Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"Dividing the political positions into liberal versus conservative is itself a leading example of [an old conceptual framework that organizes the world into categories and stereotypes] shared by journalists and media activists alike. As a result, it has taken decades for libertarians in the United States to break through this conventional view of the political spectrum and gain recognition as a distinct point of view. Over and above any hostility journalists had to free-market views, there was no conceptual space within their conventional wisdom for a political philosophy that combined free markets and free minds."

~ David Kelley  

"Just as any moron can destroy a priceless Ming vase, so the shallow and ill-educated people who run our schools can undermine and destroy from within a great civilization that took centuries of dedicated effort to create and maintain."

~ Dr. Thomas Sowell  

"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  

"You want to know what fascism is like? It is like your New Deal!"

~ Benito Mussolini  

"The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare."

~ Daniel Patrick Moynihan  

"What is a Constitution? It is the form of government, delineated by the mighty hand of the people, in which certain first principles of fundamental law are established. The Constitution is certain and fixed; it contains the permanent will of the people, and is the supreme law of the land; it is paramount to the power of the Legislature, and can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it."

~ William Paterson  

"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  

"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 is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."

~ John Adams  

"There's nothing I like less than bad arguments
for a view that I hold dear."

~ Daniel Dennett  

"I acknowledge, in the ordinary course of government, that the exposition of the laws and Constitution devolves upon the judicial. But I beg to know upon what principle it can be contended that any one department draws from the Constitution greater powers than another in marking out the limits of the powers of the several departments."

~ James Madison  

"To follow foolish precedents, and wink
with both our eyes, is easier than to think."

~ William Cowper  

"There is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution."

~ Alexander Hamilton  

"It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must, of necessity, expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the Courts must decide on the operation of each. So, if a law be in opposition to the Constitution, if both the law and the Constitution apply to a particular case, so that the Court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the Constitution, or conformably to the Constitution, disregarding the law, the Court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty. If, then, the Courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the Legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply."

~ John Marshall  

"The province of the Court is solely to decide on the rights of individuals...
Questions, in their nature political or which are, by the Constitution and laws, submitted to the Executive, can never be made in this court."

~ John Marshall