Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"The high-minded man
must care more for the truth
than for what people think."

~ Aristotle  

"Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet
all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread."

~ Josh Billings

"The fundamental principle is this:
No matter how worthwhile an end may be,
if there is no constitutional authority to pursue it,
then the federal government must step aside and
leave the matter to the states or to private parties.
The president and Congress can proceed only from
constitutional authority, not from good intentions alone.
If Congress thinks it necessary to expand its powers,
the Framers crafted an amendment process for that purpose.
But too often, rather than follow that process,
Congress has disregarded the limits set by the Constitution and
gutted our frontline defense against overweening federal government."

~ Robert A. Levy  

"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  

"...for that nothing doth more hurt in a state, than that cunning men pass for wise."

~ Francis Bacon  

"Absolute, arbitrary power
over the lives, liberty and property
of freemen exists nowhere in a republic,
not even in the largest majority."

~ Kentucky Declaration of Rights - Art. I, Sec. 2  

"A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil."

~ Grover Cleveland  

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state.
They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone."

~ Frederic Bastiat  

"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day.
Teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever."

~ Chinese Proverb  

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being."

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe  

"The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom -- they are the pillars of society."

~ Henrik Ibsen  

"[A]ll power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.
That government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people;
which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty and the right of acquiring property,
and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right
to reform or change their government whenever it be found adverse
or inadequate to the purpose of its institution."

~ James Madison  

"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  

"No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session."

~ Gideon J. Tucker  

"By a very conservative estimate, a hundred million people have died
at the hands of their own governments in this century.
Given that record, how bad could anarchy be?"

~ Joseph Sobran