Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"Positive laws are tyrannical. One's individual rights -- whether they be life, liberty, or property -- must be sacrificed by the state in order to fulfill the positive rights of another. For example, if housing is considered a "right," then the state will have to confiscate wealth (property) from those who have provided shelter for themselves in order to house those who have not.... True justice is realized when our lives, and property are secure, and we are free to express our thoughts without fear of retribution. Just laws are negative in nature; they exist to thwart the violation of our natural rights. Government ought to be the collective organization -- that is, the extension -- of the individual's right of self-defense, and its purpose to protect our lives, liberties, and property."

~ Mark Da Vee  

"A right is not what someone gives you;
it's what no one can take from you."

~ Ramsey Clark  

"Among the natural Rights of the Colonists are these: First, a Right to Life; secondly, to Liberty; thirdly, to Property; together with the Right to support and defend them in the best Manner they can. Those are evident Branches of, rather than Deductions from, the Duty of Self-Preservation, commonly called the first Law of Nature."

~ Samuel Adams  

"The big thieves hang the little ones."

~ Czech Proverb  

"The more laws the more offenders."

~ Dr. Thomas Fuller  

"One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say:
That laws were like cobwebs,
where the small flies are caught
and the great break through."

~ Sir Francis Bacon  

"All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores."

~ William F. Buckley, Jr.  

"I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes
too much upon constitutions, upon law and upon courts.
These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes.
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women;
when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it;
no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.
While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no courts to save it."

~ Judge Learned Hand  

"Society in every state is a blessing,
but Government, even in its best state,
is but a necessary evil;
in its worst state, an intolerable one."

~ Thomas Paine  

"It makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man, or a bad man defrauded a good man, or whether a good or bad man has committed adultery: the law can look only to the amount of damage done."

~ Aristotle  

"Let us revise our views and work from the premise that all laws should be for the welfare of society as a whole and not directed at the punishment of sins."

~ John Biggs Jr.  

"To declare that in the administration of criminal law
the end justifies the means -- to declare that
the Government may commit crimes in order to secure
conviction of a private criminal -- would bring
terrible retribution."

~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis  

"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice."

~ Charles-Louis de Secondat  

"The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means."

~ Georges Bernanos  

"There is no zeal blinder than that which is inspired with a love of justice against offenders."

~ Henry Fielding