in the prevention of delays and against the miscarriage of justice, and this, too, by feasible and constitutional measures and by every constructive and really progressive method which can be devised; and that the fact that satisfactory remedies have not yet been attained, is not the fault of the bench or of the bar, whose leaders have for years been urging upon the people, through the legislatures, fully formulated and efficient remedial measures. The fault lies with the people themselves, whose direct representatives in the legislatures, national and state, refuse properly to consider and act upon proposed laws of authenticated and undeniable efficacy. -- Rome G. Brown   The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it. -- Harry Browne   You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants. -- Harry Browne   Being a politician means never having to say you're sorry. You don't have to say, 'I never should have voted to subsidize that ridiculous Enron project in India.' ... After all, they're greedy businessmen and you're a selfless public servant. -- Harry Browne   For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise. -- Harry Browne   The press is hostile to the idea of liberty.  Most people in the press are for big government.  Most people think that the solution to anything, whether it's health care problems, education, whatever it is -- it's got to be more government. -- Harry Browne   The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances. -- Harry Browne   We should never define libertarian positions in terms coined by liberals and conservatives, nor as some variant of their positions. We are not fiscally conservative and socially liberal. We are libertarians, who believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility on all issues at all times. -- Harry Browne   If the Fed had a war on abortion like its war on poverty or war on drugs, within 5 years men would be having abortions! -- Harry Browne   The income tax is the biggest single intrusion suffered by the American people. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes billions of dollars. It penalizes savings and creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy. It is incompatible with a free society, and we aren’t libertarians if we tolerate it. -- Harry Browne   There are no violent gangs fighting over aspirin territories. There are no violent gangs fighting over whisky territories or computer territories or anything else that's legal. There are only criminal gangs fighting over territories covering drugs, gambling, prostitution, and other victimless crimes. Making a non-violent activity a crime creates a black market, which attracts criminals and gangs, which turns what was once a relatively harmless activity affecting a small group of people into a widespread epidemic of drug use and gang warfare. -- Harry Browne   Government is a parasite—a cancer that by nature tries to spread deeper into society. Those who want to run others’ lives won’t give up and start minding their own business. -- Harry Browne   Republicans campaign like Libertarians and govern like Democrats. -- Harry Browne   The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, ‘See if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk.’ -- Harry Browne   A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot -- because the first leads inevitably to the second. -- Harry Browne   Asset forfeiture is a mockery of the Bill of Rights. There is no presumption of innocence, no need to prove you guilty (or even charge you with a crime), no right to a jury trial, no right to confront your accuser, no right to a court-appointed attorney (even if the government has just stolen all your money), and no right to compensation for the property that's been taken. -- Harry Browne   I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution. -- Harry Browne   A welfare state is frightened of every poor person who tries to get in and every rich person who tries to get out. -- Harry Browne   The elegance of honesty needs no adornment. -- Merry Browne   The mortalist enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done the greatest execution unto truth, has been a preemptory adhesion unto authority. -- Sir Thomas Browne   Be assured that if this new provision [the 14th Amendment] be engrafted in the Constitution, it will, in time, change the entire structure and texture of our government, and sweep away all the guarantees of safety devised and provided by our patriotic Sires of the Revolution. -- Orville Browning   Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. Or what’s a heaven for? -- Robert Browning   So free we seem, so fettered fast we are. -- Robert Browning   [U]nderlying the gun control struggle is a fundamental division in our nation. The intensity of passion on this issue suggests to me that we are experiencing a sort of low grade war going on between two alternative views of what America is and ought to be. On the one side are those who take bourgeois Europe as a model of civilized society: a society just, equitable, and democratic; but well ordered, with the lines of responsibility and authority clearly drawn, and with decisions made rationally and correctly by intelligent men for the entire nation. To such people, hunting is atavistic, personal violence is shameful, and uncontrolled gun ownership is a blot on civilization. On the other side is a group of people who do not tend to be especially articulate or literate, and whose world view is rarely expressed in print. .... They ask, because they do not understand the other side, “Why do these people want to disarm us?” They consider themselves no threat to anyone; they are not criminals, not revolutionaries. But slowly, as they become politicized, they find an analysis that fits the phenomenon they experience: Someone fears their having guns, someone is afraid of their defending their families, property, and liberty. Nasty things may begin to happen if these people begin to feel that they are cornered. -- B. Bruce-Briggs   In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls. -- Lenny Bruce   They call it the Halls of Justice because the only place you get justice is in the halls. -- Lenny Bruce   Anyone who does anything for pleasure to indulge his selfish soul will surely burn in Hell. -- Lenny Bruce   As the organized Left gained cultural power, it turned into a monster that found perpetual victimhood, combined with thought and speech control, the most efficient way to hold on to that power. Suddenly it was the Left, the protector of liberty, that was setting rules about what could and could not be said or even thought. -- Tammy Bruce   No matter how noble the original intentions, the seductions of power can turn any movement from one seeking equal rights to one that would deny them to others. -- Tammy Bruce   It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people. -- Giordano Bruno   Every time we establish a new crime, we’re creating a new mechanism for the government to check up on you. -- James A. Bruton, III   I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge. If this be a just remark, it is unwise and improvident to vest in the general government a power to borrow at discretion, without any limitation or restriction. -- Brutus   Money power denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. -- William Jennings Bryan   You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. -- William Jennings Bryan   If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave. -- John "Birdman" Bryant   Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again. -- William Cullen Bryant   The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy. -- William Cullen Bryant   Individualism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom, have been deemed by Americans not only as their choicest, but their peculiar and exclusive possessions. -- James Bryce   I have often asked Americans wherein they consider their freedom superior to that of the English, but have never found them able to indicate a single point in which the individual is worse off in England as regards his private civil rights or his general liberty of doing and thinking as he pleases. They generally turn the discussion to social equality, the existence of a monarchy and hereditary titles and so forth – matters which are, of course, quite different from freedom in its proper sense. -- James Bryce   Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen... -- Zbigniew Brzezinski   If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am in leaving it and returning home, you are the happiest man in this country. -- James Buchanan   I like the noise of democracy. -- James Buchanan   What is right and what is practicable are two different things. -- James Buchanan   We are thus in the position of having to borrow from Europe to defend Europe, of having to borrow from China and Japan to defend Chinese and Japanese access to Gulf oil, and of having to borrow from Arab emirs, sultans and monarchs to make Iraq safe for democracy. We borrow from the nations we defend so that we may continue to defend them. To question this is an unpardonable heresy called 'isolationism.' -- Patrick J. Buchanan   The village atheist has the right to be heard; he has no right to be heeded. While he has a right not to have his own children indoctrinated in what he believes are false and foolish teachings, he has no right to dictate what other children may be taught. -- Patrick J. Buchanan   Tax reform is taking the taxes off things that have been taxed in the past and putting taxes on things that haven't been taxed before. -- Art Buchwald   If the sincere and thoughtful Mason would “take notice” of the symbolism and the use made everywhere in the Lodge of the word “Light,” and remember that the real Initiates are called also “the Illuminati.” -- J.D. Buck   None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free. -- Pearl S. Buck   Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then; life is dull without it. -- Pearl S. Buck   We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down. -- William F. Buckley, Jr.   All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores. -- William F. Buckley, Jr.   Now it is one thing to say (I say it) that people shouldn’t consume psychoactive drugs. It is entirely something else to condone marijuana laws, the application of which resulted, in 1995, in the arrest of 588,963 Americans. Why are we so afraid to inform ourselves on the question? -- William F. Buckley, Jr.   Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could. -- William F. Buckley, Jr.   Marijuana is not much more difficult to obtain than beer. The reason for this is that a liquor store selling beer to a minor stands to lose its liquor license. Marijuana salesmen don't have expensive overheads, and so are not easily punished. -- William F. Buckley, Jr.   As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts. -- Buddha   Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. -- Buddha   A man should first direct himself in the way he should go. Only then should he instruct others. -- Buddha   Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. -- Buddha   Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as are those which a chick which has not broken its way through its shell might form of the outside world. -- Buddha   All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. -- Buddha   He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes. -- Buddha   Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. -- Buddha   Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely. -- Buddha   To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance. -- Buddha   On life's journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him. -- Buddha   Do not dwell in the past, do not dwell in the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. -- Buddha   Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes. -- Buddha   Through zeal, knowledge is gotten; through lack of zeal, knowledge is lost; let a man who knows the double path of gain and loss thus place himself that knowledge may grow. -- Buddha   Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. -- Buddha   Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. -- Buddha   Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others. -- Buddha   Whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings…that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide. -- Buddha   Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. -- Buddha   Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. -- Buddha   You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. -- Buddha   A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure. -- Buddha   To keep the body in good health is a duty...otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. -- Buddha   Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. -- Buddha   All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain? -- Buddha   To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent. -- Buddha   It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell. -- Buddha   We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. -- Buddha   Thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them. -- Buddha   Therefore, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves. And those, who shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, they shall reach the topmost height. -- Buddha   Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill. -- Buddha   We are what we think. All that we are arises With our thoughts. With our thoughts, We make our world. -- Buddha   The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage! Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves, but they are like heat haze. -- Buddha   The Buddhas do but tell the way; it is for you to swelter at the task. -- Buddha   Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. -- Buddha   It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways. -- Buddha   A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden. -- Buddha   Born out of concern for all beings. -- Buddha   A jug fills drop by drop. -- Buddha   Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule. -- Buddha   You should respect each other and refrain from disputes; you should not, like water and oil, repel each other, but should, like milk and water, mingle together. -- Buddha   There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it. -- Buddha   As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds. -- Buddha   There is, Oh Monks, a not-born, a not-become, a not-made, a not-compounded. Monks, if that unborn, not-become, not-made, not-compounded were not, there would be no escape from this here that is born, become, made and compounded. -- Buddha   On a long journey of human life, faith is the best of companions; it is the best refreshment on the journey; and it is the greatest property. -- Buddha   Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. -- Buddha   Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed. -- Buddha   It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell. -- Buddha   Good men and bad men differ radically. Bad men never appreciate kindness shown them, but wise men appreciate and are grateful. Wise men try to express their appreciation and gratitude by some return of kindness, not only to their benefactor, but to everyone else. -- Buddha   Ye must leave righteous ways behind, not to speak of unrighteous ways. -- Buddha   If a man possesses a repentant spirit his sins will disappear, but if he has an unrepentant spirit his sins will continue and condemn him for their sake forever. -- Buddha   Friendship is the only cure for hatred, the only guarantee of peace. -- Buddha   Those who really seek the path to Enlightenment dictate terms to their mind. Then they proceed with strong determination. -- Buddha   Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. -- Buddha   The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed. -- Buddha   Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds. -- Buddha   Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good. -- Buddha   We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. -- Buddha   All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, We make our world. -- Buddha   Decay is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence. -- Buddha   All that we are is the result of what we have thought. -- Buddha   Everything changes, nothing remains without change. -- Buddha   An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind. -- Buddha   A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker. -- Buddha   A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering. -- Buddha   He is able who thinks he is able. -- Buddha   Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed. -- Buddha   Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. -- Buddha   -- Buddha   Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death. -- Buddha   Be a lamp unto yourself. Work out your liberation with diligence. -- Buddha   An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind. -- Buddha   If a man's mind becomes pure, his surroundings will also become pure. -- Buddha   What we think, we become. -- Buddha   They are not following dharma who resort to violence to achieve their purpose. But those who lead others through nonviolent means, knowing right and wrong, may be called guardians of the dharma. -- Buddha   To conquer oneself is a greater victory than to conquer thousands in a battle. -- Buddha   When one has the feeling of dislike for evil, when one feels tranquil, one finds pleasure in listening to good teachings; when one has these feelings and appreciates them, one is free of fear. -- Buddha   We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them. -- Buddha   Inward calm cannot be maintained unless physical strength is constantly and intelligently replenished. -- Buddha   There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting. -- Buddha   Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned. -- Buddha   Meditation brings wisdom; lack of mediation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom. -- Buddha   Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide. -- Buddha   Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten. -- Buddha   All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else. -- Buddha   There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills. -- Buddha   The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. -- Buddha   Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world. -- Buddha   Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care. -- Buddha   Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. -- Buddha   You are all the Buddha. -- Buddha   Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. -- Warren Buffett   ...it's a good idea to review past mistakes before committing new ones. -- Warren Buffett   Marihuana is a more dangerous drug than heroin or cocaine. I am surprised to learn that certain police officers have been inclined to minimize the effects of the use of marihuana. They would, I am sure, be convinced that the drug is adhering to its Old World traditions of murder, assault, rape, physical demoralization, and mental breakdown. A study of the effects of marihuana shows clearly that it is a dangerous drug, and Bureau records prove that its use is associated with insanity and crime. -- Bulletin of the FBI   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. -- Alan Bullock   'Tis impossible to be sure of anything but Death and Taxes. -- Christopher Bullock   The pen is mightier than the sword. -- Edward Bulwer-Lytton   There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths. -- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton   If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues. -- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton   Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength. -- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton   Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness. -- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton   Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness. -- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton   It is well for people who think to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean. For those who do not think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a while. -- Luther Burbank   Concepts of justice must have hands and feet or they remain sterile abstractions. The hands and feet we need are efficient means and methods to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and at the lowest possible cost. -- Justice Warren E. Burger   There can be no assumption that today’s majority is “right” and the Amish or others like them are “wrong.” A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no right or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different. -- Justice Warren E. Burger   ... ours is a sick profession marked by incompetence, lack of training, misconduct and bad manners. Ineptness, bungling, malpractice, and bad ethics can be observed in court houses all over this country every day ... these incompetents have a seeming unawareness of the fundamental ethics of the profession. ... the harsh truth is that ... we may well be on our way to a society, overrun by hordes of lawyers, hungry as locusts, and brigades of judges in numbers never before contemplated. -- Justice Warren E. Burger   There are many prices we pay for freedoms secured by the First Amendment; the risk of undue influence is one of them, confirming what we have long known: Freedom is hazardous, but some restraints are worse. -- Justice Warren E. Burger   Judges ... rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times. -- Justice Warren E. Burger   Without bigots, eccentrics, cranks and heretics the world would not progress. -- Frank Gelett Burgess   No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion. -- James Burgh   All lawful authority, legislative, and executive, originates from the people. -- James Burgh   They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance. -- Edmund Burke   No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. -- Edmund Burke   No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy. -- Edmund Burke   He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. -- Edmund Burke   The use of force alone is but temporary.  It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered. -- Edmund Burke   Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. -- Edmund Burke   To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular election is a mighty evil. -- Edmund Burke   If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. -- Edmund Burke   Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. -- Edmund Burke   Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. -- Edmund Burke   It is by this tribunal that statesmen [are tried] not upon the niceties of a narrow jurisprudence but upon the enlarged and solid principles of morality. -- Edmund Burke   But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. -- Edmund Burke   When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. -- Edmund Burke   It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. -- Edmund Burke   All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing. -- Edmund Burke   Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe. -- Edmund Burke   The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded. -- Edmund Burke   In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed and the boldest staggered. -- Edmund Burke   Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. -- Edmund Burke   People crushed by law have no hope but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous... -- Edmund Burke   Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation. -- Edmund Burke   There never was a bad man that had ability for good service. -- Edmund Burke   I dread our own power and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded. ... We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard-of-power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin. -- Edmund Burke   In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters,--that he has a right to form and a right to deliver an opinion on them. This it is that fills countries with men of ability in all stations. -- Edmund Burke   Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. -- Edmund Burke   Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none. -- Edmund Burke   Power gradually extirpates for the mind every humane and gentle virtue. -- Edmund Burke   We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation. -- Edmund Burke   Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed. -- Edmund Burke   There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times. -- Edmund Burke   Liberty, without wisdom, is license. -- Edmund Burke   The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity. -- Edmund Burke   The greater the power the more dangerous the abuse. -- Edmund Burke   All men have equal rights, but not to equal things. -- Edmund Burke   The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny. -- Edmund Burke   The people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion. -- Edmund Burke   There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity -- the law of nature, and of nations. -- Edmund Burke   The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another. -- Edmund Burke   There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. -- Edmund Burke   There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. -- Edmund Burke   Those who have been intoxicated with power... can never willingly abandon it. -- Edmund Burke   To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to deprecate the value of freedom itself. -- Edmund Burke   People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors. -- Edmund Burke   The only liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle. -- Edmund Burke   It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. -- Edmund Burke   My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty. -- Edmund Burke   The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts. -- Edmund Burke   Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. -- Edmund Burke   Guns are used for self-defense somewhere between 800,000 and 3.6 million times per year .... Using firearm crime and defensive gun use figures most favorable to advocates for stricter gun control, ... the benefits from defensive gun uses exceed the cost of violent firearm crimes ... by between $90 million and $3.5 billion. Using the most credible estimate for defensive gun uses, the benefits range from $1 billion to $38 billion. Putting these dollar figures in more human terms: Guns save lives. The fact is that the best defense against violence is an armed response. For example, women faced with assault are 2.5 times less likely to suffer serious injury if they defend themselves with a gun rather than responding with other weapons or by offering no resistance. ... [P]ersons defending themselves with guns during an assault are injured only 12 percent of the time, compared to 25 percent for those using other weapons, 27 percent for those offering no resistance and nearly 26 percent of those who flee. ... [F]irearms are the safest, most effective way to protect oneself against criminal activity -- which is why American police officers carry guns rather than going unarmed or merely carrying knives. -- H. Sterling Burnett   Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair. -- George Burns   Dare to be honest and fear no labor. -- Robert Burns   Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die. -- Robert Burns   Once the law starts asking questions, there's no stopping them. -- William S. Burroughs   After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military. -- William S. Burroughs   Do what thy manhood bids thee do, From none but self expect applause: He noblest lives and noblest dies Who makes and keeps his self-made laws. -- Sir Richard Francis Burton   The dearest ambition of a slave is not liberty, but to have a slave of his own. -- Sir Richard Francis Burton   As compared with impulsive commitment to the first idea which dawns, that is, with intuitive action, reasoning is patient, exploratory of other possibilities, and deliberative. -- Edwin Arthur Burtt   Your success as a family, our success as a society, depends not on what happens at the White House, but what happens inside your house. -- Barbara Bush   [The war in Iraq is] a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times...a new world order can emerge. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   You know what's interesting about Washington? It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   If we do not follow the dictates of our moral compass and stand up for human life, then this lawlessness will threaten the peace and democracy of the emerging new world order we now see, this long dreamed-of vision we’ve all worked toward for so long. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   Freedom and the power to choose should not be the privilege of wealth. They are the birthright of every American. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   It was just one year ago that the world saw this new, invigorated United Nations in action as this Council stood fast against aggression and stood for the sacred principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter. And now it's time to step forward again, make the internal reforms, accelerate the revitalization, accept the responsibilities necessary for a vigorous and effective United Nations. I want to assure the members of this Council and the Secretary-General, the United Nations can count on our full support in this task. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   For two centuries we’ve done the hard work of freedom. And tonight we lead the world in facing down a threat to decency and humanity. What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea—a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law. Such is a world worthy of our struggle, and worthy of our children’s future. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   My vision of a 'new world order' foresees a United Nations with a revitalized peacekeeping function. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   We will succeed in the Gulf. And when we do, the world community will have sent an enduring warning to any dictator or despot, present or future, who contemplates outlaw aggression. The world can therefore seize this opportunity to fulfill the long-held promise of a new world order—where brutality will go unrewarded, and aggression will meet collective resistance. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   Ultimately, our objective is to welcome the Soviet Union back into the world order. Perhaps the world order of the future will truly be a family of nations. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order, a world where the rule of law, not the rule of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the UN’s founders. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   It is the sacred principles enshrined in the UN Charter to which we will henceforth pledge our allegiance. -- George Herbert Walker Bush (False)   If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched. -- George Herbert Walker Bush   Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty. -- George W. Bush   We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge. -- George W. Bush   We have every reason to assume the worst. -- George W. Bush   Today the Justice Department did issue a blanket alert. It was in recognition of a general threat we received. This is not the first time the Justice Department have acted like this. I hope it is the last. But given the attitude of the evildoers, it may not be. -- George W. Bush   The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today. -- George W. Bush   I don’t give a goddamn. I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way. ... Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It’s just a goddamned piece of paper! -- George W. Bush   We will fight with full force and might of the United States military. -- George W. Bush   Saddam Hussein's regime is a gray and gathering danger. -- George W. Bush   We need an energy bill that encourages consumption. -- George W. Bush   I want him [Saddam Hussein]. I want -- I want justice. There is an old poster seen out west. As I recall, it said, Wanted Dead or Alive. -- George W. Bush   The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda. -- George W. Bush   There is no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the homeland. -- George W. Bush   The choice is his [Saddam Hussein's], and if he does not disarm, the United States of America will lead a coalition and disarm him in the name of Peace. -- George W. Bush   I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office and foreign policy matters with war on my mind. -- George W. Bush   And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for pre-emptive action. -- George W. Bush   If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator. -- George W. Bush   There will be no going back to the era before September 11th, 2001, to false comfort in a dangerous world. -- George W. Bush   There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there [in Iraq]. My answer is, 'Bring 'em on.' -- George W. Bush   We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th. -- George W. Bush   Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. -- George W. Bush   During my senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society, so secret I can’t say anything more. -- George W. Bush   Our enemies are a radical network of terrorists -- and every government that supports them. -- George W. Bush   They misunderestimated me. -- George W. Bush   We're too great a nation to allow the evildoers to affect our soul. -- George W. Bush   Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. -- Vannevar Bush   My liberty is not for sale. -- Edward Bushell   The love of liberty that is not a real principle of dutiful behavior to authority is as hypocritical as the religion that is not productive of a good life. -- Bishop Joseph Butler   The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously. -- Nicholas Murray Butler   The old world order died with the setting of that day’s sun and a new world order is being born while I speak, with birth-pangs so terrible that it seems almost incredible that life could come out of such fearful suffering and such overwhelming sorrow. -- Nicholas Murray Butler   Politics is the art of the possible. -- R. A. Butler   He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still. -- Samuel Butler   The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary it is that the holder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance of conventionalities generally. -- Samuel Butler   The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust. -- Samuel Butler   Authority intoxicates,\\ And makes mere sots of magistrates;\\ The fumes of it invade the brain,\\ And make men giddy, proud and vain. -- Samuel Butler   There should be some schools called deformatories to which people are sent if they are too good to be practical. -- Samuel Butler   I don't mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy. -- Samuel Butler   I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half-a-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street... -- Major General Smedley Darlington Butler   I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. -- Major General Smedley Darlington Butler   My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military. -- Major General Smedley Darlington Butler   War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. -- Major General Smedley Darlington Butler   -- Major General Smedley Darlington Butler   I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. -- Major General Smedley Darlington Butler   No legal tender law is ever needed to make men take good money; its only use is to make them take bad money. -- Stephen T. Byington   A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man’s business; the eye of the Federal inspector will be in every man’s counting house. The law will of necessity have inquisitorial features, it will provide penalties. It will create a complicated machinery. Under it businessmen will be hauled into courts distant from their homes. Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the taxpayer. An army of Federal inspectors, spies and detectives will descend upon the state. They will compel men of business to show their books and disclose the secrets of their affairs. They will dictate forms of bookkeeping. They will require statements and affidavits. On the one hand the inspector can blackmail the taxpayer and on the other, he can profit by selling his secret to his competitor. -- Richard Evelyn Byrd, Sr.   A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man's business; the eye of the federal inspector will be in every man's counting house.... The law will of necessity have inquisical features, it will provide penalties, it will create complicated machinery. Under it, men will be hauled into courts distant from their homes. Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the taxpayer. An army of federal inspectors, spies, and detectives will descend upon the state. -- Richard Evelyn Byrd, Sr.   Is it any wonder, why the approval ratings of the Congress go up every time we go into recess? -- Sen. Robert C. Byrd   The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. -- Robert Byrne   Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah hath triumphed--his people are free. -- Lord Byron   Hereditary bondsmen! Know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? -- Lord Byron   For Freedom's battle once begun, Bequeath'd by bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft is ever won. -- Lord Byron   Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind. -- Lord Byron   The wish, which ages have not yet subdued In man, to have no master save his mood. -- Lord Byron   Know ye not who would be free themselves must strike the blow? by their right arms the conquest must be wrought? -- Lord Byron   He makes a solitude, and calls it - peace. -- Lord Byron   Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. -- Lord Byron   My time has been passed viciously and agreeably; at thirty-one so few years months days hours or minutes remain that "Carpe Diem" is not enough. I have been obliged to crop even the seconds -- for who can trust to tomorrow? -- Lord Byron   I wish men to be free, as much from mobs as kings,—from you as me. -- Lord Byron   The statute mandating recitation of the pledge [of allegiance] is secular because it aims to foster democracy, which is both necessary to the survival of the concept and entirely independent of religion. [...] It is clear in the 2001 [Virginia] state law that no student is forced to accept the beliefs the pledge espouses. -- James C. Cacheris   When the swords flash let no idea of love, piety, or even the face of your fathers move you. -- Gaius Julius Caesar   All bad precedents began as justifiable measures. -- Gaius Julius Caesar   Men willingly believe what they wish. -- Gaius Julius Caesar   Beware of the leader, who strikes the war drum in order to transfer the citizens into patriotic glow, patriotism is indeed a double-sided sword. It makes the blood so boldly, like it constricts the intellect. And if the striking of the war drum reached a fiebrige height and the blood is cooking and hating, and the intellect is dismissed, the leader doesn't need to reject the citizens rights. The citizens, cought by anxiety and blinded through patriotism, will subordinate all their rights to the leader and this even with happy courage. Why do I know that? I know it, because this is, what I did. And I am Gajus Julius Cäsar. -- Gaius Julius Caesar (False)   I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. -- John Cage   The people’s right to obtain information does not, of course, depend on any assured ability to understand its significance or use it wisely. Facts belong to the people simply because they relate to interests that are theirs, government that is theirs, and votes that they may desire to cast, for they are entitled to an active role in shaping every fundamental decision of state. -- Edmond Cahn   “Due process,” a standard that arose in our system of law and stemmed from the desire to provide rational procedure and fair play, is equally indispensable in every other kind of social or political enterprise. -- Edmond Cahn   Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and given him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the new wonderful good society which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean more money, more ease, more security, and more living fatly at the expense of the industrious. -- Justice Millard Fillmore Caldwell   To maintain the ascendancy of the Constitution over the lawmaking majority is the great and essential point on which the success of the [American] system must depend; unless that ascendancy can be preserved, the necessary consequence must be that the laws will supersede the Constitution; and, finally, the will of the Executive, by influence of its patronage, will supersede the laws ... -- John C. Calhoun   A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interests, combined in one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in banks. -- John C. Calhoun   The government of the absolute majority is but the government of the strongest interests; and when not effectively checked, is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised... [To read the Constitution is to realize that] no free system was ever farther removed from the principle that the absolute majority, without check or limitation, ought to govern. -- John C. Calhoun   It is federal, because it is the government of States united in a political union, in contradistinction to a government of individuals, that is, by what is usually called, a social compact. To express it more concisely, it is federal and not national because it is the government of a community of States, and not the government of a single State or Nation. -- John C. Calhoun   Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers. -- John C. Calhoun   Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail. -- John C. Calhoun   In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interest, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press. … They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers. -- Oscar Callaway   I regret to say it, but we are gradually turning over the business of Congress, turning over all our constitutional rights, turning over our powers delegated by the people to a lot of editors, theorists, and college professors who are not capable of conducting our affairs and to whom we should not abdicate. -- Oscar Callaway   It would not be unreasonable, by analogy with a motor vehicle licence, that a permit to reproduce should also be needed with a minimum age of, for example, twenty-five, and a proof required that the parents are of sufficient maturity and financial resource to take proper care of the child. Young, sexually active, but emotionally immature teenagers would need help. -- Sir Roy Yorke Calne   Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do... -- Italo Calvino   An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought. -- Simon Cameron   Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies. -- Dalton Camp   When we regard a man as morally responsible for an act, we regard him as a legitimate object of moral praise or blame in respect of it. But it seems plain that a man cannot be a legitimate object of moral praise or blame for an act unless in willing the act he is in some important sense a ‘free’ agent. Evidently free will in some sense, therefore, is a precondition of moral responsibility. -- C. Arthur Campbell   Hope for a season bade the world farewell, And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell! . . . . O'er Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow. -- Thomas Campbell   Today the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury. -- William J. Campbell   Freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne...Oh no! It's a...long distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. -- Albert Camus   The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants. -- Albert Camus   The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. -- Albert Camus   Integrity has no need of rules. -- Albert Camus   Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. -- Albert Camus   Freedom is not a gift received from the State or leader, but a possession to be won every day by the effort of each and the union of all. -- Albert Camus   An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. -- Albert Camus   Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better. -- Albert Camus   Freedom of the press is perhaps the freedom that has suffered the most from the gradual degradation of the idea of liberty. -- Albert Camus   I'll tell you a big secret, my friend: Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day. -- Albert Camus   The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience. -- Albert Camus   How many crimes are permitted simply because their authors could not endure being wrong. -- Albert Camus   Absolute justice is achieved by the suppression of all contradiction, therefore it destroys freedom. -- Albert Camus   It is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners. -- Albert Camus   Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better. -- Albert Camus   The aim of art, the aim of a life, can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily. -- Albert Camus   The regulation prohibiting abusive comment that tends or is likely to expose a person or a group to hatred or contempt is necessary not only to avoid harm to the persons targeted, but also to ensure that Canadian values are respected for all Canadians. The broadcast of remarks that could expose individuals or groups to hatred or contempt can attract individuals to its cause and in the process create serious discord between various groups in Canadian society to the detriment of all of Canadian society. This harm undermines the cultural, political and social fabric of Canada which the Canadian broadcasting system is expressly meant to safeguard, enrich and strengthen. It also undermines the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society, which the programming of the Canadian broadcasting system should reflect. Protection from the harms of abusive comment is for the benefit of all Canadians. -- Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission   After listening to the recordings containing the remarks made by on-air personalities on 10 and 27 September and 8 October and reading the stenographic notes, the Commission identified several remarks about the complainant related to her physical attributes, and sexual attributes in particular. There are multiple references to the size of her breasts; [translation] 'her incredible set of boobs' ... The Commission considers that the remarks made about Ms. Chiasson were abusive and tended to expose her, and women in general, to contempt on the basis of sex, in contravention of section 3(b) of the Regulations. Further, the remarks do not meet the objectives of the broadcasting policy for Canada set out in the Act. The remarks did not meet the objective of high standard of programming required by section 3(1)(g) of the Act. -- Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission   [I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them. -- Candidus   A false conclusion once arrived at and widely accepted is not easily dislodged and the less it is understood the more tenaciously it is held. -- Georg Cantor   Our tax system is based on individual self-assessment and voluntary compliance. -- Mortimer Caplin   The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of trolls. -- Father Robert F. Capon   When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality. -- Al Capone   Remember to vote early -- and often. -- Al Capone   You can do more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word. -- Al Capone   You cannot become a truly effective advocate unless you know all sides of your subject thoroughly, opposing arguments as well as your own. -- G. R. Capp   Reasonable argument is impossible when authority becomes the arbiter. -- Orson Scott Card   It is time for our school systems to stop accepting the gospel of that false religion and start doing their due diligence. Our children should be taught about the demonstrable solar cycles; and the whole human-caused Global Warming theory, along with the Hockey Stick Hoax, should be taught only as another example, after Piltdown Man and pre-Copernican theories of planetary movement, of how science can be corrupted when ideology gets ahead of the data. -- Orson Scott Card   If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side. -- Orson Scott Card   The only way to learn is by changing your mind. -- Orson Scott Card   The great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles. -- Justice Benjamin Cardozo   Of...freedom [of thought and speech] one may say that it is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom. -- Justice Benjamin Cardozo   Justice, though due to the accused, is due the accuser also. The concept of fairness cannot be strained till it is narrowed to a filament. We are to keep our balance true. -- Justice Benjamin Cardozo   It is for ordinary minds, not for psychoanalysts, that our rules of evidence are framed. They have their source very often in considerations of administrative convenience, or practical expediency, and not in rules of logic. -- Justice Benjamin Cardozo   We, Negro Americans, sing with all loyal Americans:\\ My country 'tis of thee,\\ Sweet land of liberty,\\ Of thee I sing.\\ Land where my fathers died,\\ Land of the Pilgrims' pride\\ From every mountainside\\ Let freedom ring!\\ \\ That's exactly what we mean -- from every mountain side, let freedom ring. Not only from the Green Mountains and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire; not only from the Catskills of New York; but from the Ozarks in Arkansas, from the Stone Mountain in Georgia, from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia -- let it ring not only for the minorities of the United States, but for the disinherited of all the earth -- may the Republican Party, under God, from every mountainside, LET FREEDOM RING! -- Rev. Archibald Carey, Jr.   Free discussion is the only necessary Constitution -- the only necessary Law of the Constitution. -- Richard Carlile   Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world. -- Thomas Carlyle   Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects. -- Thomas Carlyle   Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man. -- Thomas Carlyle   Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling buisness: and gives in the long run a net result of zero. -- Thomas Carlyle   I choose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people, because they give nothing for nothing. They only help those who help themselves. They never pauperize. They reach the aspiring and open to these chief treasures of the world -- those stored up in books. A taste for reading drives out lower tastes. -- Andrew Carnegie   As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do. -- Andrew Carnegie   All honor's wounds are self-inflicted. -- Andrew Carnegie   There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration. -- Andrew Carnegie   I believe Socialism is the grandest theory ever presented, and I am sure it will someday rule the world. Then we will have attained the Millennium... Then men will be content to work for the general welfare and share their riches with their neighbors. -- Andrew Carnegie   Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain -- and most fools do. -- Dale Carnegie   As the federal government has progressively become larger over the decades, every significant introduction of government regulation, taxation and spending has been to the benefit of some big business. -- Timothy P. Carney   In a free country there is much clamor, with little suffering; in a despotic state there is little complaint, with much grievance. -- Hippolyte Lazare Carnot   I was taught when I was a young reporter that it's news when we say it is. I think that's still true -- it's news when 'we' say it is. It's just who 'we' is has changed. Members of the public, people with modems, people with cell phones are now producers, editors. They can push and push and push on a story until it ends up being acknowledged by everyone. -- David Carr   ...no nation which signs this [UN] Charter can justly maintain that any of its acts are its own business, or within its own domestic jurisdiction, if the security council says that these acts are a threat to the peace. -- William Carr   Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments. -- Charles Carroll   When I use a word...it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less....The question is...which is to be master -- that's all. -- Lewis Carroll   Contrariwise", continued Tweedledee, "If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic. -- Lewis Carroll   My mother worked as a domestic, two, sometimes three jobs at a time because she didn’t want to be on welfare. She felt very strongly that if she gave up and went on welfare, that she would give up control of her life and of our lives, and I think she was probably correct about that. … But, one thing that she provided us was a tremendous example of what hard work is like. -- Dr. Ben Carson   The more solid the family foundation, the more likely you are to be able to resist peer pressure. Human beings are social creatures. We all want to belong, we all have that desire, and we will belong, one way or another. If the family doesn’t provide that, the peers will, or a gang will, or you will find something to belong to. That’s why it becomes so critical for families with young children to understand what a critical anchor they are. -- Dr. Ben Carson   There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One is roots; the other, wings. -- Hodding Carter   The law is not the private property of lawyers, nor is justice the exclusive province of judges and juries. In the final analysis, true justice is not a matter of courts and law books, but of a commitment in each of us to liberty and mutual respect. -- Jimmy Carter   The decision to attack the entire nation [of Yugoslavia] has been counterproductive, and our destruction of civilian life has now become senseless and excessively brutal. ... The United States' insistence on the use of cluster bombs, designed to kill or maim humans, is condemned almost universally and brings discredit on our nation (as does our refusal to support a ban on land mines). Even for the world's only superpower, the ends don't always justify the means. -- Jimmy Carter   America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way around. Human rights invented America. -- Jimmy Carter   We are of course a nation of differences. Those differences don’t make us weak. They’re the source of our strength. -- Jimmy Carter   If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement. -- Jimmy Carter   In the life of the human spirit, words are action, much more so than many of us realize who live in countries where freedom of expression is taken for granted. The leaders of totalitarian nations understand this very well. The proof is that words are precisely the action for which dissidents in those countries are being persecuted. -- Jimmy Carter   I think that every true reformer, every real friend of liberty, will agree with me in saying that if we must erect safeguards, they should be rather for the security of the individual than of the mass, and that our chiefest care must be to train the majority to respect the rights of the minority, to prevent the claims of the few from being trampled under foot by the caprice or passion of the many. -- Sir Richard John Cartwright   The Democratic constituency is just like a herd of cows. All you have to do is lay out enough silage and they come running. That’s why I became an operative working with Democrats. With Democrats all you have to do is make a lot of noise, lay out the hay, and be ready to use the ole cattle prod in case a few want to bolt the herd. -- James Carville (Questionable)   For good or evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. -- Joyce Cary   It is sometimes said that toleration should be refused to the intolerant. In practice this would destroy it... The only remedy for dogmatism and lies is toleration and the greatest possible liberty of expression. -- Joyce Cary   Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted.  I don't accept it. -- Pablo Casals   The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? -- Pablo Casals   Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. -- Douglas Casey   The growth of drug-related crime is a far greater evil to society as a whole than drug taking. Even so, because we have been seduced by the idea that governments should legislate for our own good, very few people can see how dangerously absurd the present policy is. -- John Casey   Considering that senior officials at the Internal Revenue Service are fully aware of the fact that there is no law currently in existence making a U.S. citizen liable for or required to pay either the income tax or the social security employment tax, only a truly generous citizen would, upon discovering this, continue to voluntarily donate these taxes to the government by allowing them to be withheld from his paycheck on a 100% voluntary W-4 withholding agreement. But, then again, the IRS would be dead in the water without the "voluntary (and docile) compliance" of employers and employees and has said so all along. -- William Cash   The freedom to express varying and often opposing ideas is essential to a variety of conceptions of democracy. If democracy is viewed as essentially a process – a way in which collective decisions for a society are made – free expression is crucial to the openness of the process and to such characteristics as elections, representation of interests, and the like. -- Jonathan D. Casper   Ah yes, truth. Funny how everyone is always asking for it but when they get it they don't believe it because it's not the truth they want to hear. -- Helena Cassadine   In the end, legalization of certain substances may be the only way to bring prices down, and doing so may be the only remedy to some of the worst aspects of the drug plague: violence, corruption, and the collapse of the rule of law. -- Jorge Castañeda   We must establish a new world order based on justice, on equity, and on peace. -- Fidel Castro   The problem with political jokes is they get elected. -- Henry Cate VII   The revolt against individualism naturally calls artists severely to account, because the artist is of all men the most individual; those who were not have been long forgotten. -- Willa Cather   Every evil, harm and suffering in this life comes from the love of riches. -- Catherine of Siena   By Liberty I understand the Power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys. The Fruits of a Man's honest Industry are the just Rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner which he thinks fit: And thus, with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbitrer of his own private Actions and Property. -- Cato   ...I know not what treason is, if sapping and betraying the liberties of a people be not treason... -- Cato   Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech. -- Cato   Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing Freedom of Speech... Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech... -- Cato   I must own, I know not what Treason is, if sapping and betraying the liberties of a people be not treason, in the eternal and original Nature of Things. -- Cato   I would not be beholden to a tyrant, for his acts of tyranny. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as their rightful lord, the lives of men over whom he has no title to reign. -- Cato the Younger   There are two kinds of restrictions on human liberty -- the restraint of law and that of custom. No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion. -- Carrie Chapman Catt   Most reporters are very sympathetic to gun-control agendas and will skew or lie outright about facts to promote them. -- Dennis Cauchon   Each peso [or dollar] is a contract between the government and the peso holder. That contract guarantees that each peso -- as a unit of value that the holder has worked hard to get -- will be worth as much tomorrow as today. If the government breaks the contract, it's breaking the law. The only role of government in the economy should be to guarantee the integrity of market transactions. -- Domingo Cavallo   There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets? -- Dick Cavett   As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it. -- Dick Cavett   It's about food. It’s about your home. It’s about your life. The government is worried about all of the above. All I’m saying is you should be worried they’re worried. Here’s why: They’re telling you that you can’t take care of yourself. You can’t be trusted with what you put in your mouth or what you sign on the mortgage dotted line. So they’ll tell you what to put in your mouth and they’ll save you from what you signed on that dotted line. Does anyone see a trend here? Personal responsibility has now become government responsibility. -- Neil Cavuto   You had me on (before) to talk about the new world order ... I talk about it all the time ... It's one world now ... The council (Council on foreign Relations) can find, nurture and begin to put people in the kinds of jobs this country needs. And that's going to be one of the major enterprises of the Council under me.. -- Les Celb   Liberty is one of the choicest gifts that heaven hath bestowed upon man, and exceeds in value all the treasures which the earth contains within its bosom, or the sea covers. Liberty, as well as honor, man ought to preserve at the hazard of his life, for without it life is insupportable. -- Cervantes   There's room for everyone at the rendezvous of victory. -- Aimè Cèsaire   Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins. -- Zechariah Chafee, Jr.   The real value of freedom is not to the minority that wants to talk but to the majority that does not want to listen. -- Zechariah Chafee, Jr.   You make men love their government and their country by giving them the kind of government and the kind of country that inspire respect and love; a country that is free and unafraid, that lets the discontented talk in order to learn the causes of their discontent and end those causes, that refuses to impel men to spy on their neighbors, that protects its citizens vigorously from harmful acts while it leaves the remedies for objectionable ideas to counter-argument and time. -- Zechariah Chafee, Jr.   Freedom from something is not enough. It should also be freedom for something. Freedom is not safety but opportunity. Freedom ought to be a means to enable the press to serve the proper functions of communication in a free society. -- Zechariah Chafee, Jr.   The real value of freedom is not to the minority that wants to talk, but to the majority that does not want to listen. -- Zechariah Chafee, Jr.   The majority of us are for free speech when it deals with subjects concerning which we have no intense feelings. -- Edmund B. Chaffee   One of the most insidious consequences of the present burden of personal income tax is that it strips many middle-class families of financial reserves. [It] has made the individual vastly more dependent on the State. -- W. H. Chamberlin   One of the most insidious consequences of the present burden of personal income tax is that it strips many middle class families of financial reserves & seems to lend support to campaigns for socialized medicine, socialized housing, socialized food, socialized every thing. The personal income tax has made the individual vastly more dependent on the State & more avid for state hand-outs. It has shifted the balance in America from an individual-centered to a State-centered economic & social system. -- W. H. Chamberlin   The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit. -- Whittaker Chambers   The Communist Party is quite justified in calling itself the most revolutionary party in history. It has posed in practical form the most revolutionary question in history: God or Man? It is taking the logical next step which 300 years of rationalism hesitated to take, and said what millions of modern minds think, but do not dare or care to say: If man’s mind is the decisive force in the world, what need is there for God? Henceforth man’s mind is man’s fate. -- Whittaker Chambers   Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes. -- Nicolas-Sebasstien Chamfort   Now the 21st century approaches and with it the inevitability of change. We must wonder if the American people will find renewal and rejuvenation within themselves, will discover again their capacity for innovation and adaptation. If not, alas, the nation's future will be shaped by sightless forces of history over which Americans will have no control. -- John Chancellor   Once we start to worry too often and too deeply about what certain individuals and what certain groups think about us, then we might start selling our souls for the sake of expediency. -- Otis Chandler   The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be. -- Raymond Chandler   He didn't know the right people. That's all a police record means in this rotten crime-ridden country. -- Raymond Chandler   Money for me has only one sound: liberty. -- Gabrielle Chanel   The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues. -- William Ellery Channing   The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged and trampled under foot. -- William Ellery Channing   The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny. -- William Ellery Channing   I call the mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith... -- William Ellery Channing   Knowledge is essential to freedom. -- William Ellery Channing   The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts. -- William Ellery Channing   Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself. -- William Ellery Channing   Progress, the growth of power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom. -- William Ellery Channing   No more duty can be urged upon those who are entering the great theater of life than simple loyalty to their best convictions. -- Edwin Hubbel Chapin   At the bottom of a good deal of bravery... lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. -- E. H. Chapin   Attack another’s rights and you destroy your own. -- John Jay Chapman   Our duty, as men and women is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation. -- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin   [T]he sprawl of government into every conceivable realm of life has caused the withering of traditional institutions. Fathers become unnecessary if the government provides Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Church charities lose their mission when the government provides food, shelter and income to the poor. And the non-poor no longer feel pressed to provide aid to those in need, be they aged parents or their unfortunate neighbors—“compassion” having become the province of the state. -- Mona Charen   The people's liberties strengthen the king's prerogative, and the king's prerogative is to defend the people's liberties. -- Charles I   Never make a defence or apology before you be accused. -- Charles I   The peak of tolerance is most readily achieved by those who are not burdened by convictions. -- Alexander Chase   Manual labor to my father was not only good and decent for it's own sake but, as he was given to saying, it straightened out one's thoughts. -- Mary Ellen Chase   The legal tender quality [of money] is only valuable for the purposes of dishonesty. -- Justice Salmon Chase   If Congress sees fit to impose a capitation, or other direct tax, it must be laid in proportion to the census; if Congress determines to impose duties, imposts, and excises, they must be uniform throughout the United States. These are not strictly limitations of power. They are rules prescribing the mode in which it shall be exercised. ... This review shows that personal property, contracts, occupations, and the like have never been regarded by Congress as proper subjects of direct tax. -- Salmon P. Chase   The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts. -- Samuel Chase   The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts. -- Samuel Chase   For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible. -- Stuart Chase   It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws. -- Dick Cheney (False)   The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies. -- Dick Cheney   [A]fter unleashing the Red Guards … to serve his political purposes, Mao Zedong was no longer able to control them. -- Nien Cheng   Day and night the city resounded with the loud noise of drums and gongs … looting and the ransacking of private homes … The violence of the Red Guards seemed to have escalated. … Articles in the newspapers … encouraged the Red Guards and congratulated them on their vandalism. They were … exhorted to be fearless in their work of toppling the old world and building a new one based on Mao’s teachings. -- Nien Cheng   The newspaper announced that the mission of the Red Guards was to rid the country of the ‘Four Olds’: old culture, old customs, old habits, and old ways of thinking. There was no clear definition of ‘old’; it was left to the Red Guards to decide. First of all, they changed street names. -- Nien Cheng   Arbitrary power has seldom... been introduced in any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step. -- Lord Chesterfield   It was the mystical dogma of Bentham and Adam Smith and the rest, that some of the worst of human passions would turn out to be all for the best. It was the mysterious doctrine that selfishness would do the work of unselfishness. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   The Byzantines hammered away at their hard and orthodox symbols, because they could not be in a mood to believe that men could take a hint. The moderns drag out into lengths and reels of extravagance their new orthodoxy of being unorthodox, because they also cannot give a hint -- or take a hint. Yet all perfect and well-poised art is really a hint. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   Journalism only tells us what men are doing; it is fiction that tells us what they are thinking, and still more what they are feeling. If a new scientific theory finds the soul of a man in his dreams, at least it ought not to leave out his day-dreams. And all fiction is only a diary of day-dreams instead of days. And this profound preoccupation of men's minds with certain things always eventually has an effect even on the external expression of the age. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   In the end it will not matter to us whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   When men have come to the edge of a precipice, it is the lover of life who has the spirit to leap backwards, and only the pessimist who continues to believe in progress. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   The last few decades have been marked by a special cultivation of the romance of the future. We seem to have made up our minds to misunderstand what has happened; and we turn, with a sort of relief, to stating what will happen-which is apparently much easier...The modern mind is forced towards the future by a certain sense of fatigue, not unmixed with terror, with which it regards the past. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   The Party System was founded on one national notion of fair play. It was the notion that folly and futility should be fairly divided between both sides. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   But those dealing in the actual manufacture of mind are dealing in a very explosive material. The material is not merely the clay of which man is master, but the truths or semblances of truth which have a certain mastery over man. The material is explosive because it must be taken seriously. The men writing books really are throwing bombs. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   It is the beginning of all true criticism of our time to realize that it has really nothing to say, at the very moment when it has invented so tremendous a trumpet for saying it. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   This is the perpetual and pitiful tragedy of the practical man in practical affairs. He always begins with a flourish of contempt for what he calls theorizing and what people who can do it call thinking. He will not wait for logic--that is, in the most exact sense, he will not listen to reason. It will therefore appear to him an idle and ineffectual proceeding to say that there is a reason for his present failure. Nevertheless, it may be well to say it, and to try and make it clear even to him. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   What is education? Properly speaking, there is no such thing as education. Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. Whatever the soul is like, it will have to be passed on somehow, consciously or unconsciously, and that transition may be called education. ... What we need is to have a culture before we hand it down. In other words, it is a truth, however sad and strange, that we cannot give what we have not got, and cannot teach to other people what we do not know ourselves. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   Correctitude implies nowadays a formal or fastidious use of words; and what is wanted is not so much the correct as the living use of words. It is the memory of the meaning of a word which is the life of the word. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   The theory of free speech, that truth is so much larger and stranger and more many-sided than we know of, that it is very much better at all costs to hear everyone’s account of it, is a theory which has been justified on the whole by experiment, but which remains a very daring and even a very surprising theory. It is really one of the great discoveries of the modern time. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   Any one of the strange laws we suffer is a compromise between a fad and a vested interest. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   Truth is sacred and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   We all have a little weakness, which is very natural but rather misleading, for supposing that this epoch must be the end of the world because it will be the end of us. How future generations will get on without us is indeed, when we come to think of it, quite a puzzle. But I suppose they will get on somehow, and may possibly venture to revise our judgments as we have revised earlier judgments. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   For good or evil, a line has been passed in our political history; and something that we have known all our lives is dead. I will take only one example of it: our politicians can no longer be caricatured. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types -- the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   But there is another strong objection which I, one of the laziest of all the children of Adam, have against the Leisure State. Those who think it could be done argue that a vast machinery using electricity, water-power, petrol, and so on, might reduce the work imposed on each of us to a minimum. It might, but it would also reduce our control to a minimum. We should ourselves become parts of a machine, even if the machine only used those parts once a week. The machine would be our master, for the machine would produce our food, and most of us could have no notion of how it was really being produced. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   Nothing is so remote from us as the thing which is not old enough to be history and not new enough to be news. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   Forms of expression always appear turgid to those who do not share the emotions they represent. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   The next great heresy is going to be simply an attack on morality; and especially on sexual morality. And it is coming, not from a few Socialists surviving from the Fabian Society, but from the living exultant energy of the rich resolved to enjoy themselves at last, with neither Popery nor Puritanism nor Socialism to hold them back. … The roots of the new heresy, God knows, are as deep as nature itself, whose power is the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride of life. I say that the man who cannot see this cannot see the signs of the times; cannot see even the skysigns in the street that are the new sort of signs in heaven. The madness of tomorrow is not in Moscow but much more in Manhattan. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   If our social conditions curtail manhood and womanhood, we must alter the social conditions. We must not go on quietly in a corner making men unmanly and women unwomanly, that they may fit into their filthy and slavish civilization. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton   The Rothschilds can start or prevent wars. Their word could make or break empires. -- Chicago Evening American   David Rockefeller, President of Chase Manhattan Bank, briefed President Johnson today on his recent meeting with Premier Nikita Khrushchev of Russia. -- Chicago Tribune   Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do. -- Lydia M. Child   England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland. -- Lydia M. Child   Prefer a loss to a dishonest gain; for the one is painful but once, but the other for one's whole life. -- Chilon of Sparta   Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. -- Chinese Proverb   If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow. -- Chinese Proverb   Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own. -- Chinese Proverb   Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. -- Chinese Proverb   The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. -- Chinese Proverb   Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever. -- Chinese Proverb   Long before I was ordained a priest, I knew that my church was the most implacable enemy of this republic. My professors … had been unanimous in telling me that the principles and laws of the Church of Rome were absolutely antagonistic to the principles which are the foundation stones of the Constitution of the United States of America. -- Charles Chiniquy   The federal criminal code currently includes more than 3,000 offenses and hardly a congressional session goes by without an attempt to add new sections. -- Stephen Chippendale   It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts. -- Shirley Chisholm   In the United States, Sovereignty resides in the people, who act through the organs established by the Constitution. -- Chisholm v. Georgia   What basic psychological distortion can be found in every civilization of which we know anything? The only psychological force capable of producing these perversions is morality - the concept of right and wrong. The re-interpretation and eventual eradication of the concept of right and wrong are the belated objectives of nearly all of psychotherapy. -- Dr. G. Brock Chisolm   To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas. -- Dr. G. Brock Chisolm   The Act of Congress which we are impugning before you is communistic in its purposes and tendencies, and is defended here upon principles as communistic, socialistic - what shall I call them - populistic as ever have been addressed to any political assembly in the world. -- Joseph H. Choate   Appropriated to justice, to security, to reason, to restraint; where there is no respect of persons; where will is nothing and power is nothing and numbers are nothing, and all are equal and all secure before the law. -- Rufus Choate   At first it was the incomes of corporations, then of rich citizens, then of well-provided widows and opulent workers, and finally the wealth of housemaids and the tips of waitresses. This is all in line with the ability to pay doctrine. The poor, simply because there are more of them, have more ability to pay than the rich. -- Frank Chodorov   If for no other reason, personal pride should prompt every governor and state legislator to take a secessionist attitude; they were not elected to be lackeys of the federal bureaucracy. -- Frank Chodorov   Society thrives on trade simply because trade makes specialization possible, and specialization increases output, and increased output reduces the cost in toil for the satisfactions men live by. That being so, the market place is a most humane institution. -- Frank Chodorov   Private capitalism makes a steam engine; State capitalism makes pyramids. -- Frank Chodorov   Increasing the power of the state in response to the Soviet menace would not defeat socialism in Russia but bring it to the United States. -- Frank Chodorov   The more subsidized it is, the less free it is. What is known as "free education" is the least free of all, for it is a state-owned institution; it is socialized education - just like socialized medicine or the socialized post office - and cannot possibly be separated from political control. -- Frank Chodorov   Perhaps the removal of trade restrictions throughout the world would do more for the cause of universal peace than can any political union of peoples separated by trade barriers. -- Frank Chodorov   [I]n America it is the so-called capitalist who is to blame for the fulfillment of Marx's prophecies. Beguiled by the state's siren song of special privilege, the capitalists have abandoned capitalism. -- Frank Chodorov   Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever. -- Noam Chomsky   The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. -- Noam Chomsky   In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival. -- Noam Chomsky   If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. -- Noam Chomsky   For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments. -- Noam Chomsky   From a comparative perspective, the United States is unusual if not unique in the lack of restraints on freedom of expression. It is also unusual in the range and effectiveness of methods employed to restrain freedom of thought... Where the voice of the people is heard, elite groups must insure their voice says the right things. -- Noam Chomsky   In the late 19th century there was a major union organization, Knights of Labor, and also a radical populist movement based on farmers. It's hard to believe, but it was based in Texas, and it was quite radical. They wanted their own banks, their own cooperatives, their own control over sales and commerce. -- Noam Chomsky   Moral cowardice and intellectual corruption are the natural concomitants of unchallenged privilege. -- Noam Chomsky   Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the [U.S.] media. -- Noam Chomsky   I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas. -- Agatha Christie   Democracy is essentially coercive. The winner gets to use public authority to impose their policies on the losers. -- John Chubb   All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. -- Francis Church   Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. -- Sir Winston Churchill   If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time -- a tremendous whack. -- Sir Winston Churchill   We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it has been said it is the quality which guarantees all others. -- Sir Winston Churchill   If you have 10,000 regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. -- Sir Winston Churchill   I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory -- victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival. -- Sir Winston Churchill   We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, Trial by Jury, and the English common law, find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Never abandon life. There is a way out of everything except death. -- Sir Winston Churchill   This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But, it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. -- Sir Winston Churchill   I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me. -- Sir Winston Churchill   An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. -- Sir Winston Churchill   The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery. -- Sir Winston Churchill   I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be good … and it would spread a lively terror. -- Sir Winston Churchill   The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery. -- Sir Winston Churchill   History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Schools have not necessarily much to do with education... they are mainly institutions of control, where basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school. -- Sir Winston Churchill   We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. -- Sir Winston Churchill   You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken – unspeakable! – fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse – a little tiny mouse! – of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. -- Sir Winston Churchill   In finance, everything that is agreeable is unsound. -- Sir Winston Churchill   So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. -- Sir Winston Churchill   The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes. -- Sir Winston Churchill   From the days of Spartacus, Weishophf, Karl Marx, Trotski, Belacoon, Rosa Luxenburg, and Ema Goldman, this world conspiracy has been steadily growing. This conspiracy played a definite recognizable role in the tragedy of the French revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th Century. And now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their head and have become the undisputed masters of that enormous empire. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Truth is incontrovertible, ignorance can deride it, panic may resent it, malice may destroy it, but there it is. -- Sir Winston Churchill   If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce. -- Sir Winston Churchill   This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read. -- Sir Winston Churchill   The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Give me the facts, and I will twist them the way I want, to suit my argument. -- Sir Winston Churchill   There are a lot of lies going around... and half of them are true. -- Sir Winston Churchill   You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Never give in. Never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. -- Sir Winston Churchill   The price of greatness is responsibility. -- Sir Winston Churchill   The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon. -- Sir Winston Churchill   This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy. -- Sir Winston Churchill   I am ready to meet my maker, but whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. -- Sir Winston Churchill   I like a man who grins when he fights. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Everybody is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage. -- Sir Winston Churchill   I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.  But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age... Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.' -- Sir Winston Churchill   When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: 'We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls.' -- Sir Winston Churchill   I am in favor of deliberately spreading methodically prepared bacteria among people and animals -- mildew ... to destroy the harvests, anthrax to destroy horses and livestock, and the plague, in order to kill not only entire armies, but also the inhabitants of large regions. -- Sir Winston Churchill   A fanatic is a person who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -- Sir Winston Churchill   The empires of the future are the empires of the mind. -- Sir Winston Churchill   The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on. -- Sir Winston Churchill   A nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it. -- Sir Winston Churchill   Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried. -- Sir Winston Churchill   In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. -- Sir Winston Churchill   The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charges known to the law, and particularly to deny him judgment by his peers for an indefinite period, is in the highest degree odious, and is the foundation of all totalitarian governments...Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilisation. -- Sir Winston Churchill   The public library is the most dangerous place in town. -- John Ciardi   When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   The more laws, the less justice. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never deprived of their goods by public men. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   Wise men are instructed by reason; men of less understanding, by experience; the most ignorant, by necessity; the beasts, by nature. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   Do not hold the delusion that your advancement is accomplished by crushing others. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   To freemen, threats are impotent. [Lat., Nulla enim minantis auctoritas apud liberos est.] -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts, a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading, a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   There exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures? -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and given him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the new wonderful good society which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean more money, more ease, more security, and more living fatly at the expense of the industrious. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   When you have no basis for argument, abuse the plaintiff. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   To be ignorant of what happened before you were born... is to live the life of a child for ever. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   By doubting we all come at truth. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   The recovery of freedom is so splendid a thing that we must not shun even death when seeking to recover it. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   We are taxed in our bread and our wine, in our incomes and our investments, on our land and on our property not only for base creatures who do not deserve the name of men, but for foreign nations, complaisant nations who will bow to us and accept our largesse and promise us to assist in the keeping of the peace - these mendicant nations who will destroy us when we show a moment of weakness or our treasury is bare, and surely it is becoming bare! We are taxed to maintain legions on their soil, in the name of law and order and the Pax Romana, a document which will fall into dust when it pleases our allies and our vassals. We keep them in precarious balance only with our gold. Is the heartblood of our nation worth these? Were they bound to us with ties of love, they would not ask our gold. They take our very flesh, and they hate and despise us. And who shall say we are worthy of more? ... When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   Endless money forms the sinews of war. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero (Questionable)   The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero   Avoid any specific discussion of public policy at public meetings. -- Quintus Tullius Cicero   During war, the laws are silent. -- Quintus Tullius Cicero   Gravity is still just a theory, too. Would you like to test it by placing your neck beneath a guillotine? -- Ralph Cicerone   Our major mistakes have not been the result of democracy, but of the erosion of democracy made possible by the mass media’s manipulation of public opinion. -- Robert Cirino   When through a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed... -- Civil Servants' Year Book   Les femmes sont tout à fait compétentes pour assurer leur légitime défense, pourvu que la loi ne les transforme pas en criminelles si elles emploient des moyens efficaces à cette fin." "Women are quite able to see to their own defence, as long as the law does not transform them into criminals if they take effective measures to do so. -- Claire Joly, Marie Latourelle, Maryse Martin, and Karen Selick   There is nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitor. -- Frank Clark   [The program of American disarmament outlined in State Department Paper 7277] is the fixed, determined and approved policy of the government of the United States. -- Joseph S. Clark   The last damn thing blacks should do is get into the vanguard of banning books. The next step is banning blacks... -- Dr. Kenneth Clark   Perhaps Communists had wormed their way so deeply into our government on both the working and planning levels that they were able to exercise an inordinate degree of power in shaping the course of America in the dangerous postwar era. I could not help wondering and worrying whether we were faced with open enemies across the conference table and hidden enemies who sat with us in our most secret councils. -- General Mark Clark   A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. -- Ramsey Clark   But we’re not a democracy. It’s a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we’re a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy. -- Ramsey Clark   Those who do not believe in the ideology of the United States, shall not be allowed to live in the United States. -- Tom Clark   From the standpoint of freedom of speech and the press, it is enough to point out that the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them... It is not the business of government to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine. -- Justice Tom C. Clark   Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence. -- Justice Tom C. Clark   Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. -- Arthur C. Clarke   Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearence of magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke   It is not uncommon for ignorant and corrupt men to falsely charge others with doing what they imagine they themselves, in their narrow minds and experience, would have done under the circumstances. -- John Hessin Clarke   ...there is no provision in the Charter itself that contemplates ending war. It is true the Charter provides for force to bring peace, but such use of force is itself war... The Charter is a war document not a peace document... Not only does the Charter Organization not prevent future wars, but it makes it practically certain that we shall have future wars, and as to such wars it takes from us the power to declare them, to choose the side on which we shall fight, to determine what forces and military equipment we shall use in the war, and to control and command our sons who do the fighting. -- J. Reuben Clark, Jr.   He who wants peace must prepare for war. -- Claudius   Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character. -- Henry Clay   All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty. -- Henry Clay   An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters. -- Henry Clay   I would rather be right than President. -- Henry Clay   America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to denigration without the usual interval of civilization. -- Georges Clemenceau   War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men. -- Georges Clemenceau   I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood. -- Grover Cleveland   I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds... I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution. -- Grover Cleveland   I can find no warrant for such appropriation in the Constitution. -- Grover Cleveland   Honor lies in honest toil. -- Grover Cleveland   The best results in the operation of a government wherein every citizen has a share largely depend upon a proper limitation of the purely partisan zeal and effort and a correct appreciation of the time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patriotism of the citizen. ... At this hour the animosities of political strife, the bitterness of partisan defeat, and the exultation of partisan triumph should be supplanted by an ungrudging acquiescence in the popular will and a sober, conscientious concern for the general weal. ... Public extravagance begets extravagance among the people. -- Grover Cleveland   A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil. -- Grover Cleveland   When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of a free government. -- Grover Cleveland   For the problem of decision-making in our complicated world is not how to get the problem simple enough so that we can all understand it; the problem is how to get our thinking about the problem as complex as humanly possible--and thus approach (we can never match) the complexity of the real world around us. -- Harlan Cleveland   It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. -- William Kingdon Clifford   All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land. -- William Kingdon Clifford   There is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey. -- William Kingdon Clifford   There is no reason for anyone in this country -- anyone except a police officer or military person -- to buy, to own, to have, to use a handgun. The only way to control handgun use in this country is to prohibit the guns. -- Bill Clinton (False)   The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people. -- Bill Clinton (Questionable)   Every time Bush talks about trust it makes chills run up and down my spine. The way he has trampled on the truth is a travesty of the American political system. -- Bill Clinton   When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly.... [However, now] there's a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. -- Bill Clinton   If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees. -- Bill Clinton   There's just no such thing as truth when it comes to him. He just says whatever sounds good and worries about it after the election. -- Bill Clinton   When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans ... And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities. -- Bill Clinton   The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth. -- Bill Clinton   No one wants to get this (Lewinsky) matter behind us more than I do, except maybe all the rest of the American people, -- Bill Clinton   It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. -- Bill Clinton   There are a lot of very brilliant people who believe that the nation-state is fast becoming a relic of the past. -- Bill Clinton   We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans... -- Bill Clinton   You can't say you love your country and hate your government. -- Bill Clinton   I've said I've never broken the drug laws of my country, and that is the absolute truth. -- Bill Clinton   A lot of wonderful people love their country and hate the military. -- Bill Clinton   It depends on what the meaning of the word is. If the– if he– if "is" means is and never has been, that is not– that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.... Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true. -- Bill Clinton   I am here because I want to redefine the meaning of citizenship in America... If you’re asked in school ‘What does it mean to be a good citizen?’ I want the answer to be, ‘Well, to be a good citizen, you have to obey the law, you’ve got to go to work or be in school, you’ve got to pay your taxes and, oh, yes, you have to serve in your community to help make it a better place.’ -- Bill Clinton   Q.- "If you had it to do over again, would you inhale?" A.- "Sure, if I could... I tried before! -- Bill Clinton   You know, by the time you become the leader of a country, someone else makes all the decisions. ... You may find you can get away with virtual presidents, virtual prime ministers, virtual everything. -- Bill Clinton   African-Americans watch the same news at night that ordinary Americans do. -- Bill Clinton   The road to tyranny, we must remember, begins with the destruction of the truth. -- Bill Clinton   The Bush administration continues to coddle China, despite its continuing crackdown on democratic reform, its brutal subjugation of Tibet, its irresponsible export of nuclear and missile technology... Such forbearance on our part might have made sense during the Cold War when China was the counterweight to Soviet power. It makes no sense to play the China card now when our opponents have thrown in their hand. -- Bill Clinton   You know the one thing that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to have their fair say. -- Bill Clinton   The other thing we have to do is to take seriously the role in this problem of...older men who prey on underage women...There are consequences to decisions and...one way or the other, people always wind up being held accountable. -- Bill Clinton   We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans... -- Bill Clinton   Nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones or requires all religious expression to be left behind at the schoolhouse door. … Government’s schools also may not discriminate against private religious expression during the school day. -- Bill Clinton   The First Amendment does not require students to leave their religion at the schoolhouse door. … If students can wear T-shirts advertising sports teams, rock groups or politicians, they can also wear T-shirts that promote religion. … Religion is too important to our history and our heritage for us to keep it out of our schools. -- Bill Clinton   Think! It ain't illegal 'yet.' -- George Clinton   I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president. -- Hillary Clinton   Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. -- Hillary Clinton   We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society. -- Hillary Clinton   God bless the America we are trying to create. -- Hillary Clinton   We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. -- Hillary Clinton   This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision. -- James Clyburn   This is revolution in reaction, as well as in radicalism, and Toryism speaking a jargon of law and order may often be a graver menace to liberty than radicalism bellowing the empty phrases of the soapbox demagogue. -- Frank I. Cobb   The Bill of Rights is a born rebel. It reeks with sedition. In every clause it shakes its fist in the face of constituted authority... It is the one guarantee of human freedom to the American people. -- Frank I. Cobb   If the author of the Declaration of Independence were to utter such a sentiment today, the Post Office Department could exclude him from the mail, grand juries could indict him for sedition and criminal syndicalism, legislative committees could seize his private papers ... and United States Senators would be clamoring for his deportation that he... should be sent back to live with the rest of the terrorists. -- Frank I. Cobb   The tendency of taxation is to create a class of persons who do not labor, to take from those who do labor the produce of that labor, and to give it to those who do not labor. -- William Cobbett   A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members. -- David B. Coblitz   The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the "high powers" delegated directly to the citizen, and 'is excepted out of the general powers of government.' A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power. -- Cockrum v. State   The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the high powers delegated directly to the citizen, and is excepted out of the general powers of government. A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power. -- Cockrum v. State   Absolute freedom does not exist; what does exist is the freedom to choose anything you like and then commit yourself to that decision. -- Paulo Coelho   The person who is right is the person who is the strongest, in this case, paradoxically, it's the cowards who are the brave ones, and they manage to impose their ideas on everyone else. -- Paulo Coelho   I join others who throughout history have recognized that an individual in this country has a protected right, within the confines of the criminal law, to guard his or her home or place of business from unlawful intrusions. ... Surely nothing could be more fundamental to the “concept of ordered liberty” than the basic right of an individual, within the confines of the criminal law, to protect his home and family from unlawful and dangerous intrusions. -- John Louis Coffey   It has been said that the greatest threat to our liberty is from well-meaning, and almost imperceptible encroachments upon our personal freedom. -- John Louis Coffey   The right to privacy is one of the most cherished rights an American citizen has; the right to privacy sets America apart from totalitarian states in which the interests of the state prevail over individual rights. A fundamental part of our concept of ordered liberty is the right to protect one’s home and family against dangerous intrusions subject to the criminal law. -- John Louis Coffey   Prohibition ended in 1933 because the nation’s most influential people, as well as the general public, acknowledged that it had failed. It had increased lawlessness and drinking and aggravated alcohol abuse. -- Thomas M. Coffey   Tolerance implies a respect for another person, not because he is wrong or even because he is right, but because he is human. -- John Cogley   We must realize that our Party's most powerful weapon is racial tension. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races, that for centuries have been oppressed by the Whites, we can mold them to the program of the Communist Party ... In America, we will aim for subtle victory. While enflaming the Negro minority against the Whites, we will instill in the Whites, a guilt complex for the exploitation of the Negroes. We will aid the Negroes to rise to prominence in every walk of life, in the professions, and in the world of sports and entertainment. With this prestige, the Negroes will be able to intermarry with the Whites, and begin a process which will deliver America to our cause. -- Israel Cohen (Questionable)   Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate. -- Mark B. Cohen   The business of the philosopher is well done if he succeeds in raising genuine doubt. -- Morris R. Cohen   Small groups or communities may be far more oppressive to the individual than larger ones. Men are in many ways freer in large cities than in small villages. -- Morris R. Cohen   We are going to impose our agenda on the coverage by dealing with the issues and subjects we choose to deal with. -- Richard M. Cohen   Terrorism is escalating to the point that Americans soon may have to choose between civil liberties and more intrusive means of protection. -- William S. Cohen   We have to yet really seriously debate the constitutional issues and whether or not we're willing to give up more freedom in order to have more security. -- William S. Cohen   The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing. -- Jean Baptiste Colbert   I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top. -- Frank Moore Colby   The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media. -- William Colby   The Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It’s possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government. -- William Colby   But what is Freedom? Rightly understood, A universal licence to be good. -- Hartley Coleridge   Our own heart, and not other men's opinions form our true honor. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge   I have seen gross intolerance show in support of tolerance. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge   Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge   A people are free in proportion as they form their own opinions. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge   If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge   Two hundred ten years ago, the people who drafted our Bill of Rights decided that banning books wasn't the way to handle disagreements. They thought the best thing was more speech. It is a pity that county commissioners in 2002 don't agree. -- Matt Coles   The core issue here is not whether you agree or disagree with the commissioners about gay people. It is whether you think the answer to a disagreement is to yank the words of anyone who disagrees with them out of the library. -- Matt Coles   While the people have property, arms in their hands, and only a spark of noble spirit, the most corrupt Congress must be mad to form any project of tyranny. -- Rev. Nicholas Collin   Perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work and in that work does what he wants to do. -- Robin George Collingwood   Perfect Freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work, and in that work does what he wants to do. -- R. G. Collingwood   By freethinking I mean the use of the understanding in endeavoring to find out the meaning of any proposition whatsoever, in considering the nature of the evidence for or against, and in judging of it according to the seeming force or weakness of the evidence. -- Anthony Collins   The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question; but nothing herein contained shall be construed to justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons. -- Colorado Constitution   A governmental purpose to control or prevent certain activities, which may be constitutionally subject to state or municipal regulation under the police power, may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms. Even though the governmental purpose may be legitimate and substantial, that purpose cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle fundamental personal liberties when the end can be more narrowly achieved. -- Colorado Supreme Court   The 1st Amendment embraces the individual's right to purchase and read whatever books she wishes to, without fear the government will take steps to discover which books she buys, reads, and intends to read. -- Colorado Supreme Court   [The state] cannot disarm any class of persons or deprive them of the right guaranteed under section 13, article 2 of the Constitution, to bear arms in defense of home, person, and property. The guaranty thus extended is meaningless if any person is denied the right to possess arms for such protection.... -- Colorado Supreme Court   To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it. -- Charles Caleb Colton   Precisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity as to those mysterious powers assumed by others. -- Charles Caleb Colton   He that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad, will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are three things that never stand still. -- Charles Caleb Colton   Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed. -- Charles Caleb Colton   The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal. -- Charles Caleb Colton   [W]e are living in a sick Society filled with people who would not directly steal from their neighbors but who are willing to demand that the government do it for them. -- William Comer   America was born of revolt, flourished on dissent, became great through experimentation. -- Henry Steele Commager   Every effort to confine Americanism to a single pattern, to constrain it to a single formula, is disloyalty to everything that is valid in Americanism. -- Henry Steele Commager   Censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion... In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience. -- Henry Steele Commager   Our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past while we silence the rebels of the present. -- Henry Steele Commager   Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive. -- Henry Steele Commager   A free society cherishes nonconformity. It knows from the non-conformist, from the eccentric, have come many of the great ideas. -- Henry Steele Commager   Freedom is not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment. -- Henry Steele Commager   The justification and the purpose of freedom of speech is not to indulge those who want to speak their minds. It is to prevent error and discover truth. There may be other ways of detecting error and discovering truth than that of free discussion, but so far we have not found them. -- Henry Steele Commager   Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive. -- Henry Steele Commager   Lawyers are being graduated from our law schools by the thousands who have little knowledge of the Constitution. When  organizations seek a lawyer to instruct them on the Constitution, they find it nearly impossible to secure one competent. -- Committee on American Citizenship   We must create out of the younger generation a generation of Communists. We must turn children, who can be shaped like wax, into real, good Communists.... We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families. We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them. From the first days of their lives they will be under the healthy influence of Communist children's nurseries and schools. There they will grow up to be real Communists. -- Communist Party Education Workers Congress   Communist Rules for Revolution...\\\\ 1. Corrupt the young; get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial; destroy their ruggedness.\\ 2. By specious argument cause the breakdown of old moral virtues; honesty, sobriety, continence, faith in the pledged word, ruggedness.\\ 3. Encourage civil disorders and foster a lenient and soft attitude on the part of government toward such disorders.\\ 4. Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance.\\ 5. Get people's minds off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books, plays, and other trivialities.\\ 6. Get control of all means of publicity.\\ 7. Destroy the people's faith in their natural leaders by holding the latter up to contempt, ridicule and obloquy (disgrace).\\ 8. Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretext, with a view to confiscation and leaving the population helpless.\\ -- Communist Rules for Revolution (Questionable)   [When] Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology, why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy? -- Auguste Comte   Social positivism only accepts duties, for all and towards all. Its constant social viewpoint cannot include any notion of rights, for such notion always rests on individuality. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. These obligations then increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service. ... Any human right is therefore as absurd as immoral. Since there are no divine rights anymore, this concept must therefore disappear completely as related only to the preliminary regime and totally inconsistent with the final state where there are only duties based on functions. -- Auguste Comte   Diversity of opinion within the framework of loyalty to our free society is not only basic to a university but to the entire nation. -- James Bryant Conant   Eight days after taking over the reins of his country, a beloved leader urged everyone to turn in their arms - “There is no longer an enemy,” he said. A slogan, “Arms—What For?” appeared throughout the nation. Thirty days later he ordered his militia to turn in their arms. Promised elections are cancelled, the loved leader becomes a tyrant and his people lose all rights, including freedom of speech and press, becoming a totalitarian state for the next 35 years. For those Americans currently willing to agree to have some of their rights curtailed for temporary security, I’d urge them to look south -- to Cuba. -- Yvonne M. Conde   Nobody should be compelled to respect an ideology that doesn’t respect them. -- Pat Condell   He who will not economize will have to agonize. -- Confucius   If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself. -- Confucius   Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles. -- Confucius   The superior man cannot be known in little matters, but he may be entrusted with great concerns. The small man may not be entrusted with great concerns, but he may be known in little matters. -- Confucius   Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Let me do and I understand. -- Confucius   To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice. -- Confucius   Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. -- Confucius   The superior man understands what is right. The inferior man understands what is popular. -- Confucius   By nature men are pretty much alike; it is learning and practice that set them apart. -- Confucius   If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything. -- Confucius   No mask like open truth to cover lies,\\As to go naked is the best disguise. -- William Congreve   Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state. -- Connecticut Constitution   You can’t, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty. -- Joseph Conrad   Of all the inanimate objects, of all men’s creations, books are the nearest to us, for they contain our very thoughts, our ambitions, our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to truth, and our persistent leaning toward error. -- Joseph Conrad   Thus arbitrary power will have divided men of superior intelligence into two groups: the former will be seditious, the latter corrupt... -- Benjamin Constant   No duty, however, binds us to these so-called laws, whose corrupting influence menaces what is noblest in our being... -- Benjamin Constant   First ask yourselves, Gentlemen, what an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a citizen of the United States of America understand today by the word 'liberty'. For each of them it is the right to be subjected only to the laws, and to be neither arrested, detained, put to death nor maltreated in any way by the arbitrary will of one or more individuals. It is the right of everyone to express their opinion, choose a profession and practice it, to dispose of property, and even to abuse it; to come and go without permission, and without having to account for their motives or undertakings. It is everyone's right to associate with other individuals, either to discuss their interests, or to profess the religion which they or their associates prefer, or even simply to occupy their days or hours in a way which is more compatible with their inclinations or whims. Finally, it is everyone's right to exercise some influence on the administration of the government, either by electing all or particular officials, or through representations, petitions, demands to which the authorities are more or less compelled to pay heed. Now compare this liberty with that of the ancients. The latter consisted in exercising collectively, but directly, several parts of the complete sovereignty; in deliberating, in the public square, over war and peace; in forming alliances with foreign governments; in voting laws, in pronouncing judgments; in examining the accounts, the acts, the stewardship of the magistrates; in calling them to appear in front of the assembled people, in accusing, condemning or absolving them. But if this was what the ancients called liberty, they admitted as compatible with this collective freedom the complete subjection of the individual to the authority of the community. -- Benjamin Constant   The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government. -- Constitution for the United States   We the People of the united States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defense, 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. -- Constitution for the USA   In all criminal cases whatsoever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts. -- Indiana Constitution   Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms; and this right shall never be questioned. -- Maine Constitution   The people have a right to keep and bear arms for the common defense. And as, in times of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the Legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the Civil authority, and be governed by it. -- Massachusetts Constitution   Every person has a right to keep and bear arms for the defense of himself and the state. -- Michigan Constitution   The right of any person to keep or bear arms in defense of his own home, person, and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall not be called in question, but nothing herein contained shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. -- Montana Constitution   Every citizen has the right to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes. -- Nevada Constitution   All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state. -- New Hampshire Constitution   The doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. -- New Hampshire Constitution   All lawful authority comes from God to the people. -- Constitution of the Irish Free State   No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury... nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any Criminal Case to be a witness against himself, not be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. -- Constitution of the United States   Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed. -- Constitution of UNESCO   That the people have a right to freedom of speech, and of writing, and publishing their sentiments; therefore, the freedom of the press ought not to be restrained. -- Pennsylvania Constitution   The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government... -- U. S. Constitution   No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. -- U.S. Constitution   America is a country in which I see the most persistant idealism and the blandest of cynicism and the race is on between its vitality and its decadence. -- Alistair Cooke   As for the rage to believe that we have found the secret of liberty in general permissiveness from the cradle on, this seems to me a disastrous sentimentality, which, whatever liberties it sets loose, loosens also the cement that alone can bind society into a stable compound -- a code of obeyed taboos. I can only recall the saying of a wise Frenchman that `liberty is the luxury of self-discipline.' Historically, those peoples that did not discipline themselves had discipline thrust on them from the outside. That is why the normal cycle in the life and death of great nations has been first a powerful tyranny broken by revolt, the enjoyment of liberty, the abuse of liberty -- and back to tyranny again. As I see it, in this country -- a land of the most persistent idealism and the blandest cynicism -- the race is on between its decadence and its vitality. -- Alistair Cooke   Liberty is the luxury of self-discipline, that those nations historically who have failed to discipline themselves have had discipline imposed by others. -- Alistair Cooke   Fidelity to the public requires that the laws be as plain and explicit as possible, that the less knowing may understand, and not be ensnared by them, while the artful evade their force. -- Samuel Cooke   So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational. -- Charles Horton Cooley   We must pity the poor wretched, timid soul who is too faint-hearted to resist his oppressors. He sings the song of the dammed: “I can’t fight back; I have too much to lose; I own too much property; I have worked too hard to get what I have; They will put me out of business if I resist; I might go to jail; I have my family to think about.” Such poor miserable creatures have misplaced values and are hiding their cowardice behind pretended family responsibility -- blindly refusing to see that the most glorious legacy that one can bequeath to posterity is liberty; and that the only true security is liberty. -- Marvin Cooley   I will no longer pay for the destruction of my country, family, and self. Damn tyranny! Damn the Federal Reserve liars and thieves! Damn all pettifogging, oath-breaking US attorneys and judges.… I will see you all in Hell and shed my blood before I will be robbed of one more dollar to finance a national policy of treason, plunder, and corruption -- Marvin Cooley   The right is general. It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent. The militia, as has been explained elsewhere, consists of those persons who, under the law, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon. . . . [I]f the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of the guarantee might be defeated altogether by the action or the neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check. The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for that purpose. -- Thomas Cooley   I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement. -- Calvin Coolidge   It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. -- Calvin Coolidge   It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. -- Calvin Coolidge   The collection of taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to the public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny. The wise and correct course to follow in taxation is not to destroy those who have already secured success, but to create conditions under which everyone will have a better chance to be successful. -- Calvin Coolidge   I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty. -- Calvin Coolidge   No matter what anyone may say about making the rich and the corporations pay taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toil. -- Calvin Coolidge   When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results. -- Calvin Coolidge   Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty. -- Calvin Coolidge   We do not need more intellectual power, we need more moral power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character. We do not need more government, we need more culture. We do not need more law, we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen.... If the foundation is firm, the superstructure will stand. -- Calvin Coolidge   I have never been hurt by anything I didn't say. -- Calvin Coolidge   Nothing is easier than spending public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody. -- Calvin Coolidge   We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts.... Self-government means self-reliance. -- Calvin Coolidge   Nature is inexorable. If men do not follow the truth they cannot live. -- Calvin Coolidge   As I went about with my father, when he collected taxes, I knew that when taxes were laid someone had to work hard to earn the money to pay them. -- Calvin Coolidge   Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. -- Calvin Coolidge   Government price-fixing once started, has alike no justice and no end. It is an economic folly from which this country has every right to be spared. -- Calvin Coolidge   After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. -- Calvin Coolidge   A wholesome regard for the memory of the great men of long ago is the best assurance to a people of a continuation of great men to come, who shall be able to instruct, to lead, and to inspire. A people who worship at the shrine of true greatness will themselves be truly great. -- Calvin Coolidge   No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. -- Calvin Coolidge   No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped. -- Calvin Coolidge   If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. -- Calvin Coolidge   If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. -- Calvin Coolidge   Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest. -- Calvin Coolidge   Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a free man. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner. -- James Fenimore Cooper   The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority. Unrestrained political authority, though it be confided to masses, cannot be trusted without positive limitations, men in bodies being but an aggregation of the passions, weaknesses and interests of men as individuals. -- James Fenimore Cooper   Liberty is not a matter of words, but a positive and important condition of society. Its greatest safeguard after placing its foundations in a popular base, is in the checks and balances imposed on the public servants. -- James Fenimore Cooper   It is a governing principle of nature, that the agency which can produce most good, when perverted from its proper aim, is most productive of evil. It behooves the well-intentioned, therefore, vigorously to watch the tendency of even their most highly-prized institutions, since that which was established in the interests of the right, may so easily become the agent of the wrong. -- James Fenimore Cooper   Commerce is entitled to a complete and efficient protection in all its legal rights, but the moment it presumes to control a country, or to substitute its fluctuating expedients for the high principles of natural justice that ought to lie at the root of every political system, it should be frowned on, and rebuked. -- James Fenimore Cooper   The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity. -- James Fenimore Cooper   Unrestrained political authority, though it be confided to masses, cannot be trusted without positive limitations, men in bodies being but an aggregation of the passions, weaknesses and interests of men as individuals. -- James Fenimore Cooper   An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it. -- Col. Jeff Cooper   An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it. -- Jeff Cooper   The law, unfortunately, has always been retained on the side of power; laws have uniformly been enacted for the protection and perpetuation of power. -- Thomas Cooper   Every politician, every member of the clerical profession, ought to incur the reasonable suspicion of being an interested supporter of false doctrines, who becomes angry at opposition, and endeavors to cast an odium on free inquiry. Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it. -- Thomas Cooper   When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback. -- Bill Copeland   Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, `with both eyes open'. -- Copernicus   Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear. -- Alan Corenk   Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. -- II Corinthians   Censorship is contagious, and experience with this culture of regulation teaches us that regulatory enthusiasts herald each new medium of communications as another opportunity to spread the disease. -- Robert Corn-Revere   Do your duty, and leave the rest to heaven. -- Pierre Corneille   I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. -- Bill Cosby   He [a U.S. Senator] knows he's got to buy time on my radio station, so he's going to lend me an ear. We're keeping them alive back home and that's why the newspaper and radio and TV people are more effective lobbyists. -- Joseph Costello   If you pinch the sea of its liberty, though it be walls of stone or brass, it will beat them down. -- John Cotton   In the Jim Crow South, for example, government failed and indeed refused to protect blacks from extra-legal violence. Given our history, it's stunning we fail to question those who would force upon us a total reliance on the state for defense. -- Robert J. Cottrol   In education markets, like the Asian tutoring industry, top teachers are superstars who get to design curricula for thousands or even millions of students and train scores or hundreds of other teachers to use their effective methods. Quality providers expand and are emulated by competitors, and there is a powerful incentive for meaningful innovation. ... One teacher in Korea’s private tutoring sector made $2 million last year because his web-based employer has profit sharing and he’s brilliant at what he does, so he gets tons of students. That’s what should have happened to [Jaime] Escalante. That’s the sort of success that should greet excellence in education at all levels. It doesn’t because we don’t have a market. -- Andrew J. Coulson   [A] possible further difficulty is cited, namely, that arising from the Constitutional provision that only Congress may declare war. This argument is countered with the contention that a treaty will override this barrier, let alone the fact that our participation in such police action as might be recommended by the international security organization need not necessarily be construed as war. -- Council on Foreign Relations   The sovereignty fetish is still so strong in the public mind, that there would appear to be little chance of winning popular assent to American membership in anything approaching a super-state organization. Much will depend on the kind of approach which is used in further popular education. -- Council on Foreign Relations   Some suggested over the weekend that it's wrong to expect Elian Gonzalez to live in a place that tolerates no dissent or freedom of political expression. They were talking about Miami. -- Katie Couric   We consistently have adhered to the principle that the will of the people is the paramount consideration. Our goal today…[is] to reach the result that reflects the will of the voters…. The laws are intended to facilitate and safeguard the right of each voter to express his or her will in the context of our representative democracy. Technical statutory requirements must not be exalted over the substance of this right. -- Florida Supreme Court   The nearer the power to enact laws and control public servants lies with the great body of the people, the more nearly does a government take unto itself the form of a republic -- not in name alone, but in fact. -- Oregon Supreme Court   If it was necessary to tolerate in other people everything that one permits oneself, life would be unbearable. -- Georges Courteline   History is a vast early warning system. -- Norman Cousins   A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas – a place where history comes to life. -- Norman Cousins   I cannot affirm God if I fail to affirm man. Therefore, I affirm both. Without a belief in human unity I am hungry and incomplete. Human unity is the fulfillment of diversity. It is the harmony of opposites. It is a many-stranded texture, with color and depth. -- Norman Cousins   Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside of ourselves will affect us. -- Steven R. Covey   The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. -- Steven R. Covey   One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could. -- Richard Cowan   It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. -- Noël Coward   It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. -- Noel Coward   I've over-educated myself in all the things I shouldn't have known. -- Noel Coward   The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government; the liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country. -- Abraham Cowley   Life is an incurable disease. -- Abraham Cowley   Then liberty, like day,\\ Breaks on the soul,\\ and by a flash from Heaven\\ Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. -- William Cowper   But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought\\ Of freedom, in that hope itself possess\\ All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength,\\ The scorn of danger, and united hearts,\\ The surest presage of the good they seek. -- William Cowper   Absence of occupation is not rest,\\A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd. -- William Cowper   'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower\\ Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume;\\ And we are weeds without it. -- William Cowper   No, Freedom has a thousand charms to show\\ That slaves, howe'er contented, never know. -- William Cowper   He is the freeman whom the truth makes free. -- William Cowper   He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves besides. -- William Cowper   To follow foolish precedents, and wink\\ With both our eyes, is easier than to think. -- William Cowper   Freedom has a thousand charms to show,\\ That slaves, howe'er contented, never know. -- William Cowper   It is always the task of the intellectual to “think otherwise.” This is not just a perverse idiosyncrasy. It is an absolutely essential feature of a society. -- Harvey Cox   The holier-than-thou activists who blame the population for not spending more money on their personal crusades are worse than aggravating. They encourage the repudiation of personal responsibility by spreading the lie that support of a government program fulfills individual moral duty. -- Patrick Cox   The more profound problem, however, is the degree to which many academic intellectuals, especially in the humanities, have lost their ability to distinguish the 'state' from 'society'. -- Stephen Cox   The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army,  must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ... the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people. -- Tench Coxe   The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them -- Tench Coxe   As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their father held it before them. -- Tench Coxe   Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ... the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people. -- Tench Coxe   Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms. -- Tench Coxe   Democracy needs more free speech for even the speech of foolish people is valuable if it serves to guarantee the right of the wise to talk. -- David Cushman Coyle   [T]here are, at bottom, basically two ways to order social affairs, Coercively, through the mechanisms of the state -- what we can call political society. And voluntarily, through the private interaction of individuals and associations -- what we can call civil society. ... In a civil society, you make the decision. In a political society, someone else does. ... Civil society is based on reason, eloquence, and persuasion, which is to say voluntarism. Political society, on the other hand, is based on force. -- Edward H. Crane   The Great Depression was not caused by laissez faire but by the actions of well-intended politicians and bureaucrats. The Federal Reserve System, after all, was not created in response to the Great Depression, but in 1913. Soon thereafter it began experimenting with its awesome powers, expanding the money supply during the roaring ‘20s, propping up the pound sterling in London, extending credit so Europeans could buy American agricultural products. All the while, Congress was becoming more and more protectionist. When the Fed reversed policies in 1929 and actually shrunk the money supply by a third over the next three years and Congress culminated its protectionist tendencies with the Smoot-Hawley tariff, the collapse was underway. The fact that Hoover then raised taxes and Roosevelt kept wages artificially high guaranteed the massive unemployment that marked the 1930s. Government caused and exacerbated the Great Depression. -- Edward H. Crane   Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, of course, lays out the delegated, enumerated, and therefore limited powers of Congress. Only through a deliberate misreading of the general welfare and commerce clauses of the Constitution has the federal government been allowed to overreach its authority and extend its tendrils into every corner of civil society. -- Edward H. Crane   In the United States there is no phenomenon more threatening to popular government than the unwillingness of newspapers to give the facts to their readers. -- Nelson Antrim Crawford   The impact of Zenger [the trial of John Zenger] on the American colonies was dramatic. Every jurisdiction which confronted the issue of the jury’s right to decide the law as well as the facts reached the same conclusion: American juries had the right to decide the law. -- M. Kristine Creagan   Jury nullification is a doctrine based on the concept that “jurors have the inherent right to set aside the instructions of the judge and to reach a verdict of acquittal based upon their own consciences, and the defendant has the right to be so instructed.” Though jury nullification may seem like a shocking proposal today, it is by no means a new idea. In fact, jury nullification was first espoused nearly three and one half centuries ago. -- M. Kristine Creagan   Things in law tend to be black and white. But we all know that some people are a little bit guilty, while other people are guilty as hell. -- Donald R. Cressey   I operate under the assumption that the mass media will never be accurate. ... It operates with the objective to simplify and exaggerate, which is exactly what Walt Disney told his cartoonists. -- Dr. Michael Crichton   Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. -- Michael Crichton   What censorship accomplishes, creating an unreal and hypocritical mythology, fomenting an attraction for forbidden fruit, inhibiting the creative minds among us and fostering an illicit trade. Above all, it curtails the right of the individual, be he creator or consumer, to satisfy his intellect and his interest without harm. In our law-rooted society, we are not the keeper of our brother’s morals – only of his rights. -- Judith Crist   Morality, and the ideal of freedom which is the political expression of morality, are not the property of a given party or group, but a value that is fundamentally and universally human... No people will be truly free till all are free. -- Benedetto Croce   I leave this rule for others when I'm dead, Be always sure you're right -- then go ahead. -- Davy Crockett   We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not attempt to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money. -- Davy Crockett   We have rights, as individuals, to give as much of our own money as we please to charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of public money. -- Davy Crockett   There ain't no ticks like poly-ticks. Bloodsuckers all. -- Davy Crockett   I want people to be able to get what they need to live: enough food, a place to live, and an education for their children. Government does not provide these as well as private charities and businesses. -- Davy Crockett   The First Amendment was never intended to insulate our public institutions from any mention of God, the Bible or religion. When such insulation occurs, another religion, such as secular humanism, is effectively established. -- Crockett v. Sorenson   It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it. -- Oliver Cromwell   News reporters are certainly liberal and left of center. -- Walter Cronkite   It is a seldom proffered argument as to the advantages of a free press that it has a major function in keeping the government itself informed as to what the government is doing. -- Walter Cronkite   When law enforcers are shown to have such unswerving integrity, only the most churlish among us would question the methods they use to “get their man.” Constitutional guarantees are regarded as bothersome “technicalities” that impede honest law enforcers in the performance of their duties. -- Donna Woolfolk Cross   It's important to understand that the idea of political correctness, from its inception, was designed as a political weapon to silence voices of dissent ... today’s social media outrage can be tomorrow’s laws. -- Steven Crowder   This is why political correctness, or Cultural Marxism,… lends itself so fashionably to easy labels. Transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, racist, bigoted, Uncle Tom, white privilege, mainsplaining. All of these are slapped on people with "politically incorrect" opinions in an attempt to silence you... Hate speech is inextricably tied to political correctness, or Cultural Marxism, and that creates intellectual conformity -- or intellectual authoritarianism. And that’s where you start to see things like “safe spaces” or “trigger warnings” or speakers banned from campus, or people with unpopular opinions banned from social media. -- Steven Crowder   This is why political correctness, or Cultural Marxism,… lends itself so fashionably to easy labels. Transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, racist, bigoted, Uncle Tom, white privilege, mainsplaining. All of these are slapped on people with "politically incorrect" opinions in an attempt to silence you... -- Steven Crowder   Our schools are, in a sense, factories, in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life. The specifications for manufacturing come from the demands of twentieth-century civilization, and it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down. -- Ellwood P. Cubberley   There is a de facto “secret government” operating nationally and internationally and involved in the highest circles of the U.S. government, exercising an impact over domestic policies and economics ranging between extreme influence to, at times, outright control. This extreme influence to outright control naturally includes the Presidency. The de facto “secret government,” much of whose intellectual—and financial—muscle are to be found in the New York office of the CFR, the great tax-free foundations, and certain international firms and corporations. -- Mike Culbert   We don't know who discovered water, but we are certain it wasn't a fish. -- John Culkin   To be nobody but yourself -- in a world which is doing it's best, night and day, to make you like everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting. -- e. e. cummings   Only the rare taxpayer would be likely to know that he could refuse to produce his records to IRS agents... Who would believe the ironic truth that the cooperative taxpayer fares much worse than the individual who relies upon his constitutional rights. -- Judge Walter Joseph Cummings Jr.   It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become prey to the active. The conditions upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt. -- John Philpot Curran   Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. -- John Philpot Curran   A person's right to a job is as specious as his boss' right to success in business. There is no right to a minimum wage, just as there is no right to success in self-employment. -- Rex Curry   There can be no crime, there can be no misdemeanor without a law written or unwritten, express or implied. -- Benjamin Curtis   A greater principle is at stake than the fate of any particular president -- Benjamin Curtis   Treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors are high crimes, other high crimes and misdemeanors must be akin to treason and bribery. -- Benjamin Curtis   My first position is that when Congress speaks of treason, bribery, and other crimes and misdemeanors, it refers to and includes only high criminal offenses against the United States made so by some law of the United States existing when the acts complained of were done. And I say that this is plainly to be inferred from each and every one of the provisions of the constitution on the subject of impeachment. -- Benjamin Curtis   The big thieves hang the little ones. -- Czech Proverb   Depressed? Of course we're all depressed. We've been so quickly, violently, and irreconcilably plucked from nature, from physical labor, from kinship and village mentality, from every natural and primordial anti-depressant. The further society "progresses," the grander the scale of imbalance. Just as fluoride is put in water to prevent dental caries, we'll soon find government mandating Prozac in our water to prevent mental caries. -- M. Robin D'Antan   Collectivist ethical principle: man is not an end to himself, but is only a tool to serve the ends of others. Whether those 'others' are a dictator's gang, the nation, society, the race, (the) god(s), the majority, the community, the tribe, etc., is irrelevant -- the point is that man in principle must be sacrificed to others. -- Mark Da Cunha   In principle, there are only two fundamental political viewpoints. That is, two contradictory ends of the 'political spectrum.' Those two principles are freedom and slavery. -- Mark Da Cunha   Collectivism, unlike individualism, holds the group as the primary, and the standard of moral value. -- Mark Da Cunha   Positive laws are tyrannical. One's individual rights -- whether they be life, liberty, or property -- must be sacrificed by the state in order to fulfill the positive rights of another. For example, if housing is considered a "right," then the state will have to confiscate wealth (property) from those who have provided shelter for themselves in order to house those who have not. ... True justice is realized when our lives, and property are secure, and we are free to express our thoughts without fear of retribution. Just laws are negative in nature; they exist to thwart the violation of our natural rights. Government ought to be the collective organization -- that is, the extension -- of the individual's right of self-defense, and its purpose to protect our lives, liberties, and property. -- Mark Da Vee   The desire to know is natural to good men. -- Leonardo da Vinci   One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself. -- Leonardo da Vinci   It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end. -- Leonardo Da Vinci   Anyone who argues by referring to authority is not using his mind but rather his memory. -- Leonardo da Vinci   Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness. -- Leonardo Da Vinci   I know very well that because I am unlettered some presumptuous people will think they have the right to criticize me, saying that I am an uncultured man. What stupid fools! Do they not know that I could reply to them as Marius did to the Roman patricians: "Do those who pride themselves on the works of other men claim to challenge mine? -- Leonardo da Vinci   It takes a long time to understand nothing. -- Edward Dahlberg   Today, The Daily Telegraph starts its 'A Free Country' campaign. Week by week, and in major individual investigations, we shall examine how freedom is being taken away, whether by Westminster or Whitehall or Brussels or any other authority. We shall try to annoy the control freaks, whether they are Right, Left or Centre, and we shall welcome allies for freedom from all quarters. The Conservative leadership contestants hardly breathe a word about freedom. The Labour Government's Queen's Speech is a shopping list of attacks on our liberties. There's plenty to do. Libertad o muerte! -- Daily Telegraph   If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. -- Dalai Lama   The police are not here to create disorder. The police are here to preserve disorder. -- Mayor Richard Daley   ...it was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World-Money powers triggered by the planned sudden shortage of call money in the New York Market. -- Curtis Dall   ...Most of his thoughts, his political 'ammunition,'...were carefully manufactured for him in advance by the CFR-One World Money group. Brilliantly... he exploded that prepared 'ammunition' in the middle of an unsuspecting target, the American people--and thus paid off and retained his internationalist political support. -- Curtis Dall   Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.  -- Theodore Dalrymple   There has never in the history of the civilized world been a cohort of kids that is so little affected by adult guidance and so attuned to a peer world. We have removed grown-up wisdom and allowed them to drift into a self-constructed, highly relativistic world of friendship and peers. -- William Damon   Our experience has shown us that in the excitement of great popular elections, deciding the policy of the country, and its vast patronage, frauds will be committed, if a chance is given for them. If these frauds are allowed, the result is not only that the popular will may be defeated, and the result falsified, but that the worst side will prevail. The side which has the greater number of dishonest men will poll the most votes. The war cry, "Vote early and vote often!" and the familiar problem, "how to cast the greatest number of votes with the smallest number of voters", indicate the direction in which the dangers lie. -- Richard Henry Dana, Jr.   Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything. -- Frank Dane   I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. ... I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. ... We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected. -- John C. Danforth   It is up to you to decide whether or not you’re ready to be free, really free. This pertains to your relationship as well as your activities in the world. You are limitless, if you choose that! Your freedom comes from letting go. Freedom means empowerment to be, do, go, feel, whatever your heart tells you. Only you have kept yourself from having this freedom out of some misunderstanding of what your responsibilities really are. Your responsibilities are to your Self. Serve that truly, fully, and you serve All. -- Alma Daniel   Every private citizen has a public responsibility. -- Myra Janco Daniels   He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning. -- Danish Proverb   The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. -- Dante   The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business. -- Clarence S. Darrow   There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action. -- Clarence S. Darrow   I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood. -- Clarence S. Darrow   Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails. -- Clarence S. Darrow   You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. -- Clarence S. Darrow   The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom. -- Clarence S. Darrow   The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along. -- Clarence S. Darrow   Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. From him who will not give her all, she will have nothing. She knows that his pretended love serves but to betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous eyes have burned into the victim's heart, he will know no other smile but hers. -- Clarence S. Darrow   If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private school . . . At the next session you may ban books and newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men. -- Clarence S. Darrow   You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. -- Clarence S. Darrow   There is no such thing as justice -- in or out of court. -- Clarence S. Darrow   The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along. -- Clarence S. Darrow   The Constitution is a delusion and a snare if the weakest and humblest man in the land cannot be defended in his right to speak and his right to think as much as the strongest in the land. -- Clarence S. Darrow   When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it. -- Clarence S. Darrow   The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom. The modern world is the child of doubt and inquiry, as the ancient world was the child of fear and faith. -- Clarence S. Darrow   To suppose that the eye [...] could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. -- Charles Darwin   False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened. -- Charles Darwin   The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank. -- Charles Darwin   The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand years of tame animals, but in the million years of wild animals, because man is and will always be a wild animal. -- Charles Darwin   Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin   Government schools can't teach reading, writing, and arithmetic -- why should we trust them to teach morality, respect, and character? If public education does for ethics what it's done for learning, we'll end up with a generation of immoral, disrespectful, and characterless students. -- Steve Dasbach   If you think you’re free, there’s no escape possible. -- Ram Dass   When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both. -- James Dale Davidson   The politicians don’t just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless. -- James Dale Davidson   So low and hopeless are the finances of the United States, that, the year before last Congress was obliged to borrow money even, to pay the interest of the principal which we had borrowed before. This wretched resource of turning interest into principal, is the most humiliating and disgraceful measure that a nation could take, and approximates with rapidity to absolute ruin: Yet it is the inevitable and certain consequence of such a system as the existing Confederation. -- William Richardson Davie   The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false; for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it, which are necessary to preserve its existence; as has been happily proved by the result of the great effort to throw off its just authority. -- Justice David Davis   The Republic was not established by cowards; and cowards will not preserve it ... This will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave. -- Elmer Davis   This nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the principle – among others – that honest men may honestly disagree; that if they all say what they think, a majority of the people will be able to distinguish truth from error; that in the competition of the marketplace of ideas, the sounder ideas will in the long run win out. -- Elmer Davis   The republic was not established by cowards, and cowards will not preserve it. -- Elmer Davis   Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule. -- Jefferson Davis   It is ironic that our government, which has been relentlessly critical of the messages that popular culture imparts to our youth, would seek to silence an artist who uses the medium of hip hop to preach a message of self respect and self reliance to young women and girls. -- Lisa E. Davis   Seems to be a deep instinct in human beings for making everything compulsory that isn't forbidden. -- Manuel Garcia O'Kelly Davis   Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. -- Richard Dawkins   You know your country is dying when you have to make a distinction between what is moral and ethical, and what is legal. -- John De Armond   There are two histories : official history, lying, and then secret history, where you find the real causes of events. -- Honoré de Balzac   Liberty begets anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and despotism brings about liberty once again. Millions of human beings have perished without being able to make any of these systems triumph. -- Honore de Balzac   Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies. -- Honore de Balzac   I claim for the nation an education that depends only on the State, because children of the State must be raised by members of the State. -- Louis-René de Caradeuc de La Chalotais   It is the part of wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket. -- Miguel de Cervantes   Society is composed of two great classes - those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners. -- Sébastien-Roch Nicholas de Chamfort   The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures. -- Luc de Clapiers   Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that “freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license,” and they will define freedom out of existence. -- Voltairine de Cleyre   The revolution is ... the blow dealt ... against the counter force of tyranny, which has never entirely recovered from the blow, but which from then till now has gone on remolding and regrappling the instruments of governmental power, that the Revolution sought to shape and hold as defenses of liberty. -- Voltairine de Cleyre   ...So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. -- Voltairine de Cleyre   In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant. -- Charles de Gaulle   Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word. -- Charles De Gaulle   I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. -- Charles De Gaulle   In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant. -- Charles de Gaulle   The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it. -- Remy De Gourmont   Money is the sign of liberty. To curse money is to curse liberty -- to curse life, which is nothing, if it be not free. -- Remy de Gourmont   A large number of people, certainly the majority of the political looter class, think the best way to deal with the rapidly deepening economic crisis is via 'stimulus packages' with money plucked off the magic money tree... which is to say, by trying to re-inflate the credit bubble that actually caused the crisis. This is a bit like treating alcoholics by urging them to buy more whiskey. -- Perry de Havilland   I have often lamented that with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the forces of liberalism did not spend nearly enough time ruthlessly driving intellectual stakes through the hearts of all those who supported the 'Evil Empire' or preached appeasement or claimed that the Soviet system was 'just another way of living' rather than a mass murderous tyranny. -- Perry de Havilland   The Radical Centre seem to have the same obsession with control that the fascists and communists had, but unlike them, it is control for control's sake rather than in the service of some clear ideology ... They do not seek the triumph of Volk or the dictatorship of the proletariat, they just seek to replace all social interactions with politically mediated interactions. They seek to regulate everything via a total state that ... just wants a world in which nothing whatsoever is private, everything is political. Their symbol is not the Hammer and Sickle or the Swastika, it is the CCTV camera. -- Perry de Havilland   ... the smaller the domain where choices among alternatives are made collectively, the smaller will be the probability that any individual's preference gets overruled. -- Anthony de Jasay   People who live in states have as a rule never experienced the state of nature and vice-versa, and have no practical possibility of moving from the one to the other ... On what grounds, then, do people form hypotheses about the relative merits of state and state of nature? ... My contention here is that preferences for political arrangements of society are to a large extent produced by these very arrangements, so that political institutions are either addictive like some drugs, or allergy-inducing like some others, or both, for they may be one thing for some people and the other for others. -- Anthony de Jasay   Self-imposed limits on sovereign power can disarm mistrust, but provide no guarantee of liberty and property beyond those afforded by the balance between state and private force. -- Anthony de Jasay   In the process of helping some (perhaps most) people to more utility and justice, the state imposes on civil society a system of interdictions and commands. -- Anthony de Jasay   Having gathered all power to itself, [the State] has become the sole focus of all conflict, and it must construct totalitarian defences to match its total exposure. -- Anthony de Jasay   People who live in states have as a rule never experienced the state of nature and vice-versa, and have no practical possibility of moving from the one to the other ... On what grounds, then, do people form hypotheses about the relative merits of state and state of nature? ... My contention here is that preferences for political arrangements of society are to a large extent produced by these very arrangements, so that political institutions are either addictive like some drugs, or allergy-inducing like some others, or both, for they may be one thing for some people and the other for others. -- Anthony de Jasay   Democracy, then, in the centralizing, pattern-making, absolutist shape which we have given to it is, it is clear, the time of tyranny's incubation. -- Bertrand de Jouvenel   A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves. -- Bertrand de Jouvenel   A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves. -- Bertrand de Jouvenel   The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State. -- Bertrand de Jouvenel   However, there is satisfaction in examining what they get out of all this torment, what advantage they derive from all the trouble of their wretched existence. Actually the people never blame the tyrant for the evils they suffer, but they do place responsibility on those who influence him; peoples, nations, all compete with one another, even the peasants, even the tillers of the soil, in mentioning the names of the favorites, in analyzing their vices, and heaping upon them a thousand insults, a thousand obscenities, a thousand maledictions. All their prayers, all their vows are directed against these persons; they hold them accountable for all their misfortunes, their pestilences, their famines; and if at times they show them outward respect, at those very moments they are fuming in their hearts and hold them in greater horror than wild beasts. This is the glory and honor heaped upon influential favorites for their services by people who, if they could tear apart their living bodies, would still clamor for more, only half satiated by the agony they might behold. For even when the favorites are dead those who live after are never too lazy to blacken the names of these people-eaters with the ink of a thousand pens, tear their reputations into bits in a thousand books, and drag, so to speak, their bones past posterity, forever punishing them after their death for their wicked lives. -- Estienne de la Boétie   Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. -- Étienne de la Boétie   It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement. -- Etienne de la Boétie   A guilty man is punished as an example for the mob; an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen. -- Jean de la Bruyere   A wise man neither suffers himself to be governed, nor attempts to govern others. -- Jean de la Bruyere   O liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name! [Fr., O liberte! que de crimes on commet dans ton nom!] -- Madame Jeanne Marie Phlipon de La Platiere Roland   Everyone complains of his memory, none of his judgment. -- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld   Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised. -- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld   We have all sufficient strength to endure the misfortunes of others. -- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld   Our repentance is not so much regret for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that may happen to us in consequence. -- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld   Love of justice in the generality of men is only the fear of suffering from injustice. -- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld   Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them. -- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld   Nothing is given so profusely as advice. -- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld   Hypocrisy is an homage that vice pays to virtue. -- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld   A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire. -- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld   Republicanism and ignorance are in bitter antagonism. -- Alphonse de Lamartine   Void of freedom, what would virtue be? -- Alphonse de Lamartine   At twenty every one is republican. -- Alphonse de Lamartine   There is in human affairs one order which is best. That order is not always the one which exists; but it is the order which should exist for the greatest good of humanity. God knows, it and will it: man's duty it is to discover and establish it. -- Emile Louis Victor de Laveleye   No one has ever succeeded in keeping nations at war except by lies. -- Salvador de Madariaga   He is free who knows how to keep in his own hands the power to decide at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power. -- Salvador De Madariaga   He is free who knows how to keep in his own hand the power to decide, at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power. -- Salvador de Madariaga   Every nation gets the government it deserves. -- Joseph de Maistre   To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it. -- Michel De Montaigne   It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration -- nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome. -- Michel De Montaigne   A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself. -- Michel de Montaigne   I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can. -- Michel de Montaigne   Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other. -- Michel de Montaigne   Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another's net. -- Michel De Montaigne   I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have. -- Michel de Montaigne   A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom. -- Michel De Montaigne   If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field. -- Michel De Montaigne   Not being able to govern events, I govern myself. -- Michel de Montaigne   I quote others only the better to express myself. -- Michel De Montaigne   There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thought under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. -- Michel de Montaigne   I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. -- Michel de Montaigne   If falsehood like truth had only one face, we would be in better shape. For we would take as certain the opposite of what the liar said. But the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and a limitless field. -- Michel de Montaigne   Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul. -- Michel De Montaigne   I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether things are so. -- Michel De Montaigne   He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying. -- Michel de Montaigne   It is unreasonable ... to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life. -- Charles de Montesquieu   The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded. -- Charles de Montesquieu   Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty. [Fr., Les republiques finissent par le luxe; les monarchies, par la pauvrete.] -- Charles de Montesquieu   In the state of nature...all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law. -- Charles de Montesquieu   There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. -- Charles de Montesquieu   Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free. -- Charles de Montesquieu   Few persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits. -- Louis Charles Alfred de Musset   The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies. -- Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre   The secret of liberty is to enlighten men, as that of tyranny is to keep them in ignorance. -- Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre   The evil of democracy is not the triumph of quantity, but the triumph of bad quality. -- Guido De Ruggiero   I know of but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind. -- Antoine De Saint-Exupery   People haven't time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry   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-Exupery   There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. -- Charles-Louis De Secondat   But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go. -- Charles-Louis de Secondat   Useless laws weaken necessary laws. -- Charles-Louis de Secondat   In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing. -- Charles-Louis de Secondat   What orators lack in depth they make up for in length. -- Charles-Louis de Secondat   The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded. -- Charles-Louis De Secondat   We ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character. -- Charles-Louis De Secondat   There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. -- Charles-Louis de Secondat   Moral indignation is in most cases 2% moral, 48% indignation and 50% envy. -- Vittorio de Sica   It is within the police power of the state to prohibit public use of fighting words that create a danger of breach of the peace, but simply to prohibit public use of fighting words is too broad. Those words may sometimes be used in situations where there is no danger. -- Ithiel De Sola Pool   It [government] covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men's hearts or where stronger scorn is expressed for the theory of permanent equality of property. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   Where are we then? The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, whilst men without patriotism and without principles are the apostles of civilization and intelligence. Has such been the fate of the centuries which have preceded our own? and has man always inhabited a world like the present, where nothing is linked together, where virtue is without genius, and genius without honor; where the love of order is confounded with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a taste for law; where the light thrown by conscience on human actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true? -- Alexis de Tocqueville   Quand donc je refuse d'obéir à une loi injuste, je ne dénie point à la majorité le droit de commander; j'en appelle seulement de la souveraineté du peuple à la souveraineté du genre humain. Il y a des gens qui n'ont pas craint de dire qu'un peuple, dans les objets qui n'intéressaient que lui-même, ne pouvait sortir entièrement des limites de la justice et de la raison, et qu'ainsi on ne devait pas craindre de donner tout pouvoir à la majorité qui le représente. Mais c'est là un langage d'esclave. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chooses to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disapprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   When, after having examined in detail the organization of the Supreme Court, one comes to consider in sum the prerogatives that have been given it, one discovers without difficulty that a more immense judicial power has never been constituted in any people. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   If there ever are great revolutions there, they will be caused by the presence of the blacks upon American soil. That is to say, it will not be the equality of social conditions but rather their inequality which may give rise thereto. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   [Tyrannical] power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? -- Alexis de Tocqueville   In towns it is impossible to prevent men from assembling, getting excited together and forming sudden passionate resolves. Towns are like great meeting houses with all the inhabitants as members. In them the people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   ... liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   By the side of these religious men I discern others whose looks are turned to the earth more than to Heaven; they are the partisans of liberty, not only as the source of the noblest virtues, but more especially as the root of all solid advantages; and they sincerely desire to extend its sway, and to impart its blessings to mankind. It is natural that they should hasten to invoke the assistance of religion, for they must know that liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith; but they have seen religion in the ranks of their adversaries, and they inquire no further; some of them attack it openly, and the remainder are afraid to defend it. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates… -- Alexis de Tocqueville   I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common; but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   America is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be good it will cease to be great. -- Alexis de Tocqueville (False)   They certainly are not great writers, but they speak their country's language and they make themselves heard. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations...In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their character by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of them. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   In America, more than anywhere else in the world, care has been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct spheres of action for the two sexes, and both are required to keep in step, but along paths that are never the same. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   [T]he main evil of the present democratic institutions of the united states does not raise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny. -- Alexis De Tocqueville   [Some people] have a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. I believe that it is easier to establish an absolute and despotic government amongst a people in which the conditions of society are equal, than amongst any other; and I think that, if such a government were once established amongst such a people, it would not only oppress men, but would eventually strip each of them of several of the highest qualities of humanity. Despotism, therefore, appears to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic times. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   The electors see their representative not only as a legislator for the state but also as the natural protector of local interests in the legislature; indeed, they almost seem to think that he has a power of attorney to represent each constituent, and they trust him to be as eager in their private interests as in those of the country. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   There is hardly a congressman prepared to go home until he has at least one speech printed and sent to his constituents, and he won't let anybody interrupt his harangue until he has made all his useful suggestions about the 24 states of the Union, and especially the district he represents. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   The man who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   ...above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare them for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood... -- Alexis de Tocqueville   Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   In the end, the state of the Union comes down to the character of the people. ... I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, and it was not there. I sought for it in the fertile fields, and boundless prairies, and it was not there. I sought it in her rich mines, and vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. -- Alexis de Tocqueville (Questionable)   The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave. -- Alexis de Tocqueville   Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not God Himself. -- Miguel de Unamuno   This monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, promiscuity, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions, pornotherapy, pollution, poisoning and proliferation of crimes of all types. -- Judge Braswell Dean   The media I've had a lot to do with is lazy. We fed them and they ate it every day. -- Michael Deaver   Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things a different way. -- Edward Debono   They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. -- Eugene Debs   Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -- Eugene Debs   If librarianship is the connecting of people to ideas – and I believe that is the truest definition of what we do – it is crucial to remember that we must keep and make available, not just good ideas and noble ideas, but bad ideas, silly ideas, and yes, even dangerous or wicked ideas. -- Graceanne A. Decandido   The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.\\\\ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.\\\\ — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,\\\\ — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. \\\\ Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. \\\\ But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.\\\\ — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world... -- Declaration of Independence   We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, ... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. -- Declaration of Independence   But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. -- Declaration of Independence   I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent. -- Daniel Defoe   Some of the same people who laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously. -- William DeFoe   Diplomats are only useful in fair weather. As soon as it rains, they drown in every drop. -- Charles DeGaulle   Honest labor bears a lovely face. -- Thomas Dekker   We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated. ... The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain. -- Dr. Jose Delgado   Those with power are frequently least aware of -- or least willing to acknowledge -- its existence [and] those with less power are often most aware of its existence. -- Lisa Delpit   The sentiment that modern day ordinary Canadians do not need firearms for protection is pleasant but unrealistic. To discourage responsible deserving Canadians from possessing firearms for lawful self-defence and other legitimate purposes is to risk sacrificing them at the altar of political correctness. -- Don Demetrick   The best wrestler is not he who has learned thoroughly all the tricks and twists of the art, which are seldom met with in actual wrestling, but he who has well and carefully trained himself in one or two of them, and watches keenly for an opportunity of practising them. -- Demetrius the Cynic   If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing. -- W. Edwards Deming   It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and THEN do your best. -- W. Edwards Deming   We are opposed to state interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of the fundamental Democratic doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government. -- Democratic National Platform of 1892   Today's Democratic Party knows our children's education is not complete unless they learn good values. We applaud the efforts of the Clinton-Gore Administration to promote character education in our schools. Teaching good values, strong character, and the responsibilities of citizenship must be an essential part of American education. -- Democratic Party Platform of 1996   People sometimes rationalize their greed by saying that it is all for the good of their children but this is nothing but an excuse they use to make their despicable actions appear respectable and praiseworthy. -- Democritus   There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust. -- Demosthenes   There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection and preservation of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches, and the like... But prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all, and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies. What is this safeguard? Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep this, you need fear no harm. -- Demosthenes   Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master. -- Demosthenes   There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear. -- Daniel Dennett   Note, however, that trying to ban guns because of strong moral disapproval of them or because of claims that they are 'scary' or that they may be used in crimes would not constitute a 'compelling state interest' any more than an attempt to restrain publication of a book on moral grounds would be. The concept of a 'compelling state interest' cannot swallow up the very right guaranteed in the first place. -- Brannon P. Denning   When courts fail to engage in oversight or even distort the Constitution to rationalize the ultra vires actions of government, and when academics and political activists aid and abet them in this activity by devising ingenious rationalizations for ignoring the Constitution’s words, they are playing a most dangerous game. For they are putting at risk the legitimacy of the lawmaking process and risking the permanent disaffection of significant segments of the people. -- Brannon P. Denning   Standing armies consist of professional soldiers who owe their livelihood and income to the government. Unlike civilians who render periodic service in local militia, professional soldiers do not own property and therefore do not have any source of income other than the government’s military paymaster. Thus, they are more likely to serve the government’s interests, regardless of whether its leaders are dishonest and corrupt or not. In fact, standing armies may even promote rapacious foreign or domestic policies if such policies enrich the army. In contrast, arms bearing, property owning citizen militiamen have a stake in the health of the republic as a whole and can be trusted to act in the republic’s best interests, whether those interests call for action in support of or against the political leadership of the nation. -- Anthony J. Dennis   The Nazis, for example, used a national firearms registration system eventually to confiscate all guns and, as they deemed necessary, to execute gun owners. -- Anthony J. Dennis   It comes as news to most people to learn that practically all important ethical teachers -- Moses, Aristotle, Jesus, Mohammed, and Saint Thomas Aquinas, for instance -- have denounced lending at interest as usury and as morally wrong. -- Lawrence Dennis   We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are. -- Max DePree   Ultimately, however, as the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, a powerful bureaucratic class is in the same relation to commerce as was the scorpion in Aesop to the dog on whose back he crossed the river. They will destroy commerce and establish socialism, even if it kills them, because that is their nature. -- John Derbyshire   Rights are not self-evident. They're not unalienable. They are subject to modification just like anything else. -- Alan Dershowitz   Students throughout the totalitarian world risk life and limb for freedom of expression, many American college students are demanding that big brother restrict their freedom of speech on campus. This demand for enhanced censorship is not emanating only from the usual corner – the know-nothing fundamentalist right – it is coming from the radical, and increasingly not-so-radical left as well. -- Alan Dershowitz   Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don’t see the danger of the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use this same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like. -- Alan Dershowitz   We, the People of this country, have no unalienable rights... all our rights are subject to modification... the Constitution of the United States of America is nothing more than a piece of paper and... our government should not be restrained by the Constitution because our government can do good things for people. -- Alan Dershowitz (False)   Our First Amendment expresses a far different calculus for regulating speech than for regulating nonexpressive conduct and that is as it should be. The right to swing your fist should end at the tip of my nose, but your right to express your ideas should not necessarily end at the lobes of my ears. -- Alan Dershowitz   Imagine a legal system in which lawyers were equated with the clients they defended and were condemned for representing controversial or despised clients. -- Alan Dershowitz   You know, being black doesn’t give you a license to call people racist any more than being Jewish gives you license to call people anti-Semitic. -- Alan Dershowitz   If we move away from the American tradition of lawyers defending those with whom they vehemently disagree -- as we temporarily did during the McCarthy period -- we weaken our commitment to the rule of law... So beware of an approach which limits advocacy to that which is approved by the standards of political correctness. -- Alan Dershowitz   Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems. -- Rene Descartes   If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. -- Rene Descartes   In 1983 $21 billion was spent in agricultural subsidies—almost equal to the net income of all American farmers. -- Patrick Detches   The object of any tyrant would be to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives. -- Sir Patrick Devlin   Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open. -- Sir James Dewar   Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent. -- John Dewey (False)   The teacher is engaged not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.... In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God. -- John Dewey   The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment, exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worth while. The commonest mistake made about freedom is, I think, to identify it with freedom of movement, or, with the external or physical side of activity. -- John Dewey   Liberty is not just an idea, an abstract principle. It is power, effective power to do specific things. There is no such thing as liberty in general; liberty, so to speak, at large. -- John Dewey   Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme opposites. It is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either/Ors, between which it recognizes no intermediate possibilities. -- John Dewey   Our Founders warned us that all republics have eventually fallen into tyranny -- the only difference being the relative timeline of each republic's descent. ... From the summer of 1787 when our Framers deliberated over their magnificent Constitution, we have recognized that the clear statement and equal application of the Law is among the most critical duties of any government. If we allow ourselves to lose this, we may as well be back in ancient Rome, subject to the whim of every petty tyrant in the taxing bureau or the zoning board. For it doesn't matter whether the regulator's foot is shod in a jack boot or a Roman sandal; if he can hold you down with that boot upon your neck, then we are no longer in the America that our Founding Fathers intended for us. -- John F. Di Leo   Conscience warns us before it reproaches us. -- Comtesse Diane   It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear. -- Dick Cavett   Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule. -- Charles Dickens   I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don´t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if anything is to be got by it. -- Charles Dickens   Indeed nations, in general, are not apt to think until they feel; and therefore nations in general have lost their liberty: For as violations of the rights of the governed, are commonly not only specious, but small at the beginning, they spread over the multitude in such a manner, as to touch individuals but slightly. Thus they are disregarded. The power or profit that arises from these violations centering in few persons, is to them considerable. For this reason the governors having in view their particular purposes, successively preserve an uniformity of conduct for attaining them. They regularly increase the first injuries, till at length the inattentive people are compelled to perceive the heaviness of their burthens -- They begin to complain and inquire — but too late. They find their oppressors so strengthened by success, and themselves so entangled in examples of express authority on the part of their rulers, and of tacit recognition on their own part, that they are quite confounded: for millions entertain no other idea of the legality of power, than it is founded on the exercise of power. -- John Dickenson   Who are a free people? Not those over whom government is exercised, but those who live under a government so constitutionally checked and controlled that proper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised. -- John Dickenson   Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it. -- Emily Dickinson   Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all. -- Emily Dickinson   Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness... We claim them from a higher source -- from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives. -- John Dickinson   Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash. -- Bo Diddley   Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control. -- Denis Diderot   To brand man with infamy, and let him free, is an absurdity that peoples our forests with assassins. [Fr., Rendre l'homme infame, et le laisser libre, est une absurdite qui peuple nos forets d'assassins.] -- Denis Diderot   Freedom includes the right to say what others may object to and resent…The essence of citizenship is to be tolerant of strong and provocative words. -- John G. Diefenbaker   I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind. -- John G. Diefenbaker   Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. -- John G. Diefenbaker   Banks do not have an obligation to promote the public good. -- Alexander Dielius   If you say to people that they, as a matter of fact, can’t protect their conversations, in particular their political conversations, I think you take a long step toward making a transition from a free society to a totalitarian society. -- Whitfield Diffie   It is no coincidence that some of America’s most lethargic industries—steel, footwear, rubber, textiles—are also among the most heavily protected. -- Thomas DiLorenzo   The theory of natural monopoly is an economic fiction. No such thing as a 'natural' monopoly has ever existed. The history of the so-called public utility concept is that the late 19th and early 20th-century 'utilities' competed vigorously, and like all other industries, they did not like competition. They first secured government-sanctioned monopolies, and then, with the help of a few influential economists, they constructed an ex post facto rationalization for their monopoly power. ... The theory of natural monopoly is a 19th-century economic fiction that defends 19th-century (or 18th-century, in the case of the U.S. Postal Service) monopolistic privileges and has no useful place in the 21st-century American economy. -- Thomas J. DiLorenzo   On February 27, black-uniformed men of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms wearing “coal scuttle” helmets and carrying German-made machine pistols attacked the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Fifty years earlier, in January 1943, blackuniformed SS men wearing “coal scuttle” helmets and carrying German-made machine pistols attacked the Jewish compound in Warsaw, Poland. The BATF men were searching for illegal weapons reported by a paid informant to be in the Branch Davidian Compound. The SS men were searching for illegal weapons reported by a paid informant to be in the Warsaw ghetto. Reports from Texas indicate the Branch Davidians kept to themselves and harmed no one outside their compound prior to the BATF assault. History tells us the Jews kept to themselves and harmed no one outside the Warsaw ghetto prior to the SS assault. The U.S. broadcast news media tell us that the Branch Davidians practice contemptible sexual rituals involving young children, so they are an evil religious cult. Nazi news media told the German populace that the Jews practiced contemptible sexual rituals involving children, so they were an evil religion. The BATF invited the U.S. news media to document the BATF assault to show the American public how dangerous the Branch Davidians are. The SS had propagandists documents its assault to show the German public how dangerous the Jews were. Four BATF men were killed and 16 wounded in the initial assault on the Branch Davidian compound. Eleven SS men were killed and an unrecorded number wounded in the initial assault on the Warsaw ghetto. After the initial assault, the BATF men magnanimously arranged a truce so children could be evacuated from the Branch Davidian Compound (and they could tend to their casualties). After their initial assault, the SS men magnanimously arranged a truce so children could be evacuated from the Warsaw ghetto compound (and they could tend to their casualties). The BATF called up military units with armored vehicles to finish off the Branch Davidian compound after encountering fierce resistance against the initial assault. The SS called up military units with armored vehicles to finish off the Warsaw ghetto after encountering fierce resistance against the initial assault. Fifty years have passed, but little has changed. -- John D. Dingell, III   The foundation of every state is the education of its youth. -- Diogenes   Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent. -- Dionysius, the Elder   A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money. -- Everett Dirksen   The New York Times is deliberately pitched to the liberal point of view. -- Herman Dismore   Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery. -- Benjamin Disraeli   For you see, the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. -- Benjamin Disraeli   How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct. -- Benjamin Disraeli   Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand. -- Benjamin Disraeli   I repeat... that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that, from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist. -- Benjamin Disraeli   It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery. -- Benjamin Disraeli   Upon the education of the people of this country, the fate of this country depends. -- Benjamin Disraeli   The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments’ plans. -- Benjamin Disraeli   There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. -- Benjamin Disraeli   Truth travels slowly, but it will reach even you in time. -- Benjamin Disraeli   Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning. -- Benjamin Disraeli   Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think. -- Benjamin Disraeli   The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians. -- Benjamin Disraeli   To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection, it is plunder. -- Benjamin Disraeli   If you establish a democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy. You will in due season have great impatience of the public burdens, combined in due season with great increase of the public expenditure. You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason; and you will in due season submit to peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained, which will diminish your authority and perhaps endanger your independence. You will in due season find your property is less valueable, and your freedom less complete. -- Benjamin Disraeli   Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed. -- Benjamin Disraeli   Demagogues and agitators are very unpleasant, they are incidental to a free and constitutional country, and you must put up with these inconveniences or do without many important advantages. -- Benjamin Disraeli   [Tyranny is] to compel men not to think as they do, to compel men to express thoughts that are not their own. -- Milovan Djilas   The notion of editorial independence from ownership only dates back to the 1930s. Prior to that time the media was openly biased and that includes the Press that the founding fathers dealt with. Some of the founders like Hamilton and Franklin had actually ran media outlets that were very biased. You used to have things like Newspapers that openly proclaimed they were a Democratic or Republican or Whig or a Federalist newspaper right on the banner. The concept of an independent and allegedly neutral press was and still is mainly pushed by people from the left who do NOT want anything remotely neutral, but who instead want to make sure those "evil" business interests don't have a means of getting their side aired without it being filtered by their idea of what a neutral press consists of. -- John Dobbins   The GOP has as much commitment to small government as the Democratic Party has to a strong national defense. -- John Dobbins   Conform and be dull. -- James Frank Dobie   To those who find it difficult to understand how a mind can be imprisoned, my puny indictment of the communist movement before the Tydings Committee may have seemed slight indeed, for I no doubt gave some comfort to the Party by my negative approach. But it takes time to “unbecome” a Communist. -- Dr. Bella Dodd   What I had failed to understand was that the security I felt in the Party was that of a group and that affection in that strange communist world is never a personal emotion. You were loved or hated on the basis of group acceptance, and emotions were stirred or dulled by propaganda. That propaganda was made by the powerful people at the top. That is why ordinary Communists get along well with their groups: they think and feel together and work toward a common goal. -- Dr. Bella Dodd   I was at last beginning to see how ignorant I had become, how long since I had read anything except Party literature. I thought of our bookshelves stripped of books questioned by the Party, how when a writer was expelled from the Party his books went, too. I thought of the systematic rewriting of Soviet history, the revaluation, and in some cases the blotting out of any mention of such persons as Trotsky. I thought of the successive purges. Suddenly I too wanted the answers to the questions Senator Hickenlooper was asking and I wanted the truth. I found myself hitting at the duplicity of the Communist Party. -- Dr. Bella Dodd   The process of completely freeing oneself emotionally from being a Communist is a thing no outsider can understand. The group thinking and group planning and the group life of the Party had been a part of me for so long that it was desperately difficult for me to be a person again. ... But I had begun the process of “unbecoming” a Communist. It was a long and painful process, much like that of a polio victim who has to learn to walk all over again. I had to learn to think. I had to learn to love. I had to drain the hate and frenzy from my system. I had to dislodge the self and the pride that had made me arrogant, made me feel that I knew all the answers. I had to learn that I knew nothing. There were many stumbling blocks in this process. -- Dr. Bella Dodd   I think the Communist conspiracy is merely a branch of a much bigger conspiracy! … I would certainly like to find out who is really running things. -- Dr. Bella Dodd   There had been many things I had not really understood. I had regarded the Communist Party as a poor man’s party, and thought the presence of certain men of wealth within it accidental. I now saw this was no accident. I regarded the Party as a monolithic organization with the leadership in the National Committee and the National Board. Now I saw this was only a facade placed there by the movement to create the illusion of the poor man’s party; it was in reality a device to control the “common man” they so raucously championed. -- Dr. Bella Dodd   We in the Party had been told in 1945, after the publication of the Duclos letter, that the Party in the United States would have a difficult role to play. Our country, we were told, would be the last to be taken by the Communists; the Party in the United States would often find itself in opposition not only to the interests of our government, but even against the interests of our own workers. Now I realized that, with the best motives and a desire to serve the working people of my country, I, and thousands like me, had been led to a betrayal of these very people. I now saw that I had been poised on the side of those who sought the destruction of my own country. I thought of an answer Pop Mindel, of the Party’s Education Bureau, had once given me in reply to the question whether the Party would oppose the entry of our boys into the Army. I had asked this question at a time when the Communists were conducting a violent campaign for peace, and it seemed reasonable to me to draw pacifist conclusions. Pop Mindel sucked on his pipe and with a knowing look in his eyes said: “Well, if we keep our members from the Army, then where will our boys learn to use weapons with which to seize power?” I realized how the Soviets had utilized Spain as a preview of the revolution to come. Now other peoples had become expendable — the Koreans, North and South, the Chinese soldiers, and the American soldiers. I found myself praying, “God, help them all.” What now became clear to me was the collusion of these two forces: the Communists with their timetable for world control, and certain mercenary forces in the free world bent on making profit from blood. But I was alone with these thoughts and had no opportunity to talk over my conclusions with friends. -- Dr. Bella Dodd   Our whole political system rests on the distinction between constitutional and other laws. The former are the solemn principles laid down by the people in its ultimate sovereignty; the latter are regulations made by its representatives within the limits of their authority, and the courts can hold unauthorized and void any act which exceeds those limits. The courts can do this because they are maintaining against the legislature the fundamental principles which the people themselves have determined to support, and they can do it only so long as the people feel that the constitution is something more sacred and enduring than ordinary laws, something that derives its force from a higher authority. -- Walter F. Dodd   A clique of US industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime. … Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there. -- William E. Dodd   After fifty years as a Prohibitionist, I am more convinced than ever that we need a good party, not just good men and good women. Most public officials are united in the war against terrorism. They, like we, are outraged at the deaths of some 3,000 Americans on September 11. Yet, most are willing to give unqualified support to the traffic in liquor and tobacco in exchange for campaign cash. Those products jointly claim at least 600,000 American lives each year. Two hundred die each year from use of alcohol and tobacco for every one who died in the September 11 attacks. Need another reason for being a Prohibitionist? -- Earl F. Dodge   It’s never more important to move slowly and carefully before granting the state new powers than in the wake of tragedies. -- Brian Doherty   [M]onopoly profits exist over the long run only when the government guarantees them, as in utilities and cable. And for concentration of market power, no robber baron can hold a candle to the U.S. government.... The hugest concentration of market power in this country does not lie with the likes of Rupert Murdoch or Bill Gates, but with government itself.... No private company, no matter how huge or wealthy, could possibly have as much widespread power over the function of American markets as government does. And this power is exercised with essential unseriousness.... And unlike business attempts to make money, which necessarily involve selling something to a willing consumer, government’s market manipulations require forcing people into situations -- whether paying for cars or food, paying for R&D or new technologies, or selling off a part of their company -- that they would not have wanted to be in but for the government’s ham-handed threat of force.... Nothing could serve the workings of the marketplace better than [government] leaving it. -- Brian Doherty   The United States has no jurisdiction. No representative of administrative, judicial, military, or police authority of the United States may enter that zone without permission of the Secretary-General. In short: as long as the seat of the United Nations remains within the United States, the area occupied by the United Nations is considered as extraterritorial [separate from the United States] with full diplomatic privileges and immunities. -- Louis Dolivet   Welfare rights are pseudo-rights: They rely on the force of law to take private property for the use of others without compensation and without consent. Public charity is forced charity; it is not a virtue but a vice. -- James A. Dorn   ...and by the way, Mr.Speaker, the Second Amendment is not for killing little ducks and leaving Huey and Dewey and Louie without an aunt and uncle. It's for hunting politicians, like in Grozny, and in the colonies in 1776, or when they take your independence away. -- Robert Dornan   Free speech is essential to education, especially to a liberal education, which encourages the search for truths in art and science. If expression is restricted, the range of inquiry is also curtailed... The beneficiaries of a free society have a duty to pursue the truth and to protect the freedom of expression that makes possible the search for a new enlightenment. -- Norman Dorsen   Individuality is freedom lived. -- John Dos Passos   The reality is, if we tell the truth, we only have to tell the truth once. If you lie, you have to keep lying forever. -- Rabbi Wayne Dosick   A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying to others and to yourself. -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky   It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word. -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky   Every member of the society spies on the rest, and it is his duty to inform against them. All are slaves and equal in their slavery... The great thing about it is equality... Slaves are bound to be equal. -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky   The head of the powerful Jesuit Order (Father Pedro Arrupe) charged today (Sept. 27) that atheism constitutes a conspiracy that has infiltrated even the Roman Catholic Church and virtually controls international organizations, finance, and mass communications. … [Father Pedro Arrupe said that] “the new godless society operates in an extremely efficient manner, at least in its higher levels of leadership. It makes use of every possible means at its disposal, be they scientific, technical, social, or economic. It follows a perfectly mapped-out strategy. It holds almost complete sway in international organizations, in financial circles, in the field of mass communications: press, cinema, radio, and television.” … Father Arrupe, as head of the 36,000-member Jesuit Order, is considered to be one of the half-dozen most influential churchmen in the world, as indicated by his informal title of “Black Pope.” -- Robert Doty   Yes; truth blends well with untruth. It is one of the maladies of our age, a sign of sheer nervousness, to profess a frenzied allegiance to truth in unimportant matters, to refuse consistently to face her where graver issues are at stake. -- Norman Douglas   It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty. -- Justice William O. Douglas   It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches us, that the guilty sometimes go free than the citizens be subject to easy arrest. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it invites a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions 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 passes for acceptance of an idea. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgment the great postulate of our democracy. -- Justice William O. Douglas   Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? -- Justice William O. Douglas   Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. -- Justice William O. Douglas   A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person’s] life. -- Justice William O. Douglas   When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all. -- Justice William O. Douglas   My faith is that the only soul a man must save is his own. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people. -- Justice William O. Douglas   We recognize the force of the argument that the effects of war under modern conditions may be felt in the economy for years and years, and that if the war power can be used in days of peace to treat all the wounds which war inflicts on our society, it may not only swallow up all other powers of Congress but largely obliterate the Ninth and the Tenth Amendments as well. -- Justice William O. Douglas   Freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society -- once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer. -- Justice William O. Douglas   Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publication, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the spectre of a government agent will look over the shoulder of everyone who reads. ... Fear of criticism goes with every person into the bookstall. The subtle, imponderable pressures of the orthodox lay hold. Some will fear to read what is unpopular, what the powers-that-be dislike. ... fear will take the place of freedom in the libraries, book stores, and homes in the land. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The function of the prosecutor under the federal Constitution is not to tack as many skins of victims as possible against the wall. His function is to vindicate the rights of the people as expressed in the laws and give those accused of crime a fair trial. -- Justice William O. Douglas   Those in power need checks and restraints lest they come to identify the common good for their own tastes and desires, and their continuation in office as essential to the preservation of the nation. -- Justice William O. Douglas   These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence. -- Justice William O. Douglas   Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operation, to scientific advancement and the like. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The struggle is always between the individual and his sacred right to express himself and…the power structure that seeks conformity, suppression and obedience. -- Justice William O. Douglas   As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The Fifth Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. It is one of the great landmarks in men’s struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized. -- Justice William O. Douglas   The right to revolt has sources deep in our history. -- William O. Douglas   But our society -- unlike most in the world -- presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas; that is the philosophy of the First Amendment; and it is this article of faith that sets us apart from most nations in the world. -- William O. Douglas   Heresy trials are foreign to our Constitution. Men may believe what they cannot prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs. Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others. -- William O. Douglas   The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think. -- William O. Douglas   Among the liberties of citizens that are guaranteed are ... the right to believe what one chooses, the right to differ from his neighbor, the right to pick and choose the political philosophy he likes best, the right to associate with whomever he chooses, the right to join groups he prefers ... -- William O. Douglas   I think that the influence towards suppression of minority views – towards orthodoxy in thinking about public issues – has been more subconscious than unconscious, stemming to a very great extent from the tendency of Americans to conform…not to deviate or depart from an orthodox point of view. -- William O. Douglas   Where suspicion fills the air and holds scholars in line for fear of their jobs, there can be no exercise of the free intellect. Supineness and dogmatism take the place of inquiry. A problem can no longer be pursued to its edges. Fear stalks the classroom. The teacher is no longer a stimulant to adventurous thinking; she becomes instead a pipe line for safe and sound information. A deadening dogma takes the place of free inquiry. Instruction tends to become sterile; pursuit of knowledge is discouraged; discussion often leaves off where it should begin. -- William O. Douglas   Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? -- William O. Douglas   The First and Fourteenth Amendments say that Congress and the States shall make “no law” which abridges freedom of speech or of the press. In order to sanction a system of censorship I would have to say that “no law” does not mean what it says, that “no law” is qualified to mean “some” laws. I cannot take this step. -- William O. Douglas   A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left. -- William O. Douglas   The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think. -- William O. Douglas   Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most powerful political weapons man has ever forged. -- William O. Douglas   Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress. -- Frederick Douglass   To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. -- Frederick Douglass   Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. -- Frederick Douglass   Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will. -- Frederick Douglass   The non-producers now receive the larger share of what those who labor produce. The result is natural. Discontent culminates in exactly the same ratio that intelligence sustains aspiration. -- Frederick Douglass   No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. -- Frederick Douglass   Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. -- Frederick Douglass   I have no sympathy for the narrow, selfish notion of economy which assumes that every crumb of bread which goes into the mouth of one class is so much taken from the mouths of another class. -- Frederick Douglass   Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. -- Frederick Douglass   He who would be free must strike the first blow. -- Frederick Douglass   What shall be done with the four million slaves if they are emancipated? ... Primarily, it is a question less for man than for God -- less for human intellect than for the laws of nature to solve. It assumes that nature has erred; that the law of liberty is a mistake; that freedom, though a natural want of the human soul, can only be enjoyed at the expense of human welfare, and that men are better off in slavery than they would or could be in freedom; that slavery is the natural order of human relations, and that liberty is an experiment. What shall be done with them? Our answer is, do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone. They suffer by every interference, and succeed best by being let alone. -- Frederick Douglass   The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. -- Frederick Douglass   To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave. -- Frederick Douglass   I know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class. -- Frederick Douglass   We may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!! Not transient and fitful effort, but patient, enduring, honest, unremitting, and indefatigable work, into which the whole heart is put. -- Frederick Douglass   Any one having a white face, and being so disposed, could stop us, and subject us to examination. ... When I get there [in Pennsylvania], I shall not be required to have a pass; I can travel without being disturbed. -- Frederick Douglass   The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. -- Frederick Douglass   ... and in thinking of my life, I almost forgot my liberty. -- Frederick Douglass   What is possible for me is possible for you. -- Frederick Douglass   The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. -- Frederick Douglass   Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother. -- Frederick Douglass   The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. -- Frederick Douglass   Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the constitution is a Glorious Liberty Document! -- Frederick Douglass   We must protect the freedoms of even those who hate us, and that we may find objectionable. If we fail in this task, we become victims of the precedents we create. -- Judge Robert Doumar   History teaches us the unfortunate lesson that cultural values supplant constitutional rights whenever the cultural elite consider a right too burdensome to suit the needs of the moment. The outlandish pronouncement in Dred Scott "that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit," the shameful court-approved internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and the separate but equal doctrine that officially existed until 1954 are all examples of the evils that result when cultural values are given more weight than constitutional rights. -- Robert Dowlut   Judicial minds have systematically rejected arguments that clashed with their ideologies. Consequently, the forum of last resort has not checked the excesses of the executive and legislative branches. -- Robert Dowlut   Because this right [of self-defense] cannot be effectively exercised with bare hands, the right to keep and bear arms is the only efficient way to secure the fundamental right of self-defense. -- Robert Dowlut   [R]estricting arms to the military and police eviscerates the principle that power should flow from the people to government, and turns the government into a master rather than a servant. -- Robert Dowlut   Gun control stems from racist roots, and ... it undermines feminism by send[ing] women the message that they should not use force to defend themselves. -- Robert Dowlut   [W]e continue to evolve a cute little concept of a changing legal accommodation named the “Living Constitution Theory” which is only a perversion stating, “To heck with what our Constitution says; we in power will twist it to suit our ideas anytime and every time we so choose.” -- Dr. Jack Down   The federal government has turned policing into policing for profit. -- Stephen Downing   I think it might be important to point out that this country is a one-party country. Half of that party is called Republican and half is called Democrat. It doesn’t make any difference. All the really good ideas belong to the Libertarians. -- Hugh Downs   You will ruin no more lives as you ruined mine. You will wring no more hearts as you wrung mine. I will free the world of a poisonous thing. Take that, you hound, and that! -- and that! -- and that! -- and that! -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle   When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle   When books are challenged, restricted, removed, or banned, an atmosphere of suppression exists…. The fear of the consequences of censorship is as damaging as, or perhaps more damaging than, the actual censorship attempt. After all, when a published work is banned, it can usually be found elsewhere. Unexpressed ideas, unpublished works, unpurchased books are lost forever. -- Robert P. Doyle   Some methodological atheists formulate the principle by saying that the burden of proof is always on any person making an existence claim, since, from a logical point of view, existence claims are only capable of proof, not disproof. No one has ever proven the nonexistence of Santa Claus, or elves, or unicorns, or anything else, simply because the very logic of an unrestricted existential proposition prohibits its disproof. It is impossible to go all over the universe and show that, for example, there are no elves anywhere. For this reason, rational methodology calls for us to deny the existence of all those things which have never been shown to exist. That is why we all regard it rational to deny the existence of Santa Claus, elves, unicorns, etc. And since God is in that same category, having never been shown to exist, it follows that rational methodology calls for us to deny the existence of God. -- Theodore M. Drange   If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money? -- William Drayton   Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all. -- Peter Drucker   The most may err as grossly as the few. -- John Dryden   We find few historians who have been diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they help distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity. -- John Dryden   I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran. -- John Dryden   Of all the tyrannies on human kind / the worst is that which persecutes the mind. -- John Dryden   War is the trade of Kings. -- John Dryden   Ill habits gather by unseen degrees -- As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. -- John Dryden   Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare. -- John Dryden   The love of liberty with life is given, And life itself the inferior gift of Heaven. -- John Dryden   O freedom, first delight of human kind! -- John Dryden   It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disfranchise the public; and assuming that certain powers by divine right of money-raising or by sheer assumption, have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind. -- W. E. B. Du Bois   The cost of liberty is less than the cost of repression. -- W. E. B. Du Bois   The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. -- W. E. B. Du Bois   Gun control has not worked in D.C. The only people who have guns are criminals. We have the strictest gun laws in the nation and one of the highest murder rates. It's quicker to pull your Smith and Wesson than to dial 911 if you're being robbed. -- Lt. Lowell Duckett   There can be no peace on earth as long as there is war in love. -- Dieter Duhm   Somehow we find it hard to sell our values, namely that the rich should plunder the poor. -- John Foster Dulles   Of all the tasks of government, the most basic is to protect its citizens from violence. -- John Foster Dulles   Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest. -- Alexandre Dumas   The fact that most people think that being selfish means harming one's fellow man, that pursuing one's own self-interest equates to behaving brutally or irrationally, is, as Ms. Rand noted, a "psychological confession" on their part. In fact it is against one's own long-term self-interest to behave irrationally or trample others. Such actions are the exact opposite of selfish -- they're self-destructive. -- Wayne Dunn   There was a time when Christians took faith as seriously as Mid-Eastern Muslims currently do: the Medieval Era. -- Wayne Dunn   The fact that most people think that being selfish means harming one's fellow man, that pursuing one's own self-interest equates to behaving brutally or irrationally, is, as Ms. Rand noted, a 'psychological confession' on their part.  In fact it is against one's own long-term self-interest to behave irrationally or trample others. Such actions are the exact opposite of selfish -- they're self-destructive. -- Wayne Dunn   An appeal is when you ask one court to show its contempt for another court. -- Finley Peter Dunne   There exist in the world only two great parties; that of those who prefer to live from the produce of their labor or of their property, and that of those who prefer to live on the labor or the property of others. -- Charles Dunoyer   The concept of a Supreme Being who childishly demands to be constantly placated by prayers and sacrifice and dispenses justice like some corrupt petty judge whose decisions may be swayed by a bit of well-timed flattery should be relegated to the trash bin of history, along with the belief in a flat earth and the notion that diseases are caused by demonic possession. Ironically, the case for the involuntary retirement of God may have been best stated by one Saul or Paul of Tarsus, a first-century tentmaker and Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, who wrote, 'When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things' (I Corinthians 13:11). Those words are no less relevant today than they were two thousand years ago. -- John J. Dunphy   How wonderful the world might be if only we gave to each other all the love we claim to give to God, a thought which has been expressed time and time again, yet it still manages to resound with a poignance that is almost painful. Such a world can be ours, sisters and brothers. Let us work together to achieve it. -- John J. Dunphy   I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being... The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new -- the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of 'love thy neighbor' will finally be achieved. -- John J. Dunphy   I steadfastly maintain that only with the complete, irrevocable rejection of God and the supernatural will humankind truly begin to live. Rather than producing a feeling of despair, the decision to embrace atheism should result in an exhilarating, almost intoxicating sense of freedom, something akin to the experience of those American slaves who rejoiced upon hearing news of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Only the atheist is truly free. -- John J. Dunphy   The history of Christianity has been largely written in blood, the blood of those whom it has sought to proselytize as well as that of those Christians who did not share the theology or ambitions of the male clerical oligarchy that has always wielded power in Christendom. This ignoble distinction is not nor has it ever been the exclusive prerogative of any particular denomination or sect; it is a living legacy of horror that is tragically common to the Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox bodies of Christian churches. -- John J. Dunphy   If the previous paragraphs [of 'A Religion For A New Age'] prove anything, it is that the Bible is not merely another book, an outmoded and archaic book, or even an extremely influential book; it has been and remains an incredibly dangerous book. It and the various Christian churches which are parasitic upon it have been directly responsible for most of the wars, persecutions and outrages which humankind has perpetrated upon itself over the past two thousand years. -- John J. Dunphy   A liberal's like to be lax\\When recommending a tax.\\With a glut in his heart\\And his brain low a quart,\\He will give you\\the shirts off our backs. -- F. R. Duplantier   If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all. -- Will Durant   In my youth, I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order. -- Will Durant   To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. -- Will Durant   Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes. -- Will Durant   [H]istory assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely. -- Will Durant   Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one’s cherished beliefs, one’s dogmas and one’s axioms. -- Will Durant   Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy. -- Will Durant   Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire. To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom, and in the end superior ability has its way. -- Will Durant   Why doesn't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone? -- Jimmy Durante   The freedom of each individual can only be the freedom of all. -- Friedrich Durrenmatt   Criminal lawyer. Or is that redundant? -- Will Durst   I did not use paint, I made myself up morally. -- Eleanora Duse   Unless a crime is specifically named in the constitution, treason and bribery, impeachments like indictments can only be instituted for crimes committed against the statutory law of the United States. -- Theodore William Dwight   Hamilton's whole monetary policy is based on unconstitutional grounds and unsound reasoning, and fraudulent statements. His policies were fought through the whole public career of Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Randolph and many another truly great lovers of Republican Government. His policies have proved to be more destructive of our independent and democratic form of government than the old subjugation of the Colonies by Great Britain. The deliberations in Congress over Hamilton's Bank Bill, and the opinions of members of The Cabinet show the intensity of feeling between the private money interests and those supporting the Constitution. History records that the “money changers” have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance. -- Olive Cushing Dwinell   ‘Balanced’ is a code for ‘denied’: a right to free speech that must be ‘balanced’ against so exhaustive a list of other supposed values means a right that can be exercised only when those in power judge that the speech in question is innocuous to them. -- Ronald Dworkin   O liberty, Parent of happiness, celestial born When the first man became a living soul; His sacred genius thou. -- Sir Edward Dyer   I am appalled at the extensive evidence indicating that there is today in the UN among the American employees there, the greatest concentration of communists that this Committee has ever encountered. … These people occupy high positions. They have very high salaries and almost all of these people have, in the past, been employees in the U.S. government in high and sensitive positions. -- James O. Eastland   The real guarantee of freedom is an equilibrium of social forces in conflict, not the triumph of any one force. -- Max Eastman   At Waco, was there really an urgency to get those people out of the compound at that particular time? Was the press going to make it look heroic for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? At Ruby Ridge, there was one guy in a cabin at the top of the mountain. Was it necessary for federal agents to go up there and shoot a 14-year-old in the back and shoot a woman with a child in her arms? What kind of mentality does that? -- Clint Eastwood   Abuse of power isn't limited to bad guys in other nations. It happens in our own country if we’re not vigilant. -- Clint Eastwood   A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement. -- Abba Eban   History teaches us that men and nations only behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. -- Abba Eban   Let us remind ourselves that in the Soviet Union the road to medical-care hell was paved with the same good intentions. ... At the end of the 20th century, Russia was infamous for having one of the worst health-care systems in the world. -- Anna Ebeling   Democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a free society. History has told many stories of democratic societies that have degenerated into corruption, plunder, and tyranny. -- Richard M. Ebeling   In the hands of the state, compulsory public education becomes a tool for political control and manipulation -- a prime instrument for the thought police of the society. And precisely because every child passes through the same indoctrination process -- learning the same "official history," the same "civic virtues," the same lessons of obedience and loyalty to the state -- it becomes extremely difficult for the independent soul to free himself from the straightjacket of the ideology and values the political authorities wish to imprint upon the population under its jurisdiction. For the communists, it was the class struggle and obedience to the Party and Comrade Stalin; for the fascists, it was worship of the nation -- state and obedience to the Duce; for the Nazis, it was race purity and obedience to the Fuhrer. The content has varied, but the form has remained the same. Through the institution of compulsory state education, the child is to be molded like wax into the shape desired by the state and its educational elite. We should not believe that because ours is a freer, more democratic society, the same imprinting procedure has not occurred even here, in America. Every generation of school-age children has imprinted upon it a politically correct ideology concerning America's past and the sanctity of the role of the state in society. Practically every child in the public school system learns that the "robber barons" of the 19th century exploited the common working man; that unregulated capitalism needed to be harnessed by enlightened government regulation beginning in the Progressive era at the turn of the century; that wild Wall Street speculation was a primary cause of the Great Depression; that only Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal saved America from catastrophe; and that American intervention in foreign wars has been necessary and inevitable, with the United States government required to be a global leader and an occasional world policeman. -- Richard M. Ebeling   Government is, and always has been, the greatest criminal threat to the peaceful members of society. -- Richard M. Ebeling   Who is the fascist? Individualism and the political philosophy of limited government is not only inconsistent with but is the exact opposite of fascism and Nazism. Under fascism and Nazism, the state reigns supreme with absolute power over everyone and all forms of property. It can well be asked: who is the fascist, when the president of the United States and many Democrats and Republicans in congress call for expanded authority for the FBI and other federal security agencies to intrude into the lives of the American citizenry? Who is the fascist, when the call is made for increased power for the FBI to undertake “roving wiretapping” or have easier access to the telephone and credit-card records of the general population? Who is the fascist, when the proposal is made to make it easier for the FBI to investigate and infiltrate any political organization or association because the government views it as a potential terrorist danger? -- Richard M. Ebeling   That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn't be any money. -- Marriner Stoddard Eccles   This article will probably be photocopied and passed around the offices of exactly the same organizations that queue up to denounce copyright theft. -- The Economist   For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. -- Sir Arthur Eddington   It is, of course, true that if we continue to lose our freedoms, concentration camps on U.S. soil would eventually become a reality. -- Thomas R. Eddlem   One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole. We redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. -- Ottmar Edenhofer   If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. -- Thomas A. Edison   Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless. -- Thomas A. Edison   I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work. -- Thomas A. Edison   Restless is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. -- Thomas A. Edison   People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project (Muscle Shoals Dam) nor contribute a pound of material, will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work. This is the terrible thing about interest. -- Thomas A. Edison   There is no expedient to which the average person will not go to avoid the hard work of thinking. -- Thomas A. Edison   We must create out of the younger generation a generation of Communists. We must turn children, who can be shaped like wax, into real, good Communists. ... We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families. We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them. From the first days of their lives they will be under the healthy influence of Communist children's nurseries and schools. There they will grow up to be real Communists. -- Communist Party Education Workers Congress   Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen. -- Bob Edwards   The modern susceptibility to conformity and obedience to authority indicates that the truth endorsed by authority is likely to be accepted as such by a majority of the people. -- David Edwards   We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather. -- Barbara Ehrenreich   That's free enterprise, friends: freedom to gamble, freedom to lose. And the great thing -- the truly democratic thing about it -- is that you don't even have to be a player to lose. -- Barbara Ehrenreich   You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. -- John Ehrlichman   Government of the self was the original basis for republican government, reflecting the view that civil society was much more than politics. Society was made up of men and women who gave order to their lives by entering into associations on a voluntary basis, quite apart from government, for all the various reasons of fellowship, philanthrophy, faith and commerce. -- Hans L. Eicholz   Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. -- Albert Einstein   For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them. -- Albert Einstein   Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. -- Albert Einstein   We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. -- Albert Einstein   The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. -- Albert Einstein   The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. -- Albert Einstein   Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. -- Albert Einstein   Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population. -- Albert Einstein   As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.... No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. -- Albert Einstein   The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible. -- Albert Einstein   The important thing is never to stop questioning. -- Albert Einstein   It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs. -- Albert Einstein   The ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them. -- Albert Einstein   A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security. -- Albert Einstein   Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them! -- Albert Einstein   Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. -- Albert Einstein   As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein   Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by power and by force, whether it arises under the Fascist or the Communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual. -- Albert Einstein   Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- Albert Einstein   The restriction of knowledge to an elite group destroys the spirit of the society and leads to its intellectual impoverishment. -- Albert Einstein   Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. -- Albert Einstein   My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. -- Albert Einstein   To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. -- Albert Einstein   Today's problems cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we created them. -- Albert Einstein   The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. -- Albert Einstein   Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence. -- Albert Einstein   By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. -- Albert Einstein   The highest destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule. -- Albert Einstein   The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. -- Albert Einstein   All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. -- Albert Einstein   It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed. -- Albert Einstein   The world that we have made as a result of the level of thinking that we have done so far, has created problems we cannot solve at the level of thinking at which we created them. -- Albert Einstein   Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. -- Albert Einstein   Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. -- Albert Einstein   As the circle of knowledge expands, so does the Sphere of darkness that encompasses it. -- Albert Einstein   How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of goodwill! In such a place even I would be an ardent patriot. -- Albert Einstein   Force always attracts men of low morality. -- Albert Einstein   The strength of the constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are constitutional rights secure. -- Albert Einstein   I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine.  The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. -- Albert Einstein   Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein   I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein   He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. -- Albert Einstein   Why does this applied science, which saves work and makes life easier, bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it. -- Albert Einstein   Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. -- Albert Einstein   The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. -- Albert Einstein   Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. -- Albert Einstein   How is it these devices succeed so well in rousing men to such wild enthusiasm, even to sacrifice their lives? Only one answer is possible. Because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction. In normal times this passion exists in a latent state, it emerges only in unusual circumstances; but it is a comparatively easy task to call it into play and raise it to the power of a collective psychosis. -- Albert Einstein   Is it possible to control man's mental evolution so as to make him proof against the psychoses of hate and destructiveness? Here I am thinking by no means only of the so-called uncultured masses. Experience proves that it is rather the so-called "Intelligentzia" that is most apt to yield to these disastrous collective suggestions, since the intellectual has no direct contact with life in the raw, but encounters it in its easiest, synthetic form upon the printed page. -- Albert Einstein   Free is not the same as free and easy. -- Larry Eisenberg   The free world must now prove itself worthy of its own past. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   It is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedom’s defenses are found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed—else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   So long as we govern our nation by the letter and spirit of the Bill of Rights, we can be sure that our nation will grow in strength and wisdom and freedom. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   Why are we proud [to be American]? We are proud, first of all, because from the beginning of this Nation, a man can walk upright, no matter who he is, or who she is. He can walk upright and meet his friend -- or his enemy; and he does not fear that because that enemy may be in a position of great power that he can be suddenly thrown in jail to rot there without charges and with no recourse to justice. We have the habeas corpus act, and we respect it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   All of us have heard this term "preventive war" since the earliest days of Hitler. ... A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war. ... I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   They [the founders] proclaimed to all the world the revolutionary doctrine of the Divine Rights of the Common Man. That doctrine has ever since been the heart of the American faith. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   Here in America we are descended in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   Americans, indeed all freemen, remember that in the final choice, a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   I developed a practice which, so far as I know, I have never violated. The practice is to avoid public mention of any name unless it can be done with favorable intent and connotation; reserve all criticism for the private conference; speak only good in public. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government -- Dwight D. Eisenhower   It is often easier for our children to obtain a gun than it is to find a good school. -- Joycelyn Elders   There is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good. -- George Eliot   Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact. -- George Eliot   Blessed is the person who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact. -- George Eliot   The Civil War is not ended: I question whether any serious civil war ever does end. -- T. S. Eliot   Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? -- T. S. Eliot   The sea, as well as the air, is a free and common thing to all; and a particular nation cannot pretend to have the right to the exclusion of all others, without violating the rights of nature and public usage. -- Elizabeth I   I say legalize drugs because I want to see less drug abuse, not more. And I say legalize drugs because I want to see the criminals put out of business. -- Edward Ellison   Everything is backwards;\\ everything is upside down.\\ Doctors destroy health,\\ lawyers destroy justice,\\ universities destroy knowledge,\\ governments destroy freedom,\\ the major media destroy information,\\ and religions destroy spirituality. -- Michael Ellner   The Thirteen States are Thirteen Sovereign bodies. -- Oliver Ellsworth   Pity the poor, wretched, timid soul, too faint hearted to resist his oppressors. He sings the songs of the damned, 'I cannot resist, I have too much to lose, they might take my property or confiscate my earnings, what would my family do, how would they survive?' He hides behind pretended family responsibility, failing to see that the most glorious legacy that we can bequeath to our posterity is liberty! -- W. Vaughn Ellsworth   Wherever there’s a disagreement among Republicans, I’m for one of those disagreements. I’m all for it. The president’s with Russia? I’m with John McCain and Lindsey Graham, I’m for NATO! Why? [It’s a] wedge. Wedges have to be schisms, schisms have to be divides. -- Rahm Emanuel   You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. -- Rahm Emanuel   Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Man exists for his own sake and not to add a laborer to the State. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Wherever a man comes, there comes revolution. The old is for slaves. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   We grant no dukedoms to the few,\\ We hold like rights and shall;\\ Equal on Sunday in the pew,\\ On Monday in the mall.\\ For what avail the plough or sail,\\ Or land, or life, if freedom fail? -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine Providence in behalf of the human race. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   The less government we have the better - the fewer laws and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal government is the influence of private character, the growth of the individual. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Who shall forbid a wise skepticism, seeing that there is no practical question on which anything more than an approximate solution can be had? -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   The highest compact we can make with our fellow is - "Let there be truth between us two forevermore." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Liberty is a slow fruit. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live as well as think. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   We are students of words; we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   That which we call sin in others is experiment for us. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born; that they are not superior to the citizen; that every one of them was once the act of a single man; every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case; that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail? -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   We seldom see anybody who is not uneasy or afraid to live. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Good men must not obey the laws too well. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Fame is proof that the people are gullible. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Persecution readily knits friendship between its victims. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   People only see what they are prepared to see. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   When you strike at a king, you must kill him. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson   The function of the censor is to censor. He has a professional interest in finding things to suppress. -- Thomas I. Emerson   It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet, plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary…. The provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical restraint. -- Thomas I. Emerson   The right to freedom of expression is justified first of all as the right of an individual purely in his capacity as an individual. It derives from the widely accepted premise of Western thought that the proper end of man is the realization of his character and potentialities as a human being. -- Thomas I. Emerson   The Right of all members of society to form their own beliefs and communicate them freely to others must be regarded as an essential principle of a democratically organized society. -- Thomas I. Emerson   Suppression of expression conceals the real problems confronting a society and diverts public attention from the critical issues. It is likely to result in neglect of the grievances which are the actual basis of the unrest, and this prevent their correction. -- Thomas I. Emerson   Every man – in the development of his own personality – has the right to form his own beliefs and opinions. Hence, suppression of belief, opinion and expression is an affront to the dignity of man, a negation of man’s essential nature. -- Thomas I. Emerson   We're bending the law as far as we can to ban an entirely new class of guns. -- Rahm Emmanuel   You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. -- Rahm Emmanuel   The task of government in this enlightened time does not extend to actually dealing with problems. Solving problems might put bureaucrats out of work. No, the task of government is to make it look as though problems have been solved, while continuing to keep the maximum number of consultants and bureaucrats employed dealing with them. -- Bob Emmers   That is true liberty, which bears a pure and firm breast. -- Quintus Ennius   To open his lips is crime in a plain citizen. -- Quintus Ennius   He hath freedom whoso beareth a clean and constant heart within. -- Quintus Ennius   What occurs to me in reading their book is that the new American approach to social control is so much more sophisticated and pervasive that it really deserves a new name.  It isn't just propaganda any more, it's 'prop-agenda'.  It's not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about.  When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone's talking about.  And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false 'intelligence' and selected 'leaks'.  -- Brian Eno   Only the educated are free. -- Epictetus   We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free. -- Epictetus   Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else. -- Epictetus   Freedom and slavery, the one is the name of virtue, and the other of vice, and both are acts of the will. -- Epictetus   No one is free who is not master of himself. -- Epictetus   He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid. -- Epictetus   The beginning of philosophy is the recognition of the conflict between opinions. -- Epictetus   A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs. -- Epicurus   Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency. -- Epicurus   The term “Internationalism” has been popularized in recent years to cover an interlocking financial, political, and economic world force for the purpose of establishing a World Government. Today Internationalism is heralded from pulpit and platform as a “League of Nations” or a “Federated Union” to which the United States must surrender a definite part of its National Sovereignty. The World Government plan is being advocated under such alluring names as the “New International Order,” “The New World Order,” “World Union Now,” “World Commonwealth of Nations,” “World Community,” etc. All the terms have the same objective; however, the line of approach may be religious or political according to the taste or training of the individual. -- Episcopal Church General Convention   America was founded on the principle of inalienable rights, not dictated duties. The Declaration of Independence states that every human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It does not state that he is born a slave to the needs of others. -- Alex Epstein   While it would be silly and ungracious to insist that intelligent deliberation on public issues is nowhere found in modern communities, it would be naive to imagine that wise deliberation can survive the constant pounding from self-interested political behavior. Benevolence in public institutions has a short half-life no matter how noble its original intentions." and "Once [a] program is in place, its day-to-day administration falls into the hands of a professional cadre besieged by powerful interest groups whose influence grows as public interest wanes. . . . A slow process of disintegration and reconfiguration sets in, transforming and expanding a program from within. -- Richard A. Epstein   The New Deal is inconsistent with the principles of limited government and with the constitutional provisions designed to secure that end. -- Richard A. Epstein   It shall be unlawful for any public secondary school which receives Federal financial assistance and which has a limited open forum, to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the speech at such meeting. -- Equal Access Act   In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king. -- Desiderius Erasmus   War is sweet to those who haven't tasted it. -- Desiderius Erasmus   We will all be better citizens when voting records of our Congressmen are followed as carefully as scores of pro-football games. -- Lou Erickson   When somebody lies, somebody loses. -- Stephanie Ericsson   The American feels too rich in his opportunities for free expression that he often no longer knows what he is free from. Neither does he know where he is not free; he does not recognize his native autocrats when he sees them. -- Erik H. Erikson   When men can freely communicate their thoughts and their sufferings, real or imagined, their passions spend themselves in air, like gunpowder scattered upon the surface – but pent up by terrors, they work unseen, burst forth in a moment, and destroy everything in its course. Let reason be opposed to reason, and argument to argument, and every good government will be safe. -- Thomas Erskine   The liberty of the press would be an empty sound, and no man would venture to write on any subject, however, pure his purpose, without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at the other. From minds thus subdued by the fear of punishment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason. -- Thomas Erskine   What is the fairest fruit of the English Tree of Liberty? The security of our rights and of the law, and that no man shall be brought to trial where there is a prejudice against him. -- Thomas Erskine   A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it. -- Senator Sam Ervin   ... judicial verbicide is calculated to convert the Constitution into a worthless scrap of paper and to replace our government of laws with a judicial oligarchy. -- Senator Sam Ervin   But this is slavery, not to speak one’s thought. -- Euripides   Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. -- Euripides   Once 'our people' get themselves into a position to make policy, they cease being 'our people'. -- M. Stanton Evans   The civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical, to demand the credentials of all statements that claim to be facts. -- Bergan Evans   Freedom of speech and freedom of action [is meaningless] without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt. -- Bergan Evans   Propaganda is persuading people to make up their minds while withholding some of the facts from them. -- Harold Evans   Freedom may come quickly in robes of peace, or after ages of conflict and war; but come it will, and abide it will, so long as the principles by which it was acquired are held sacred. -- Edward Everett   Freedom may come quickly in robes of peace, or after ages of conflict and war; but come it will, and abide it will, so long as the principles by which it was acquired are held sacred. -- Edward Everett   The man who stands upon his own soil, who feels, by the laws of the land in which he lives,--by the laws of civilized nations,--he is the rightful and exclusive owner of the land which he tills, is, by the constitution of our nature, under a wholesome influence, not easily imbibed from any other source. -- Edward Everett   [P]ublic schooling often ends up to be little more than majoritarian domination of minority viewpoints. -- Robert B. Everhart   I gave my life for freedom--This I know; For those who bade me fight had told me so. -- William Norman Ewer   The government deficit is the difference between the amount of money the government spends and the amount it has the nerve to collect. -- Sam Ewing   The information superhighway is a revolution that in years to come will transcend newspapers, radio, and television as an information source. Therefore, I think this is the time to put some restrictions on it. -- Sen. James Exon   If you admit that to silence your opponent by force is to win an intellectual argument, then you admit the right to silence people by force. -- Hans Eysenck   There is a great deal of self-will in the world, but very little genuine independence of character. -- Frederick W. Faber   It would be equally reasonable to say that sheep are born carnivorous, and everywhere nibble grass. -- Emile Faguet   An anarchist is an uncomprimising liberal. -- Emile Faguet   When dealing with a legal matter - always remember that you are your own best advocate. No one will care as much about the case as you do. Use lawyers but remember - you must take primary responsibility for a successful outcome. -- Grant D. Fairley   The existing order is breaking down at a very rapid rate, and the main uncertainty is whether mankind can exert a positive role in shaping a new world order or is doomed to await collapse in a passive posture. We believe a new order will be born no later than early in the next century and that the death throes of the old and the birth pangs of the new will be a testing time for the human species. -- Richard A. Falk   Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief. -- Frantz Fanon   If you suppose that good intentions justify intruding on the lives and properties of your fellow citizens: Do you appreciate being the target of somebody else's good intentions, or haven't you had that particular dubious pleasure yet? -- Cat Farmer   Besides, to lay and collect internal taxes in this extensive country must require a great number of congressional ordinances, immediately operation upon the body of the people; these must continually interfere with the state laws and thereby produce disorder and general dissatisfaction till the one system of laws or the other, operating upon the same subjects, shall be abolished. -- Federal Farmer   The secret of all power is - save your force. If you want high pressure you must choke off waste. -- Joseph Farrell   Putting free speech behind bars simply because it concerns prisoners sets a dangerous precedent. The court's decision makes clear that Arizona may not jail the Internet. -- David Fathi   Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. -- William Faulkner   What's wrong with this world is, it's not finished yet. It is not completed to the point where man can put his final signature to the job and say, "It is finished. We made it and it works. -- William Faulkner   We cannot choose freedom established on a hierarchy of degrees of freedom, on a caste system of equality like military rank. We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. -- William Faulkner   What is a left-wing socialist but a Marxist without a gun? -- Don Feder   The actual process of money creation takes place in commercial banks. As noted earlier, demand liabilities of commercial banks are money. -- Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago   Because of 'fractional' reserve system, banks, as a whole, can expand our money supply several times, by making loans and investments. -- Federal Reserve Bank of New York   Commercial banks create checkbook money whenever they grant a loan, simply by adding new deposit dollars in accounts on their books in exchange for a borrower's IOU. -- Federal Reserve Bank of New York   Without the confidence factor, many believe a paper money system is liable to collapse eventually. -- Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia   The decrease in purchasing power incurred by holders of money due to inflation imparts gains to the issuers of money... -- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis   'Racism’ has been redefined to mean anyone opposing big government dependency welfare programs. -- Bill Federer   Man is deeply vulnerable when faced with overwhelming evil. Instead of consolidating his energy to fight it, he wastes valuable time and effort puzzling over it, insisting it is not, cannot possibly be, what it seems. -- Konnilyn G. Feig   Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe. -- Dianne Feinstein   I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that's what I did. I was trained in firearms. I walked to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon and I made the determination if somebody was going to try and take me out, I was going to take them with me. -- Dianne Feinstein   Censorship is advertising paid by the government. -- Federico Fellini   To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. -- Felson   Legislators like pork because it helps them get reelected. They are interested in administrative details because long tenure promotes narrow specialization. The constituent service racket allows lawmakers to ignore big problems by fixing small ones. In becoming ombudsman -- glorified errand boys, -- incumbents build up enough good will for most to survive even a watershed year like 1992. By ending congressional careerism, term limits will encourage attention to larger legislative issues. By changing the understanding of the legislator's role, term limits are probably the most effective single reform that can be imposed on Congress. And imposed it will have to be: While great majorities of the American people support term limits, lawmakers oppose them in even larger proportions. With a career Congress, voters face a dilemma: They do not like paying taxes to Washington and hoping to get them back in the form of pork and entitlements, but as long as the system is rigged, it makes sense to vote for the incumbent to maximize your own take. Congressmen face a similar dilemma: Take the easy road to reelection or face the often difficult choices of balancing local and national interests. Take away the career mindset and both representatives and voters can make choices based on the merits of each case. ... In fact, one of the biggest benefits of non-professional legislators is that they would be unlikely to join with the bureaucrats and special interests in blowing smoke at the voters. -- Eric Felton   Censorship is a dangerous tool that is primarily used to suppress from those who would challenge oppression by the society and that state, and particularly victimizes minorities. [It] can never eliminate evil ideas, and so the best answer to bad speech is more speech. -- Feminists Against Censorship   We are not liberated until we liberate others. So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. In giving them freedom, we free ourselves. -- Marilyn Ferguson   Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom. -- Marilyn Ferguson   While outlining a not-yet-titled book about the emerging social alternatives, I thought again about the peculiar form of this movement; its atypical leadership, the patient intensity of its adherents, their unlikely successes. It suddenly struck me that in their sharing of strategies, their linkage, and their recognition of each other by subtle signals, the participants were not merely cooperating with one another. They were in collusion. It -- this movement -- is a conspiracy! … There are legions of conspirators. They are in corporations, universities, and hospitals, on the faculties of public schools, in factories and doctors’ offices, in state and federal agencies, on city councils, and the White House staff, in state legislatures, in volunteer organizations, in virtually all arenas of policy making in the country. -- Marilyn Ferguson   Complete and accurate surveillance as a means of control is probably a practical impossibility. What is much more likely is a loss of privacy and constant inconvenience as the wrong people gain access to information, as one wastes time convincing the inquisitors that one is in fact innocent, or as one struggles to untangle the errors of the errant machine. -- Victor Ferkiss   Governments have ever been known to hold a high hand over the education of the people. They know, better than anyone else, that their power is based almost entirely on the school. Hence, they monopolize it more and more. -- Francisco Ferrer   We also need to encourage Americans to become more fiscally responsible themselves. We can do this by redesigning our tax system into an expenditure tax with a single flat rate. ... We have to substantially reduce the size and scope of the federal government, fundamentally increase the role of the states in choosing their own practices, and bring decision-making closer to the people, not to unelected administrators. These steps are crucial to getting our nation on a path of fiscal, political and constitutional responsibility. -- Edwin Feulner   The best way to put more money in people's wallets is to leave it there in the first place. -- Edwin Feulner   For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. -- Richard Feynman   There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. -- Richard Feynman   Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there. -- Richard Feynman   Most people know more about their congressmen via smear campaigns than they know about their own neighbor via conversations, and a lot of people know more about Britney Spears via tabloids than they know about their own congressmen via voting booklets. Does anyone else see the problem here? -- Brock Fiant   Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished ... The social psychologist of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen. -- Johann Gottlieb Fichte   You thus have no rights at all over our freedom of thought, you princes; no jurisdiction over that which is true or false; no right to determine the objects of our inquiry or to set limits to it; no right to hinder us from communicating the results, whether they be true or false, to whomever or however we wish. -- Johann Gottlieb Fichte   Judges are but men, and are swayed like other men by vehement prejudices.  This is corruption in reality, give it whatever other name you please. -- David Dudley Field, II   Freedom of the press and also of speech, assembly, and worship can persist as social forms and legal guarantees, while at the same time their functional realities can be gradually slipping away. -- Marshall Field   If a blending of individualism and of cooperative participation is a prerequisite to a democratic solution of the problems of a society of free men, it must also be noted that an atmosphere of freedom is required if these problems are to be met constructively and as they arise. -- Marshall Field   Here I close my opinion. I could not say less in view of questions of such gravity that go down to the very foundations of the government. If the provisions of the Constitution can be set aside by an Act of Congress, where is the course of usurpation to end? The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but the stepping-stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich; a war growing in intensity and bitterness. -- Justice Stephen J. Field   When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough; I've done my duty, and I've done no more. -- Henry Fielding   There is no zeal blinder than that which is inspired with a love of justice against offenders. -- Henry Fielding   Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. -- W. C. Fields   Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom. Our own free institutions were not the offspring of our revolution. They existed before. -- Millard Fillmore   Paradoxical as it may seem, men and women who are free to pursue individualism and material wealth turn out to be the most compassionate of all. -- Financial Times   A criminal trial is not a search for truth. It is much too circumscribed for that. Rather, a trial is a formalized contest for the hearts and minds of a panel of twelve. It is a quest for a verdict in which information is selected and screened (we can almost say “processed”) before it is allowed to reach jurors. -- Phillip Finch   ...the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press was, to me at least, worth holding onto. Now it's pretty much dead, at least as the public sees things. -- Howard Fineman   I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying. -- Charles C. Finn   The world is so dreadfully managed, one hardly knows to whom to complain. -- Ronald Firbank   Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. -- First Amendment in the Bill of Rights   A man may be born a jackass; but it is his business if he makes himself a double one. -- Martin H. Fischer   The public is hedged about by so many goddam bookkeepers that no time is left in which to produce. More time is spent in carrying out garbage than in carrying in food. -- Martin H. Fischer   A machine has value only as it produces more than it consumes — so check your value to the community. -- Martin H. Fischer   Social reform aims to improve the condition of the poor by worsening the condition of the rich. -- Martin H. Fischer   Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification. -- Martin H. Fischer   A good teacher must know the rules; a good pupil, the exceptions. -- Martin H. Fischer   Despite the apparent absoluteness of the First Amendment, there are any number of ways of getting around it, ways that are known to any student of law. In general, the strategy is to manipulate the distinction between speech and action which is at bottom a distinction between inconsequential and consequential behavior. -- Stanley Fish   In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes. -- Geoffrey Fisher   I believe [that William Graham Sumner] was one of the greatest professors we ever had at Yale, but I have drawn far away from his point of view, that of the old laissez faire doctrine. I remember he said in his classroom: '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.' That amused his class very much, for he was as far from a revolutionary as you could expect. But I would like to say that if that time comes when there are two great parties, Anarchists and Socialists, then I am a Socialist. -- Irving Fisher   Thus, our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess. -- Irving Fisher   The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility. -- John A. Fisher   The persecuting spirit has its origin morally in the disposition of man to domineer over his fellow creatures; intellectually, in the assumption that one's own opinions are infallibly correct. -- John Fiske   The idea of neutrality in the speech context not only requires that the state refrain from choosing among viewpoints, but also that it not structure public debate in such a way as to favor one viewpoint over another. The state must act as a high-minded parliamentarian, making certain that all viewpoints are fully and fairly heard. -- Owen Fiss   Either you think – or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you. -- F. Scott Fitzgerald   The mission of the Gestapo expanded steadily as, from 1933 onward, “political criminality” was given a much broader definition than ever before and most forms of dissent and criticism were gradually criminalized. The result was that more “laws” or lawlike measures were put on the books than ever. -- Shelia Fitzpatrick   Socialism is the idea that violent force is an appropriate response to peaceful, voluntary exchange. -- Frank J. Fleming   Let me write the songs of a nation - I don't care who writes its laws. -- Andrew Fletcher   And I cannot see, why arms should be denied to any man who is not a slave, since they are the only true badges of liberty. -- Andrew Fletcher   Censorship in any form, represents a lack of trust in the judgment of the individual. The passage of time provides the best perspective for sorting the wheat from the chaff. -- Bruce E. Fleury   We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent. -- Abraham Flexner   There are some weapons that are just so dangerous that society has a right and the obligation even to take those weapons out of circulation. -- Jim Florio   Fate is an open road, and all you can do is put your foot on the gas and Drive, Baby Drive. -- Padraig Flynn   If the human body's obscene, complain to the manufacturer, not me. -- Larry Flynt   The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure. -- B. C. Forbes   Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. -- Malcolm S. Forbes   The Declaration of Independence, the words that launched our nation -- 1,300 words. The Bible, the word of God -- 773,000 words. The Tax Code, the words of politicians -- 7,000,000 words -- and growing! -- Steve Forbes   It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. -- Henry Ford   To do for the world more than the world does for you -- that is success. -- Henry Ford   We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship. -- E. M. Forster   Two cheers for democracy; one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. -- E. M. Forster   Procedure is the bone structure of a democratic society. Our scheme of law affords great latitude for dissent and opposition. It compels wide tolerance not only for their expression but also for the organization of people and forces to bring about the acceptance of the dissenter’s claim….We have alternatives to violence. -- Abe Fortas   Government…may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of no-religion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another… The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality… -- Abe Fortas   Dissent and dissenters have no monopoly on freedom. They must tolerate opposition. They must accept dissent from their dissent. And they must give it the respect and the latitude which they claim for themselves. -- Abe Fortas   I should, indeed, prefer twenty men to escape death through mercy, than one innocent to be condemned unjustly. -- Sir John Fortescue   Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. -- Harry Emerson Fosdick   Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting. -- Alan Dean Foster   Bankers have no right to establish a customary law among themselves, at the expence of other men. -- Sir Michael Foster   No human government has a right to enquire into private opinions, to presume that it knows them, or to act on that presumption. Men are the best judges of the consequences of their own opinions, and how far they are likely to influence their actions; and it is most unnatural and tyrannical to say, “as you think, so must you act. I will collect the evidence of your future conduct from what I know to be your opinions.” -- Charles James Fox   Opinions become dangerous to a state only when persecution makes it necessary for the people to communicate their ideas under the bond of secrecy. -- Charles James Fox   Every attempt to gag the free expression of thought is an unsocial act against society. That is why judges and juries who try to enforce such laws make themselves ridiculous. -- Jay Fox   “For your own good” is a persuasive argument that will eventually make a man agree to his own destruction. -- Janet Frame   If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. -- Anatole France   The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -- Anatole France   The world wishes to be deceived. -- Sebastian Franck   How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. -- Anne Frank   To vest a few fallible men – prosecutors, judges, jurors – with vast powers of literary or artistic censorship, to convert them into what J. S. Mill has called the “Moral Police,” it is to make them despotic arbiters of literary products. -- Jerome D. Frank   To vest a few fallible men -- prosecutors, judges, jurors -- with vast powers of literary or artistic censorship, to convert them into what J.S. Mill called the "moral police" is to make them despotic arbiters of literary products... If one day they ban mediocre books as obscene, another day they may do otherwise to a work of a genius. Originality, not too plentiful, should be cherished, not stifled. An author's imagination may be cramped if he must write with an eye on prosecutors or juries… -- Jerome D. Frank   Increasingly constructive doubt is the sign of advancing civilization. -- Jerome D. Frank   Choice has always been a privilege of those who could afford to pay for it. -- Ellen Frankfort   The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards. -- Felix Frankfurter   The requirement of “due process” is not a fairweather or timid assurance. It must be respected in periods of calm and in times of trouble; it protects aliens as well as citizens. -- Felix Frankfurter   Ours is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system – a system in which the state must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth. -- Felix Frankfurter   The mark of a truly civilized man is confidence in the strength and security derived from the inquiring mind. -- Felix Frankfurter   It is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end. -- Felix Frankfurter   Freedom of expression is the well-spring of our civilization... The history of civilization is in considerable measure the displacement of error which once held sway as official truth by beliefs which in turn have yielded to other truths. Therefore the liberty of man to search for truth ought not to be fettered, no matter what orthodoxies he may challenge. -- Felix Frankfurter   Liberty of thought soon shrivels without freedom of expression. Nor can truth be pursued in an atmosphere hostile to the endeavor or under dangers which are hazarded only by heroes. -- Felix Frankfurter   A court which yields to the popular will thereby licenses itself to practice despotism, for there can be no assurance that it will not on another occasion indulge its own will. -- Felix Frankfurter   The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes -- Justice Felix Frankfurter   Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one’s belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one’s right to believe, and obey, his own conscience. -- Viktor Frankl   Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to chose one’s attitudes in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. -- Viktor Frankl   We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. -- Viktor Frankl   The last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. -- Viktor Frankl   A statute intended to prevent unwarranted intrusions into a citizen’s privacy cannot be used as a shield for public officials who cannot assert a comparable right of privacy in their public duties. Such action impedes the free flow of information concerning public officials and violates the First Amendment right to gather such information. ... The [Illinois Eavesdropping Statute] includes conduct that is unrelated to the statute’s purpose and is not rationally related to the evil the legislation sought to prohibit. For example, a defendant recording his case in a courtroom has nothing to do with an intrusion into a citizen’s privacy but with distraction. ... The court finds the Illinois Eavesdropping Statute is unconstitutional on its face and as applied to the defendant as the statute is violative of substantive due process. -- Judge David Frankland   In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. -- Benjamin Franklin   The sun of liberty is set; you must light up the candle of industry and economy. -- Benjamin Franklin   Moderation in all things -- including moderation. -- Benjamin Franklin   That is simple. In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay no one. -- Benjamin Franklin   But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities! We are offered, by the terms of this vendue, six months' credit; and that perhaps has induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But, ah, think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him, you will make poor pitiful sneaking excuses, and by degrees come to lose you veracity, and sink into base downright lying; for, as Poor Richard says, the second vice is lying, the first is running in debt. And again to the same purpose, lying rides upon debt's back. -- Benjamin Franklin   When you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. -- Benjamin Franklin   ... as all history informs us, there has been in every State & Kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing & governed: the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the Princes, or enslaving of the people. Generally indeed the ruling power carries its point, the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever ... -- Benjamin Franklin   It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own. -- Benjamin Franklin   History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy… These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened. -- Benjamin Franklin   Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power. -- Benjamin Franklin   In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? — On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependance on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. -- Benjamin Franklin   Plough deep while sluggards sleep. -- Benjamin Franklin   Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- Benjamin Franklin   All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it. -- Benjamin Franklin   A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district - all studied and appreciated as they merit - are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty. -- Benjamin Franklin   [A]s all history informs us, there has been in every State & Kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing & governed: the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the Princes, or enslaving of the people. Generally indeed the ruling power carries its point, the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever ... -- Benjamin Franklin   Wish not so much to live long as to live well. -- Benjamin Franklin   Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. ... Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them. -- Benjamin Franklin   He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing. -- Benjamin Franklin   There was never a good war, or a bad peace. -- Benjamin Franklin   A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins. -- Benjamin Franklin   Where liberty dwells, there is my country. -- Benjamin Franklin   The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: 'that God governs in the affairs of men.' And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? -- Benjamin Franklin   Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech. -- Benjamin Franklin   Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin   Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! -- Benjamin Franklin   The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters, had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created great unemployment and dissatisfaction. Within a year, the poor houses were filled. The hungry and homeless walked the streets everywhere. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the International Bankers was probably the Prime reason for the Revolutionary War. -- Benjamin Franklin   When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. -- Benjamin Franklin   ... as all history informs us, there has been in every State & Kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing & governed: the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the Princes, or enslaving of the people. Generally indeed the ruling power carries its point, the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever ... -- Benjamin Franklin   Make yourselves sheep and the wolves will eat you. -- Benjamin Franklin   Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. -- Benjamin Franklin   The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. ... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed... -- Benjamin Franklin   ... as all history informs us, there has been in every State & Kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing & governed: the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the Princes, or enslaving of the people. Generally indeed the ruling power carries its point, the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever ... -- Benjamin Franklin   It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they are to be had on no other terms than leaving her in the full enjoyment of her rights. -- Benjamin Franklin   Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve. -- Benjamin Franklin   Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants. -- Benjamin Franklin   If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself. -- Benjamin Franklin   They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin   As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes; and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity. -- Benjamin Franklin   Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. -- Benjamin Franklin   It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part. -- Benjamin Franklin   Printers are educated in the Belief, that when Men differ in Opinion, both sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Public; and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter: Hence [printers] cheerfully serve all contending Writers that pay them well, without regarding on which side they are of the Question in Dispute. -- Benjamin Franklin   The States acceded to the Union. -- Benjamin Franklin   No man's life, liberty or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session. -- Benjamin Franklin (False)   Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of many; for, as the almanac says, in the affairs of this world men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it; but a man's own care is profitable; for, saith Poor Dick, learning is to the studious, and riches to the careful, as well as power to the bold, and Heaven to the virtuous. -- Benjamin Franklin   I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous. -- Benjamin Franklin   Little strokes fell great oaks. -- Benjamin Franklin   Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it. -- Benjamin Franklin   Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is. -- Benjamin Franklin   Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. -- Benjamin Franklin   We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. -- Benjamin Franklin   History will also give Occasion to expatiate on the Advantage of Civil Orders and Constitutions, how Men and their Properties are protected by joining in Societies and establishing Government; their Industry encouraged and rewarded, Arts invented, and Life made more comfortable: The Advantages of Liberty, Mischiefs of Licentiousness, Benefits arising from good Laws and a due Execution of Justice, &c. Thus may the first Principles of sound Politicks be fix'd in the Minds of Youth. -- Benjamin Franklin   It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority. -- Benjamin Franklin   Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. -- Benjamin Franklin   Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. -- Benjamin Franklin   Finally, there seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by War as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating. The third by Agriculture the only honest Way; wherein Man receives a real Increase of the Seed thrown into the Ground, in a kind of continual Miracle wrought by the Hand of God in his favour, as a Reward for his innocent Life, and virtuous Industry. -- Benjamin Franklin   Your creditor has authority at his pleasure to deprive you of your liberty, by confining you in gaol for life, or to sell you for a servant, if you should not be able to pay him! When you have got your bargain, you may, perhaps, think little of payment; but creditors, Poor Richard tells us, have better memories than debtors, and in another place says, creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times. The day comes round before you are aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it. Or if you bear your debt in mind, the term which at first seemed so long, will, as it lessens, appear extreamly short. Time will seem to have added wings to his heels as well as shoulders. -- Benjamin Franklin   Governor Thomas was so pleas'd with the Construction of this Stove, as describ'd in it, that he offer'd to give me a Patent for the sole Vending of them for a Term of Years; but I declin'd it from a Principle which has ever weigh'd with me on such Occasions, viz. That as we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of Others, we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously. -- Benjamin Franklin   Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West coast. -- Viktor Frankyl   Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves. -- Norm Franz   I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right. -- Frederick the Great   The truth is always the strongest argument. -- Frederick the Great   The greatest and noblest pleasure which men can have in this world is to discover new truths; and the next is to shake off old prejudices. -- Frederick the Great   Don't try to be different. Just be good. To be good is different enough. -- Arthur Freed   If you ask Americans whether they want an FBI wire tax in their phone bill, they'll say, “No.” If I ask them whether they want a feature on their telephone which allows me to find their child, if they're taken, they'll say, “Yes.” I think it's a question of perception. -- Louis Freeh   Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light? -- Maurice Freehill   Isn't it wonderful to live in a country where anyone can grow up to sleep with the President? -- Kevin Freels   The freemen of America will remember, that it is very easy to change a free government into an arbitrary, despotic, or military one: but it is very difficult, almost impossible to reverse the matter -- very difficult to regain freedom once lost. -- Freeman’s Journal   Constitutions are made of paper; Bayonets are made of steel. -- French Aphorism   There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience. -- French Proverb   I see that you, too, put up monuments to your great dead. -- Frenchman   It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness. -- Sigmund Freud   Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. -- Sigmund Freud   Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility. -- Sigmund Freud   A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity. -- Sigmund Freud   To protest free speech in the name of protecting women is dangerous and wrong. -- Betty Friedan   The right of juries to decide questions of law was widely accepted in the colonies, especially in criminal cases. Prior to 1850, the judge and jury were viewed as partners in many jurisdictions. The jury could decide questions of both law and fact, and the judge helped guide the decision-making process by comments on the witnesses and the evidence. Legal theory and political philosophy emphasized the importance of the Jury in divining natural law, which was thought to be a better source for decision than the “authority of black letter maxim.” Since natural law was accessible to lay people, it was held to be the duty of each juror to determine for himself whether a particular rule of law embodied the principles of the higher natural law. Indeed, it was argued that the United States Constitution embodied a codification of natural rights so that “the reliance by the jury on a higher law was usually viewed as a constitutional judgment.” -- Kane & Miller Friedenthal   The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations. -- David D. Friedman   Suppose one little old lady in ten carries a gun. Suppose that one in ten of those, if attacked by a mugger, succeeds in killing the mugger instead of being killed by him -- or shooting herself in the foot. On average, the mugger is much more likely to win the encounter than the little old lady. But -- also on average -- every hundred muggings produces one dead mugger. At those odds, mugging is an unprofitable business -- not many little old ladies carry enough money to justify one chance in a hundred of being killed getting it. The number of muggers declines drastically, not because they have all been killed but because they have, rationally, sought safer professions. -- David D. Friedman   Property is a central economic institution of any society, and private property is the central institution of a free society. -- David D. Friedman   If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true. -- Milton Friedman   Phil Donohue: When you see around the globe the maldistribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in underdeveloped countries, when you see so few haves and so many have-nots, when you see the greed and the concentration of power, did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism? And whether greed is a good idea to run on? Milton Friedman: Well first of all tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy. It's only the other fella that's greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The greatest achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty that you are talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it's exactly in the kind of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system. Phil Donohue: Seems to reward not virtue as much as the ability to manipulate the system. Milton Friedman: And what does reward virtue? You think the Communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? Do you think... American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of political clout? Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? You know I think you are taking a lot of things for granted. And just tell me where in the world you find these angels that are going to organize society for us? Well, I don't even trust you to do that. -- Milton Friedman   The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power. But there is also a constructive reason. The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or in literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. -- Milton Friedman   Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. -- Milton Friedman   Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. -- Milton Friedman   If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand. -- Milton Friedman   [U]nemployment is ... a side effect of the cure for inflation. -- Milton Friedman   Well first of all, tell me: Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system. -- Milton Friedman   The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power. But there is also a constructive reason. The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or in literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. -- Milton Friedman   I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there’s something wrong, pass a law and do something about it. -- Milton Friedman   A society that puts equality...ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. -- Milton Friedman   We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork. -- Milton Friedman   The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.\\ The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it's in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they'll do you harm, why isn't it all right to say you must not eat too much because you'll do harm? Why isn't it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you're likely to die? Why isn't it all right to say, "Oh, skiing, that's no good, that's a very dangerous sport, you'll hurt yourself"? Where do you draw the line? -- Milton Friedman   Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. -- Milton Friedman   To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served. -- Milton Friedman   I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my value system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal. -- Milton Friedman   Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it. -- Milton Friedman   The key insight of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another. -- Milton Friedman   Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself ... Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom. -- Milton Friedman   The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. It forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business. -- Milton Friedman   The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy. ... Roosevelt's policies were very destructive. Roosevelt's policies made the depression longer and worse than it otherwise would have been. -- Milton Friedman   It's a moral problem that the government is making into criminals people, who may be doing something you and I don't approve of, but who are doing something that hurts nobody else. Most of the arrests for drugs are for possession by casual users. Now here's somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he's caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That's the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons. -- Milton Friedman   The most unresolved problem of the day is precisely the problem that concerned the founders of this nation: how to limit the scope and power of government. Tyranny, restrictions on human freedom, come primarily from governmental restrictions that we ourselves have set up. -- Milton Friedman   Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and also the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order? -- Milton Friedman   [T]he burden of government is not measured by how much it taxes, but by how much it spends. -- Milton Friedman   One role of prohibition is in making the drug market more lucrative. -- Milton Friedman   [Trade licensing] almost inevitably becomes a tool in the hands of a special producer group to maintain a monopoly position at the expense of the rest of the public. There is no way to avoid this result. -- Milton Friedman   The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interest. -- Milton Friedman   If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies. -- Milton Friedman   One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. -- Milton Friedman   [Drug use] does harm a great many other people, but primarily because it's prohibited. There are an enormous number of innocent victims now. You've got the people whose purses are stolen, who are bashed over the head by people trying to get enough money for their next fix. You've got the people killed in the random drug wars. You've got the corruption of the legal establishment. You've got the innocent victims who are taxpayers who have to pay for more and more prisons, and more and more prisoners, and more and more police. You've got the rest of us who don't get decent law enforcement because all the law enforcement officials are busy trying to do the impossible. And, last, but not least, you've got the people of Colombia and Peru and so on. What business do we have destroying and leading to the killing of thousands of people in Colombia because we cannot enforce our own laws? If we could enforce our laws against drugs, there would be no market for these drugs. -- Milton Friedman   If, for example, existing government intervention is minor, we shall attach a smaller weight to the negative effect of additional government intervention. This is an important reason why many earlier liberals, like Henry Simons, writing at a time when government was small by today’s standards, were willing to have government undertake activities that today’s liberals would not accept now that government has become so overgrown. -- Milton Friedman   The Fed was largely responsible for converting what might have been a garden-variety recession, although perhaps a fairly severe one, into a major catastrophe. Instead of using its powers to offset the depression, it presided over a decline in the quantity of money by one-third from 1929 to 1933 ... Far from the depression being a failure of the free-enterprise system, it was a tragic failure of government. -- Milton Friedman   I think that prohibition of drugs is the most immoral program that the United States has ever engaged in. It's destroyed civil rights at home and it is responsible for thousands of deaths abroad. -- Milton Friedman   The heart of the liberal philosophy is a belief in the dignity of the individual, in his freedom to make the most of his capacities and opportunities according to his own lights…This implies a belief in the equality of man in one sense; in their inequality in another. -- Milton Friedman   Inflation is taxation without representation. -- Milton Friedman   With respect to teachers' salaries .... Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority. -- Milton Friedman   I am myself persuaded, on the basis of extensive study of the historical evidence, that... the severity of each of the contractions - 1920-21, 1929-33, and 1937-38 - is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities and would not have occurred under earlier monetary and banking arrangements. -- Milton Friedman   The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn't do a thing for the people who are unemployed. Because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn't do a thing for them. -- Milton Friedman   Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. -- Milton Friedman   The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy. -- Milton Friedman   Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. -- Milton Friedman   Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. -- Milton Friedman   Government power must be dispersed. If government is to exercise power, better in the county than in the state, better in the state than in Washington. If I do not like what my local community does, be it in sewage disposal, or zoning, or schools, I can move to another local community, and though few may take this step, the mere possibility acts as a check. If I do not like what Washington imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of jealous nations. -- Milton Friedman   Every friend of freedom... must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. -- Milton Friedman   The power to determine the quantity of money... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank. -- Milton Friedman   Central bankers always try to avoid their last big mistake. So every time there's the threat of a contraction in the economy, they'll over stimulate the economy, by printing too much money. The result will be a rising roller coaster of inflation, with each high and low being higher than the preceding one. -- Milton Friedman   A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. -- Milton Friedman   Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is now 45 percent socialist. -- Milton Friedman   The history of totalitarian regimes is reflected in the evolution and perfection of the instruments of terror and more especially the police. -- Carl J. Friedrich   O, only a free soul will never grow old! [Ger., O, nur eine freie Seele wird nicht alt.] -- Jean Paul Friedrich Richter   No mighty king, no ambitious emperor, no pope, or prophet ever dreamt of such an awesome pulpit, so potent a magic wand [television]. -- Fred W. Friendly   Some want prayer in school, some want condoms. Printing prayers on condoms satisfies nobody. -- Marshall Fritz   The Left/Right scale is a misleading way of comparing political systems. It doesn't measure anything. -- Marshall Fritz   In all countries, in all centuries, the primary reason for government to set up schools is to undermine the politically weak by convincing their children that the leaders are good and their policies are wise. The core is religious intolerance. The sides simply change between the Atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Unitarians, etc., depending whether you are talking about the Soviet Union, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, America, etc. A common second reason is to prepare the boys to go to war and the girls to cheer them on. -- Marshall Fritz   The Left/Right scale is a misleading way of comparing political systems. It doesn't measure anything. -- Marshall Fritz   Charter schools are just public schools on a slightly longer leash. A dog on a long leash is still a dog on a leash. -- Marshall Fritz   The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots. -- Erich Fromm   If you want a Big Brother, you get all that comes with it. -- Erich Fromm   If faith cannot be reconciled with rational thinking, it has to be eliminated as an anachronistic remnant of earlier stages of culture and replaced by science dealing with facts and theories which are intelligible and can be validated. -- Erich Fromm   The member of a primitive clan might express his identity in the formula “I am we”; he cannot yet conceive of himself as an “individual,” existing apart from his group. -- Erich Fromm   Vote Labor, and you build castles in the air. Vote Conservative, and you can live in them. -- David Frost   Most of the change we think we see in life Is due to truths being in and out of favor. -- Robert Frost   Freedom lies in being bold. -- Robert Frost   A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. -- Robert Frost   Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor. -- Robert Frost   Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. -- Robert Frost   A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity. -- Robert Frost   To deny freedom of the will is to make morality impossible. -- James Anthony Froude   English character and English freedom depend comparatively little on the form which the Constitution assumes at Westminster. A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts. -- James Anthony Froude   Why be thrifty when your old age and health care are provided for, no matter how profligate you act in your youth? Why be prudent when the state insures your bank deposits, replaces your flooded-out house, buys all the wheat you can grow? ... Why be diligent when half of your earnings are taken from you and given to the idle? -- David Frum   It’s amazing: some 1.5 million able-bodied people are now enjoying free housing, free meals, television, libraries, educational services, and gymnasiums, all without working and all at the expense of the American taxpayer. All they had to do to qualify for this deal: kill, rob, or rape somebody. -- David Frum   In a democracy dissent is an act of faith, like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects. -- J. William Fulbright   We must dare to think “unthinkable” thoughts… We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent… Because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless. -- J. William Fulbright   When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled. -- J. William Fulbright   The citizen who criticizes his country is paying it an implied tribute. -- J. William Fulbright   To expose a 4.2 Trillion dollar ripoff of the American people by the stockholders of the 1000 largest corporations over the last one-hundred years will be a tall order of business. -- Buckminster Fuller   Great nations are simply the operating fronts of behind-the-scenes, vastly ambitious individuals who had become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery. -- Buckminster Fuller   [S]ince the substitution of an industrial for the agricultural order of society and the conquest of the industrial by the financial, the government of the Western nations, whether monarchical or republican, had passed into the invisible hands of a plutocracy, international in power and grasp. It was, I venture to suggest, this semioccult power which, automatically, rather than calculatedly, pushed the mass of the American people into the cauldron [of World War I]. -- Major General J.F.C. Fuller   I know of no inquiry which the impulses of man suggests that is forbidden to the resolution of man to pursue. -- Margaret Fuller   To hold that Congress has general police power would be to hold that it may accomplish objects not intrusted to the general government, and to defeat the operation of the 10th Amendment, declaring that 'the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.' -- Justice Melville Fuller   The power of the state to impose restraints and burdens upon persons and property in conservation and promotion of the public health, good order, and prosperity is a power originally and always belonging to the states, not surrendered to them by the general government, nor directly restrained by the constitution of the United States, and essentially exclusive. -- Justice Melville Fuller   The framers of the constitution employed words in their natural sense; and, where they are plain and clear, resort to collateral aids to interpretation is unnecessary, and cannot be indulged in to narrow or enlarge the text; but where there is ambiguity or doubt, or where two views may well be entertained, contemporaneous and subsequent practical construction is entitled to the greatest weight. -- Justice Melville Weston Fuller   How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else. -- R. Buckminster Fuller   Real wealth can only increase. -- R. Buckminster Fuller   The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. -- R. Buckminster Fuller   The more laws the more offenders. -- Dr. Thomas Fuller   He does not believe, that does not live according to his belief. -- Dr. Thomas Fuller   The more laws the more offenders. -- Dr. Thomas Fuller   Let not thy will roar, when thy power can but whisper. -- Dr. Thomas Fuller   Curiosity is the kernal of forbidden fruit. -- Dr. Thomas Fuller   'Tis better to suffer wrong than do it. -- Thomas Fuller   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. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature (17th Edition) The Stupidest Things Ever Said by Politicians Rise up, America -- and laugh out loud at the greatest gaffes that no spin doctor could possibly fix! The 776 Even Stupider Things Ever Said Another great collection of stupidity Quotable Quotes Wit and Wisdom for All Occasions from America's Most Popular Magazine The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time You don't have to be a genius to sound like one. Here's a collection of the most profound and provocative wit and wisdom in the English language in two lines or less. 2,715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers, Writers & Raconteurs Invaluable sampler of witticisms, epigrams, sayings, bon mots, platitudes and insights chosen for their brevity and pithiness. Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts Funny Sayings A stupendous collection of quotes, quips, epigrams, witticisms, and humorous comments for personal enjoyment and ready reference. Quick Quips and Quotes; 532 Things I Wish I Had Said Quick Quips and Quotes is the Ultimate Collection of one liners. Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes The ultimate anthology of anecdotes, now revised with over 700 new entries. Quotations for Public Speakers A Historical, Literary, and Political Anthology Liberty - The American Revolution This compelling series traces the events leading up to the war and America's fight for freedom. Founding Fathers The story of how these disparate characters fomented rebellion in the colonies, formed the Continental Congress, fought the Revolutionary War, and wrote the Constitution Libertarianism: A Primer David Boaz, director of the Cato Institute, has written a simple introduction to Libertarianism inteneded to appeal to disgruntled Democrats and Republicans everywhere. The Libertarian Reader Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao-Tzu to Milton Friedman Thomas Paine: Collected Writings All the classics: Common Sense / The Crisis / Rights of Man / The Age of Reason / Pamphlets, Articles, and Letters

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