Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"Capital punishment is when Washington comes up with a new tax."

~ Van Panopoulos  

"It is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects --
military, political, economic, and what not.
But in a way things are much simpler than that.
The State exists simply to promote and to protect
the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life.
A husband and wife chatting over a fire,
a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub,
a man reading a book in his own room
or digging in his own garden --
that is what the State is there for.
And unless they are helping to increase
and prolong and protect such moments,
all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police,
economics, etc., are simply a waste of time."

~ C. S. Lewis  

"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  

"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  

"We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him.... But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure."

~ Ronald Reagan  

"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."

~ Thomas Jefferson  

"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  

"We now have so many regulations that
everyone is guilty of some violation."

~ Donald Alexander  

"Eight decades of amendments... to (the) code have produced a virtually
impenetrable maze... The rules are unintelligible to most citizens...
The rules are equally mysterious to many government employees who are
charged with administering and enforcing the law."

~ Shirley Peterson  

"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them
between the millstones of taxation and inflation."

~ Vladimir Ilyich Lenin  

"By the power to lay and collect imposts Congress may impose duties on any or every article of commerce imported into these states to what amount they please. By the power to lay excises, a power very odious in its nature, since it authorizes officers to examine into your private concerns, the Congress may impose duties on every article of use or consumption: On the food that we eat, on the liquors we drink, on the clothes that we wear, the glass which enlighten our houses, or the hearths necessary for our warmth and comfort. By the power to lay and collect taxes, they may proceed to direct taxation on every individual either by a capitation tax on their heads or an assessment on their property. By this part of the section, therefore, the government has a power to tax to what amount they choose and thus to sluice the people at every vein as long as they have a drop of blood left."

~ Luther Martin  

"It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will."

~ Adam Smith  

"It is impossible to introduce into society
a greater change and a greater evil than this:
the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder."

~ Frederic Bastiat  

"The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not."

~ Friedrich August von Hayek