Libertarian Quotes


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“That government is best which governs least.” – Thomas Jefferson

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. – Jacob Hornberger

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. – P.J. O’Rourke

The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates. – Tacitus

If you hear me out, I believe you’ll discover that what motivates me more than any other issue is the defense of everyone’s rights. – Rand Paul

Governments harangue about deficits to get more revenue so they can spend more. – Allan H. Meltzer (1993)

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. – George Washington

When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans. – Ron Paul

The era of resisting big government is never over. – Paul Gigot

No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. – Mark Twain

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. – Robert Heinlein

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson

Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant? – Rand Paul

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. – John Hay

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. – James Bovard

The power to tax is the power to destroy. – John Marshall

As recent as the year 2000 we won elections by saying we shouldn’t be the policemen of the world, and that we should not be nation building. And it’s time we got those values back into this country. – Ron Paul

The state in which the rulers are the most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed; and the state in which they are the most eager, the worst. – Anonymous

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. – Patrick Henry

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. – unknown

The supply of government exceeds the demand. – Lewis H. Lapham

It seems almost daily that the federal government launches yet another massive spending initiative. While it may be lost upon Washington bureaucrats that money for these projects doesn’t just materialize from thin air, we Americans who have families, mortgages, car payments, tuition, and other expenses know differently. The money that Congress and the President seem to wield so nonchalantly comes from our pockets, our dreams, and our families. – Tony Perkins

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. – Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

Just because a couple of people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. – Rand Paul

If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom. – Dwight Eisenhower

[On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – C. S. Lewis

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. – Samuel Adams

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. – Alexander Tytler

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. – G. Gordon Liddy

The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced. – Frank Zappa

It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. – Charles A. Beard

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. – Edward R. Murrow

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. – Thomas Jefferson (1781)

It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself. – Justice Casey Percell

No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words “no” and “not” employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights. – Edmund A. Opitz

Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. – Henry David Thoreau

The government was set to protect man from criminals – and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government. – Ayn Rand

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. – Mark Twain

Those who expect to reap the benefits of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. – Thomas Paine

Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. – Herbert Hoover

The best government is the one that charges you the least blackmail for leaving you alone. – Thomas Rudmose-Brown (1996)

Give me liberty or give me death! – Patrick Henry

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