Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"My kind of loyalty was to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death."

~ Mark Twain  

"For in a Republic, who is 'the country?'
Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle?
Why, the Government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant;
it cannot be its prerogative to determine
what is right and what is wrong,
and decide who is a patriot and who isn't.
Its function is to obey orders, not originate them."

~ Mark Twain  

~ Mark Twain  

"Now that eighteen-year-olds have the right to vote, it is obvious that they must be allowed the freedom to form their political views on the basis of uncensored speech before they turn eighteen, so that their minds are not a blank when they first exercise the franchise. And since an eighteen-year-old’s right to vote is a right personal to him rather than a right to be exercised on his behalf by his parents, the right of parents to enlist the aid of the state to shield their children from ideas of which the parents disapprove cannot be plenary either. People are unlikely to become well-functioning, independent-minded adults and responsible citizens if they are raised in an intellectual bubble."

~ Richard Posner

"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought."

~ Simon Cameron  

"The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls --
the worst man is as strong as the best at that game;
it does not depend on what kind of paper
you drop into the ballot-box once a year,
but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber
into the street every morning."

~ Henry David Thoreau  

~ Brock Fiant  

"Nothing can so alienate a voter
from the political system as
backing a winning candidate."

~ Mark B. Cohen  

"Vote: The instrument and symbol of a free man's power
to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country."

~ Ambrose Bierce  

"It's not the hand that signs the laws
that holds the destiny of America.
It's the hand that casts the ballot."

~ Harry S. Truman  

"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion
that more than half of the people
are right more than half the time."

~ E. B. White  

"An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods."

~ Ambrose Bierce  

"To permit every interest group, especially those who claim to be victimized by unfair expression, their own legislative exceptions to the First Amendment so long as they succeed in obtaining a majority of legislative votes in their favor demonstrates the potentially predatory nature of what defendants seek through this Ordinance."

~ Sarah Evans Barker  

"In the US, voters cast ballots for individual candidates who are not bound to any party program except rhetorically, and not always then. Some Republicans are more liberal than some Democrats, some libertarians are more radical than some socialists, and many local candidates run without any party identification. No American citizen can vote intelligently without knowledge of the ideas, political background, and commitments of each individual candidate."

~ Ben H. Bagdikian