Browsing Topic Best Libertarian Quotes

Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve. This is true even of the pious brethren who carry the gospel to foreign parts.

If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded.

That government is best which governs least.

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Abuse of power isn’t limited to bad guys in other nations. It happens in our own country if we’re not vigilant.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.

I am a Libertarian. I want to be known as a Libertarian and a Constitutionalist in the tradition of the early James Madison – father of the Constitution. Labels change and perhaps in the old tradition I would be considered one of the original Whigs. The new title I would wear today is that of Conservative, though in its original connotation the term Liberal fits me better than the original meaning of the word Conservative.

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

Immigrants used to come to America seeking freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from government. Now they come looking for free health care, free education, and a free lunch.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

Being a conservative also used to involve the concept of people being free to do whatever they want to do, as long as it doesn’t hurt somebody else. Conservatives used to be very libertarian.

War is organized murder, and nothing else.

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

My personal credo as a libertarian conservative: I think all attempts to reform your fellow-citizens or tell them how to live their lives are arrogant and tyrannical. THAT’S why I oppose Leftism. I want people to be free to manage their own lives. Reform is just authoritarianism. People are not playthings for anybody’s theories or obsessions.

It’s no accident that capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production but also in knowledge. Egoism and competition are, alas, stronger forces than public spirit and sense of duty.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism – by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves.

The American heritage was one of individual liberty, personal responsibility and freedom from government … Unfortunately … that heritage has been lost. Americans no longer have the freedom to direct their own lives … Today, it is the government that is free – free to do whatever it wants. There is no subject, no issue, no matter … that is not subject to legislation.

To disarm the people… was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.