Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.more Eric Hoffer quotes |
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The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor.more Eric Hoffer quotes |
If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought -- not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.more Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. quotes |
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.more Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. quotes |
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We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We felt, we still feel, the passion of life to it's top. In our youths, our hearts were touched with fire.more Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. quotes |
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By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments. The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments, that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity.more John Hospers quotes |
Things may be cheaper over the hill, but there is a cost to the community in buying over there, instead of here.more Margaret House quotes |
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The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can ever help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population -- the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it's the fools, no matter where you go in this world, it's the fools that form the overwhelming majority.more Henrik Ibsen quotes |
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From the earliest ages of history to the present day there have never been thirteen millions of people associated in one political body who enjoyed so much freedom and happiness as the people of these United States. You have no longer any cause to fear dangers from abroad ... It is from within, among yourselves - from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power - that factions will be formed and liberty endangered ... more Andrew Jackson quotes |
Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression. This is because thoughtful, bold and independent minds are essential to the wise and considered self-government.more Justice Robert H. Jackson quotes |
We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it...No grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.more Justice Robert H. Jackson quotes |
It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.more Justice Robert H. Jackson quotes |
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.more Justice Robert H. Jackson quotes |
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.more Justice Robert H. Jackson quotes |
The priceless heritage of our society is the
unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think
as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism,
and we have no claim to it.more Justice Robert H. Jackson quotes |
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Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people' (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
The policy of American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable 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;more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
[I]f we can but prevent the government
from wasting the labours of the people,
under the pretence of taking care of them,
they must become happy.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
May [the Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
The way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to
one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly
the functions in which he is competent ...
- To let the National Government be entrusted with the defense of the
nation, and its foreign and federal relations ...
- The State Governments with the Civil Rights, Laws, Police and
administration of what concerns the State generally.
- The Counties with the local concerns, and each ward direct the interests
within itself.
It is by dividing and subdividing these Republics from the great
national one down through all its subordinations until it ends in the
administration of everyman's farm by himself, by placing under everyone
what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
That this privilege of giving or of withholding our monies is an important
barrier against the undue exertion of prerogative, which
if left altogether without control may be exercised to our great oppression;
and all history shews how efficacious is its intercession
for redress of grievances and re-establishment of rights,
and how improvident would be the surrender of so powerful a mediator.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
[T]he flames kindled on the Fourth of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. That government is best which governs least.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
We are reluctant to admit that we owe our liberties to men of a type that today we hate and fear -- unruly men, disturbers of the peace, men who resent and denounce what Whitman called 'the insolence of elected persons' -- in a word, free men. more Gerald W. Johnson quotes |
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.more Lyndon B. Johnson quotes |
China, Cuba, countries where the only freedoms are those bestowed on a whim by the state -- these countries jail their kids for burning the flag. We do not. America was created around dissent. Our freedom is founded upon the right to make known our opinion without threat of government interdiction -- Old Glory is the ultimate, tangible expression of this national belief.more Marvin Johnson quotes |
Patriotism and respect are earned through the substance and values of a nation, not by its physical symbols. By making the American flag untouchable, Congress would be sending the message that approval of our nation is an obligation not a choice.more Marvin Johnson quotes |
