Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"All of us can think of a book... that we hope none
of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf.
But if I have the right to remove that book
from the shelf -- that book I abhor -- then you also
have exactly the same right and so does everyone else.
And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us."

~ Katherine Patterson  

"Free inquiry requires that we tolerate diversity of opinion and
that we respect the right of individuals to express their beliefs,
however unpopular they may be, without social or legal prohibition
or fear of success."

~ Paul Kurtz  

"The weapon of the dictator is not so much propaganda as censorship."

~ Terence H. Qualter  

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

~ Benjamin Franklin  

"Alcohol didn’t cause the high crime rates of the ‘20s and ‘30s, Prohibition did. And drugs do not cause today’s alarming crime rates, but drug prohibition does.... Trying to wage war on 23 million Americans who are obviously very committed to certain recreational activities is not going to be any more successful than Prohibition was."

~ Judge James Paine  

"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits."

~ Mark Twain  

"Decriminalization would take the profit out of drugs and greatly reduce,
if not eliminate, the drug-related violence that is currently plaguing our streets."

~ Kurt L. Schmoke  

"Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an ailment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency."

~ James Madison  

"Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves."

~ Thomas Jefferson  

"Under the constitution, there was never meant to be a federal police force. Even an FBI limited only to investigations was not accepted until this century. Yet today, fueled by the federal government’s misdirected war on drugs, radical environmentalism, and the aggressive behavior of the nanny state, we have witnessed the massive buildup of a virtual army of armed regulators prowling the States where they have no legal authority. The sacrifice of individual responsibility and the concept of local government by the majority of American citizens has permitted the army of bureaucrats to thrive."

~ Dr. Ron Paul  

"For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be a falsehood, or falsehood a truth."

~ Lysander Spooner  

"All I ask is equal freedom.
When it is denied, as it always is,
I take it anyhow."

~ H. L. Mencken  

"Observe how the 'humane' attitude to crime could operate. If crimes are diseases, why should diseases be treated differently from crimes? And who but the experts can define disease? One school of psychology regards my religion as a neurosis. If this neurosis ever becomes inconvenient to Government, what is to prevent my being subjected to a compulsory 'cure'? It may be painful; treatments sometimes are. But it will be no use asking, 'What have I done to deserve this?' The Straightener will reply: 'But, my dear fellow, no one's blaming you. We no longer believe in retributive justice. We're healing you.' "

~ C. S. Lewis  

~ German Proverb  

"Goodness is the only investment that never fails."

~ Henry David Thoreau