| Abortion is the low point in the history of America. A nation that prides itself on liberty has neglected to extend the most basic liberty to the most innocent and defenseless among us. The right to life is the right of all rights. Without the right to life, there is no liberty. In the not too distant future, I believe that the Supreme Court will rectify the worst decision it ever made. The life span of Roe v. Wade and its progeny is waning. One day we will look back on this time of history since 1973 with shame and sorrow. — Mathew D. Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have. — Ronald Reagan
A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures? — Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary the word "covet" means -- to desire (what belongs to another) inordinately or culpably -- or to feel inordinate desire for what belongs to another. Therein lie the roots of socialism -- to crave that which belongs to another. Without covetousness there would be no socialism. So, to be a practioner of socialism one is in direct defiance of the Ten Commandments. Those of the Judeo-Christian religious persuasion should pay close attention to what Americans and our government is doing these days. — JD Longstreet
A culture of entitlement without responsibility is not just a consequence of the welfare state, it is pretty much the objective of the welfare state. — Perry de Havilland
Adherence to men is often disloyalty to principles. — John Taylor of Caroline
Adolescents accept, learn from and may emulate behaviors portrayed in media as normative, attractive and without risk. — Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital in Boston/Harvard Medical School
A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot. — Robert A. Heinlein
A free and prosperous society has no fear of anyone entering it. But a welfare state is scared to death of every poor person who tries to get in and every rich person who tries to get out. — Harry Browne
After reading the arguments in the Pledge of Allegiance case before the Supreme Court, I am left with a question: If we are not 'one nation under God,' what are we? — Tom Bray, 2004
A full-page ad in the New York Times, funded by a liberal front group called DefConAmerica, screamed, "The religious right is imposing its will on all Americans....That loud noise you hear is the wall between church and state crumbling." Wait a minute. Aren't Christians allowed to have a voice in politics like everybody else, or has the First Amendment been repealed? — Charles Colson, Jul 2006
A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. — Samuel Adams (letter to James Warren, 12 Feb 1779)
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. — Gerald Rudolph Ford (1913-2006) US President
A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars. — Durant, p. 665
Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise. — President Thomas Jefferson
A group of venture capitalists is in the process of developing their own liberal radio network to counter conservative shows like Rusk Limbaugh. They feel the liberal viewpoint is not being heard — except on TV, in the movies, in music, by comedians, in magazines and newspapers. Other than that, it's not getting out! — Jay Leno, 2004
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
A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority. — Booker T. Washington
A lie left unchallenged becomes the truth. — Tom Gresham
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. — P. J. O'Rourke
All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take. — Mohandas Gandhi
Almost three-quarters of [federal agricultural] subsidies go to 20,000 multi-millionaire play farmers and blue-chip corporations. Farm subsidies are supposed to help the farm belt. But there's a map of where the subsidies go that you can find on the Internet. And judging from the beneficiaries, the farm belt runs from Park Avenue down Wall Street, out to the Hamptons, and then by yacht over to Martha's Vineyard, which they really ought to rename Martha's Barnyard. Among the farmers piling up the dollar bills under the mattress are Ted Turner, Sam Donaldson, the oil company Chevron, and that dirt-poor, hardscrabble share-cropper David Rockefeller. — Mark Steyn, 29 Sep 2007 at Hillsdale College
All Men being naturally equal, as descended from a common Parent, enbued with like Faculties and Propensities, having originally equal Rights and Properties, the Earth being given to the Children of Men in general, without any difference, distinction, natural Preheminence, or Dominion of one over another, yet Men not being equally industrious and frugal, their Properties and Enjoyments would be unequal. — Abraham Williams, An Election Sermon, 1762
All politics are based on the indifference of the majority. — James Reston
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing. — Edmund Burke
All people are born alike - except Republicans and Democrats. — Groucho Marx
Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227)....People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition. — Arthur C. Brooks (Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compasionate Conservatism Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters)
Always be suspicious of those who claim their way is the best way and are willing to force their way on the rest of us. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. — John Quincy
A majority of Americans are not resentful of this country, or running around bitter, enraged, or angry. To the extent that those who are angry are angry, it's because of the incompetence of the government they have to deal with from federal, state, to local. It's not because government's not doing enough. It's because government doesn't do enough right. — Rush Limbaugh, 17 Apr 2008
A man must not only stand for the right principles, but he must also fight for them. Those who fight for principle can be proud of the friends they've gained and the enemies they've earned. — Ezra Taft Benson
A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American. — Woodrow Wilson
America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards. — Claire Wolfe
America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to 'the common good,' but by the productive genius of free men. — Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
Americans are not victims who need handouts. Americans need the freedom to flourish. And until our president realizes this, he, and America, will lose out. — Kathryn Lopez, National Review editor, 29 Jan 2010
Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. — Alexis de Tocqueville
Americans are tolerant, generous and kind people. We all oppose bigotry and disparagement, and we all wish to avoid hurtful disregard of the feelings of others. But the debate over same-sex marriage is not a debate over tolerance. It is a debate about the purpose of the institution of marriage. — Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts
Americans, especially parents, still have deep concerns about the direction of our culture, and the health of our most basic institutions. They are concerned about unethical conduct by public officials, and discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage. — George W. Bush, US President, 31 Jan 2006
Americans have been spoiled by a generation of extravagant federal spending made possible by an orgy of irresponsible borrowing. Now the party is over and the pain of long-lasting and unpopular austerity must come. — Zach Bogue, US Army veteran
America should have a safety net but that net cannot be an excuse to destroy the private sector and allow one half of the country to live off the other. — Mark Belling, 23 Aug 2011
Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security. — Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993)
America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to "the common good," but by the productive genius of free men. — Ayn Rand
America's future is clear: Unless we start cutting spending and take control of entitlement programs, our children will go broke making good on our promises. ... The government can never spend its way out of recession. It can only get out of the way, through lower tax rates and less costly regulation, and allow private business to grow again. — Rich Tucker
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and loose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. — Abraham Lincoln
Amnesty is not a solution. It's a surrender. The rule of law must be upheld and our borders secured. — Mark Shurtleff, Utah Attorney General
A more insidious effect of minimum wages, as racists everywhere know, is that it lowers discrimination costs. Say a white and a black were equally productive and an employer prefers white workers to black workers. Since he has to pay $9 an hour no matter whom he hires, the cost of discriminating against the black worker is zero. But if it were legal for the black worker to offer a lower price, there'd be a cost to discrimination. — Walter Williams, Economist
An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. — Joseph Pulitzer
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. — Winston Churchill
An association has been formed for the express purposes of rooting out all the religious establishments and overturning all existing governments...the leaders would rule the World with uncontrollable power, while all the rest would be employed as tools of the ambition of their unknown superiors. — John Robison (1739-1805) Professor of Philosophy, Edinburgh (Proofs of a Conspiracy, p 7—1795
A national government is a government of the people of a single state or nation, united as a community by what is termed the "social compact,' and possessing complete and perfect supremacy over persons and things, so far as they can be made the lawful objects of civil government. A federal government is distinguished from a national government by its being the government of a community of independent and sovereign states, united by compact. — Black's Law Dictionary, Revised Fourth Edition, 1968, p 1176
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague. — Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) 58 BC Speech in the Roman Senate
A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.
— Benjamin Franklin
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today. — Laurence J. Peter
An enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion...will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government. — Thomas Jefferson to Chevalier de Ouis, 1814 (ME 14:130)
An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle. There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. — P.J O'Rourke (1947-2022)
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. — Mohandas Gandhi
An individualist…says: "I will not run anyone's life—nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave." — Ayn Rand
Another mission of the Church is to perpetuate the liberty and rights of men. Besides the preaching of the gospel, we have another mission, namely the perpetuation of free agency of man and the maintenance of liberty and freedom and the rights of men. — John Taylor, LDS President (Improvement Era, Apr 1941, p 222)
Another plague upon the land, as devastating as the locusts God loosed on the Egyptians, is 'Political Correctness.' — Charlton Heston (Moses)
An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation. — John Marshall (1819)
Any alleged 'right' of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right. — Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
Anybody who wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office. — David Broder
Any citizen who supports using the force of Government to advance and impose Liberal ideals in contravention to the letter and spirit of our Constitution is an enemy of Liberty and an enemy of the republic. — Hellesponte & Kerodin (Our Fathers Weep)
Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the US media. — Noam Chomsky (1928- ) US educator and linguist
Any man who is satisfied to be fed by another man rather than by the honest sweat of his own brow should be shot. — Mark Twain
Any time a man has to pay for something he does not want because of the initiating of force by the government, he is, to that degree, a slave. — RC Hoiles
Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them. — Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), 34th US President
Any truth-teller is going to be called names. That is not a good reason for being a coward instead, and meekly playing by rules designed by your enemies. — Thomas E Woods, Jr
A passionate commitment to social justice is no substitute for knowing what you're talking about. — Thomas Sowell
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
A political gaffe is when somebody says the truth. — Rush Limbaugh, 26 Aug 2010
A politician divides mankind into two classes: Tools and enemies. — Friedrich W. Nietzsche
A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force…government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one…reverses its only moral purpose. — Ayn Rand
A right delayed is a right denied. — Martin Luther King
A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. — Ramsey Clark
A "right"…means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men. — Ayn Rand
Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 5 May 1928
As a result of 'evolving standards' and 'nuanced' judicial decisions, we no longer have clear-cut rights. We have a ticket to a crapshoot in a courtroom. That ticket is worth a lot more to those with slick lawyers than to ordinary citizens. — Thomas Sowell
As it has always done, somehow Government, like some monster from the past, has again outwitted the freedom-loving masses and has convinced them that they don't need protection from Government, but from everything else. And so the age-old beast our founding fathers had tamed is once more banging at our door. — Dave Duffy
As I watch government at all levels daily eat away at our freedom, I keep thinking how prosperity and government largesse have combined to make most of us fat and lazy and indifferent to, or actually in favor of, the limits being placed on that freedom. — Lyn Nofziger [Franklyn C. Nofziger] (1924-2006) American journalist, political consultant, author, Press Secretary for President Reagan
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. — John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th US President
As long as greed, stupidity and cowardice remain a part of the human condition, there will be a constituency for Democrats. — Jack Kelly
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities. — Voltaire
A socialist is somebody who doesn't have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody. — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
A society that aims for equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty. And, a society that aims first for liberty will not end up with equality, but will end up with a closer approach to equality than any other kind of system that has ever been developed. Now, that conclusion is based on both evidence from history, across history, and also, I believe, on reasoning, which if, you try to follow through the implications of aiming first at equality, will become clear. You can only aim at equality by giving some people the right to take things from others. And what ultimately happens when you aim at equality is that A and B shall decide what C to do for D -- except that they take a little bit of a commission off along the way. — Milton Freidman, economist
A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both. — Milton Friedman,
economist
A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort…is…but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule. — Ayn Rand
As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. — Josh Billings
A survey by the Pew Research Center shows that conservatives are happier than liberals -- in all income groups. While 34 percent of all Americans call themselves 'very happy,' only 28 percent of liberal Democrats (and 31 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats) do, compared with 47 percent of conservative Republicans. This finding is niftily self-reinforcing: It depresses liberals. Election results do not explain this happiness gap... Liberals have made this the era of surly automobile bumpers, millions of them, still defiantly adorned with Kerry-Edwards and even Gore-Lieberman bumper stickers, faded and frayed like flags preserved as relics of failed crusades. To preserve these mementos of dashed dreams, many liberals may be forgoing the pleasures of buying new cars -- another delight sacrificed on the altar of liberalism. But, then, conscientious liberals cannot enjoy automobiles because there is global warming to worry about, and the perils of corporate-driven consumerism, which is the handmaiden of bourgeoisie materialism... And then there is -- was -- all that rustic beauty paved over for highways... And automobiles discourage the egalitarian enjoyment of mass transit. And automobiles, by facilitating suburban sprawl, deny sprawl's victims -- that word must make an appearance in liberal laments; and lament is what liberals do -- the uplifting communitarian experience of high-density living. And automobiles... You see? Liberalism is a complicated and exacting, not to say grim and scolding, creed. And not one conducive to happiness. — George Will, 2006
As usual, government's stumbling, bureaucratic 'solutions' exacerbate problems that free people, allowed to pursue their own self-interest, would address on their own. We'd still suffer some tough times -- it's painful when bubbles pop -- but recovery comes sooner when businesses must quickly fix their own mistakes -- or die. — John Stossel, on Congress, the US economy and government bailouts, Nov 2008
As we hear calls for a 'compassionate' response to the victims of this [hurricane] tragedy, it is important to remember that you can't be compassionate with other people's money. This difference is as simple as the difference between my reaching into my pocket for money to help someone in need and my reaching into your pocket for the same purpose. The former is charity -- the latter is not. — Michael Tanner, Sep 2005
A system that requires that I serve my fellow man in order to have a claim on what he produces is far more moral than government resource allocation....What human motivation is responsible for getting the most wonderful things done? I would say greed. When I use the term greed, I do not mean cheating, stealing, fraud, and other acts of dishonesty, I mean people seeking to get the most for themselves....Capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one's fellow man. Capitalists seek to discover what people want and then produce and market it as efficiently as possible. — Walter Williams, 14 Jul 2014
At some level, the only thing that actually matters in modern politics is controlling the narrative in which events are explained. Frame this narrative to your benefit, and the battle is at least half won. Lose the framing war, and you face long odds. — Lane Crothers, Professor, Illinois State University
A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave the mother wise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. — Thomas Jefferson
As you may have heard, the U.S. is putting together a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? Think about it -- it was written by very smart people, it's served us well for over two hundred years, and besides, we're not using it anymore. — Jay Leno, 2005
All the costs of local, State and national Government must be reduced without fear and without favor. Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their Government, they will find that their Government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest. — Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States (1872-1933)
At least when right-wingers rant, there's a point. — Ann Coulter
A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts. — James Madison (essay in the National Gazette, 2 Feb 1792)
[A] wise and frugal government...shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. — Thomas Jefferson
A wise man's heart directs him towards the right, but a foolish man's heart directs him towards the left. — Bible: Ecclesiastes 10:2
Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. — Patrick Henry
Be able to recognize when you're reading or hearing material biased to your own side. — Marilyn vos Savant
Beginning in the 1960s, liberalism, once the home of many deep thinkers, began to substitute feeling for thought and descended into superficiality. One-word put-downs of opponents' ideas and motives were substituted for thoughtful rebuttal. Though liberals regard themselves as intellectual -- their views, after all, are those of nearly all university professors -- liberal thought has almost died. Instead of feeling the need to thoughtfully consider an idea, most liberal minds today work on automatic. One-word reactions to most issues are the liberal norm... Here is a list of terms liberals apply to virtually every idea or action with which they differ: Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, Islamophobic, Imperialist, Bigoted, Intolerant. And here is the list of one-word descriptions of what liberals are for: Peace, Fairness, Tolerance, The poor, The disenfranchised, The environment. These two lists serve contemporary liberals in at least three ways. First, they attack the motives of non-liberals and thereby morally dismiss the non-liberal person. Second, these words make it easy to be a liberal -- essentially all one needs to do is to memorize this brief list and apply the right term to any idea or policy... Third, they make the liberal feel good about himself -- by opposing conservative ideas and policies, he is automatically opposing racism, bigotry, imperialism, etc. Examples could fill a book. — Dennis Prager
Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy -- you know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism. — Ann Coulter, 2006
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't. — Margaret Thatcher
Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so....Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family; and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. — Paula Ettlebrick, policy director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. — Will Rogers
Between 1995 and 2005, the prison population grew by 30 percent, meaning an additional half million criminals were behind bars, rather than lurking in dark alleys with switchblades. You can well imagine liberals' surprise when the crime rate went down as more criminals were put in prison. The New York Times was reduced to running querulous articles with headlines like "Number in Prison Grows Despite Crime Reduction" and "As Crime Rate Drops, the Prison Rate Rises and the Debate Rages. — Ann Coulter, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, 2006)
Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry. — Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Bill and I didn't come to Washington to do business as usual and compromise. — Hillary Clinton
Boy Scout Motto: 2 words.
Boy Scout Slogan: 5 words.
Boy Scout Law: 15 words.
Philmont Grace: 23 words.
Boy Scout Oath: 40 words.
The Lord's prayer: 66 words.
The 10 Commandments: 179 words.
The Gettysburg address: 286 words.
The Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words.
The US Government regulations on the sale of cabbage: 26,911 words.
No wonder we're in trouble!
Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow's too lazy to from an opinion. — Will Rogers
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status. — Laurence J. Peter, author of the "Peter Principle"
Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible. — Javier Pascual Salcedo
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. — Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) French economist, statesman, and author (The Law, 1848)
But if we are to be told by a foreign Power...what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little. — George Washington
By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. — Mother Teresa of Calcutta, National Prayer Breakfast Speech, Washington DC, 1994
By insisting on so-called balance, [liberals] want to silence those they don't agree with. They know they cannot prevail in the public debate of ideas. — George W. Bush, US President
By preventing people and companies from taking care of themselves, government feeds its own growth. — Harry Browne (1933-2006)
By the time a child finishes elementary school she will have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television. — Center for Media Education
By the time they have reached their senior year in high school, 3 out of 5 young people in the US have had sex, and 1 in 5 of those has had sex with 4 or more partners, according to the 2001 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation on the media habits of young people found that on average, 8- to 18-year-olds watch nearly 4 hrs of television a day and devote nearly 2 hrs a day listening to music. Another Kaiser report released 2 years ago said that in a sampling of programming from the 2001-02 television season, 64% of the shows included sexual content, 32% sexual behavior and 14% featured strong suggestions of sexual intercourse. — The Washington Post, 20 Jun 2005
Can it really be true, that the First Amendment can permit Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen to march on public property, advocate the extermination of people of the Jewish faith and the subjugation of blacks, while the same amendment forbids our children from saying a prayer in school? — Ronald Reagan, 1984
Capitalism and the free market is not a zero sum game. When market place exchanges occur, both parties win... until it's time to pay the tax. — Judge Andrew Napolitano
Capitalism didn't fail. Central Planning with subprime mortgages and their demand to be implemented under fear of federal investigation is what led to the meltdown. — Rush Limbaugh, commenting on the recession on 27 Jul 2010
Catholic social doctrine as I was taught it is you take care of people who need it the most. — Joe Biden, US Senator and US Vice President, During the 2008 presidential campaign rationalizing higher tax rates for people in his own income bracket (Biden's IRS returns for the years 1998 to 2007, when his income averaged $319,863 show that he spread less than 1% of his own wealth to charity - 0.14%)
Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. — James Madison
Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was wrong. You have an absolute and perfect right to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater -- and to accept responsibility for the consequences. — Alexander Hope in Hope
Christians must not confuse 'climate change' with stewardship of the earth. They are not the same thing — not even close. The latter is biblical (Gen. 2:15), whereas the former is pagan (Rom.1:25). The entire climate change movement is grounded in the worship of Gaia ('mother earth') or what is more technically known as 'Gaia Theory' or the 'Gaia Hypothesis,' which was first introduced by scientist James Ephraim Lovelock (1919-2022). It is worship of the creation rather than the Creator, which is nothing other than environmental idolatry. — Darrell B. Harrison
Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it. — Richard Lamm, former Democrat Governor of Colorado
Church members are at perfect liberty to act according to their own consciences in the matter of safeguarding our way of life. They are, of course, encouraged to honor the highest standards of the gospel and to work to preserve their own freedoms. They are free to participate in non-church meetings that are held to warn people of the threat of Communism or any other theory or principle that will deprive us of our free agency or individual liberties vouchsafed by the Constitution of the United States. — David O. McKay (Statement Concerning the Position of the Church on Communism p 477)
Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew, if the transmission should be interrupted...civilization would die, and we should be savages again. — Will and Ariel Durant in
The Lessons of History
Classical liberalism has been so thoroughly defeated by modern liberalism's statism and its coercive homogenization of cultural life that even its name has been appropriated. "Liberal" once referred to a political tradition that honored individual liberty and a cultural ethos that allowed for the best that is known and thought to emerge from the free exchange of ideas. That kind of liberalism is today judged to be a marginal counterculture, especially in elite circles. Thus classical liberals - now known as conservatives - face an uphill battle in their struggle to preserve what is best in our inheritance. — Judge Robert Bork, Dec. 8, 1999 - from a review of Betrayal of Liberalism, Kramer and Kimball, editors, published in the Wall Street Journal
Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself. — Jean Francois Rev
Climate change is no longer science. It's politics. Climate change is also about power. Power to control. It's about who gets to decide: how much energy we will have, where that energy will come from, what it will cost. It's about simulations, scenarios and monsters conjured up by computer models that should never be used to chart government policy -- especially on matters that will profoundly affect our livelihoods, living standards, life spans and dreams of a better future. So hold onto your wallets, and hope you can hold onto your homes, cars and jobs. You're about to be put on a wild political roller coaster. — Paul Driessen, TownHall.com
CNN ran a story: North Korea kids are taught to hate the USA. So? What's unique about that? That's happening right here in the United States! — Rush Limbaugh, 9 May 2008
Coercion by government, the main fear of our founding fathers, is now its most common attribute. — Philip K. Howard (The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America)
Collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of. — George Orwell
Communism was the regime for the privileged elite, capitalism the creed for the common man. — Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)
Comrades, I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how. But what is extraordinarily important is this: who will count the votes, and how. — Josef Stalin (1879-1953)
Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all. — Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) Premier of the Soviet Union
Source: addressing the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, 2-25-56
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty. — Ronald Reagan
Congress is spending us into a hole. We hear about the cost of earmarks and the Iraq war. But what about 'entitlements'? That's the government's ironic term for programs that transfer money from people who earned it to people who didn't. Entitlement? How can you be entitled to someone else's money? To finance 'entitlement' programs, the government threatens force against the taxpayers who provide the money. Why are people who favor compulsion called humanitarians, while those who favor freedom are stigmatized as greedy?... What we really need is a top-to-bottom freeing of the economy, including the health-care industry, and massive cuts in government both spending and taxes. This would leave us wealthy enough to take care of ourselves, with private charity assisting those who can't manage. — John Stossel
Consensus is not truth. — Bessman and Swazey
Conservatives are interested in pursuing policies that will better reinforce and encourage the best of our people's common culture, habits, and beliefs. Conservatism, too, is based on the belief that the social order rests upon a moral base, and that ties us together as a people is in constant need of support. — William Bennett (The De-Valuing of America, p 35)
Continued dependence on [government support] induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. — Franklin Roosevelt, 1935 State of the Union address
Corn is the answer to our food problems, not our fuel problems. The World Bank estimates that the amount of corn needed to fill the gas tank of an SUV is enough to feed one person for an entire year. That's a tradeoff the world can no longer afford. — Edwin Feulner, Heritage Foundation President, Regarding Ethanol Subsidies
Covetousness is the root of socialism. — Blaine Nay
Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe"? Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic"? Vanity asks the question, "Is it popular"? But, Conscience asks the question, "Is it right"? And, there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right. — Martin Luther King
Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. — Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court Justice
Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the First Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press. — Hugo L. Black (1886-1971) US Supreme Court Justice
Darwin has caused humanity a lot of grief, like Freud has caused humanity a lot of confusion, and like Marx is literally, single-handedly responsible for more murder than any organized criminal you could name. — Rush Limbaugh, 29 Sep 2010
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being 'society's supervisors.' Such 'supervisors' deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society. — Neal A. Maxwell
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. — Alexis de Tocqueville (Nineteenth-century historian)
Democracy depends on you. That's why our troops are willing to die for you. So how about, in honor of the American soldier, you quit making things up? — Sarah Palin to the Media, 26 Jul 2009
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. — H.L. Mencken
Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least. — Robert Byrne
Democracy is indispensable to socialism. — Vladimir Lenin
Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual. — Dr. Walter Williams
Democracy is sometimes just millions of people making the bad decisions slowly and inefficiently that a dictator could make with the stroke of a pen. — Selwyn Duke
Democracy is the road to socialism. — Karl Marx
Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse -- and things won't get worse unless they get elected. — Jeane Kirkpatrick
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. — Thomas Jefferson
Dependency is a cash crop. — John Longenecker
Did you watch the [2007] Live Earth concert against global warming? Neither did I! I was shoveling coal into my Styrofoam factory, enjoying roast penguin. — Craig Ferguson
Disagreeing with speech is one thing. Banning it and ordering citizens into reeducation classes for mocking a Liberal leader is another. — Representative Steve Stockman (R-TX) commenting on an August 2013 rodeo clown who wore an obama mask
Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos. — Cullen Hightower
Diversity usually proves to be a weakness, not a strength -- although intellectual diversity does at least have the benefit of undermining groupthink. — John Hawkins
Do not consider Collectivists as sincere but deluded idealists. The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not idealistic, no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to do good by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. — Ayn Rand
Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your honor. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse. There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press. — Mark Twainn
Don't be a sucker for the politics of envy. Envy is the dirty, demoralizing business of counting the other guy's blessings instead of your own. — Lawrence W Reed
Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. — Calvin Coolidge
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. — Mark Twain
Don't look to government or any politician to solve your problems. Government can't make you happy, healthy, wealthy or wise. — Sarah Palin
Don't you find it stunning that the Democrats are eager to go to the Supreme Court to fight for the life of an unborn chad, but you'll never see them go to the Supreme Court to fight for an unborn child? — Rush Limbaugh
Doomsday is the day we get all the government we pay for. — John Kenneth Blackwell, Mayor of
Cincinnati, Ohio
Do the people of the greatest experiment of self-government deserve their freedom when their majority consider politics and religion to be subjects that should never be discussed in polite conversation? Taboo topics? These are the two most important subjects of discussion, topics that fired up the conversations of our founders, which led to wisdom through the exchange of ideas. A culture that spurns these conversations doesn't deserve freedom. Besides, our majority are mentally enslaved anyway. They can't discuss politics or religion because they have no clue except sound-bites, but they can wax poetic about their favorite sports team or TV shows. Our cultural battles were lost long ago when conservatives took culture for granted. We should thank Tom Brokaw's "greatest generation" and all the generations thereafter for the cultural sewer we live in today. — Robert Beaudine
Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty? — Senator Ted Kennedy (1973), unlicensed, probably drunk, driver who left Mary Jo Kopechne to die in his submerged car at at Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts on the night of 19 Jul 1969
During the first Reagan administration, I participated in a number of press conferences on either a book or article I'd written or as a panelist in a discussion of White House public policy. On occasion, when the question-and-answer session began, I'd tell the press, "You can treat me like a white person. Ask hard, penetrating questions." The remark often brought uncomfortable laughter, but I was dead serious. If there is one general characteristic of white liberals, it's their condescending and demeaning attitude toward blacks. — Walter Williams
Each individual is accountable for his actions. Seems like a foreign concept these days. Government is always rushing in to try to cure society's ills, and in the process, men and women stop being held accountable. If a woman spills coffee on herself, it must be the restaurant's fault for making it too hot. If a man slips in front of a store, the store owner is to blame. And if a crazy man, shoots and kills people in a crowd, it must be the fault of Sarah Palin. Come on folks! —
Bobby Eberle, 12 Jan 2011
Ecology is science. Environmentalism is an ideology and political platform. — Alan Korwin
Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body -- the producers and consumers themselves. — Herbert Hoover
Economic planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite backed up by the brute force of government. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded. — Friedrich August von Hayek
English experience indicates that when two political parties agree about something, it is generally wrong. — GK Chesterton
'E Pluribus Unum' is no longer our national motto. These three words are: 'Do For Me.' As in:
'What will the government do for me?' — Michelle Malkin, 5 Nov 2008
Equal treatment of individuals does not mean equal treatment of behavior. That is why a polygamist is on the FBI's "most wanted" list. He is not allowed to redefine marriage to suit himself any more than the advocates of "gay marriage" are. — Thomas Sowell
Eventually you have to trust someone, or civilization has broken down. — Richard Falley, commenting on intrusive baggage searches imposed on airline pilots
Everybody's trying to micromanage this economic trouble. If they'd just get out of the way and let the market handle it, yeah, there would be a lot of pain, but there's going to be anyway. Obama's policies are only going to prolong it. — Rush Limbaugh, 24 Nov 2008
Everybody that is for abortion has already been born. — Ronald Reagan
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism. — Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts. — Bernard M. Baruch
Every man who parrots the cry of 'stand by the President' without adding the proviso 'so far as he serves the Republic' takes an attitude as essentially unmanly as that of any Stuart royalist who championed the doctrine that the King could do no wrong. No self-respecting and intelligent free man could take such an attitude. — Theodore Roosevelt
Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue; or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change and can trace its consequences; a harvest reared not by themselves but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few not for the many. — James Madison (Federalist No. 62, 1788)
Every politician is emphatically a promising politician. — GK Chesterton
Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word. — Ron Paul, US Congressman, 7 Feb 2005
Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone. — Frederic Bastiat
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. ― George Orwell, 1984
Every single thing the left has accomplished in this country, they've done incrementally. — Mark Belling, 27 Dec 2010
Every successful business (1) creates or provides something of value that (2) other people want or need (3) at a price they're willing to pay, in a way that (4) satisfies the purchaser's needs and expectations and (5) provides the business sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile for the owners to continue operation. — Josh Kaufman
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people. — John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th US President
Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction. — Pamela Geller
Exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another. — Dr. Walter Williams
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite. — Ronald Reagan
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. — Barry M. Goldwater, 1964
Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may your wishes, your inclinations, or the dictates of your passions, they cannot change the state of facts and evidence. — John Adams, Second president of the United States
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. — Aldous Huxley
Fear of truth is the father of censorship. — John N. Booth
Felons, by virtue of their deeds, are stripped of civic and other benefits as part of the penalty for their actions. I prize my privilege to vote. Giving felons a vote degrades that privilege. Democrats should stop dipping into the bottom of the barrel. — Lyle E. Holmgren (Newsweek, 28 Mar 2005, p 19)
Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. — Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them. — Frederick Douglass, abolitionist
Folks, we used to live in a country where people wanted to be successful. People wanted to be millionaires. Today, we live in a country where people want to receive a government check, and wanting to be a millionaire is said to be greedy and selfish. Well, what is more greedy and selfish than living off of other people? — Rush Limbaugh, 9 Jul 2012,
We need smarter voters.
Forced equality is tyranny. — Selwyn Duke
Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. — Douglas Casey
For every man shall bear his own burden. — Bible, Galatians 6:5
Forty years ago abortion and homosexuality weren't issues, they were unmentionables. — Joseph Sobran (2005)
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. — Bible, Ephesians 6:12
Frankly, I don't know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I'm not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we're Number One. There's no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on 'Macbeth'. The four of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don't know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words. — Columnist Burt Prelutsky, Los Angeles Times
Free cheese is only found in mousetraps. — Russian proverb
Freedom…comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force? — Ayn Rand
Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. — Ayn Rand
Freedom is based on truth, and no man is completely free as long as any part of his belief is based on error. — N. Eldon Tanner (Ensign, May 1978, page 14)
Freedom is never an achieved state; like electricity, we've got to keep generating it or the lights go out. — Wayne LaPierre
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and passed on ... or we will spend our sunset years telling our children's children what it was like in the United States when men were free. — Ronald Reagan
Freedom is not only a gift, but a summons to personal responsibility. — Pope Benedict XVI, Apr 2008
Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. — John G. Diefenbaker (1895-1979)
Free enterprise has done more to reduce poverty than all the government programs dreamed up by Democrats. — Ronald Reagan
Free enterprise works – morally and materially – because it aligns the interests of the individual and society. It's a system governed by an "invisible hand" that rewards the creation of value, and by an "invisible foot" that punishes complacency, especially at the top. — Mike Lee, US Senator
Free speech isn't free speech unless it applies to those with whom you disagree....Fight for free speech, even if you find it offensive -- you have many rights, but the right to not be offended isn't among them. — Lady Liberty
From each according to his means and to each according to his needs? If you enforce that principle through government, the result will be fewer people with means and more people with needs. — Selwyn Duke
Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything. — Frank Dane
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. — Mark Twain
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. –- PJ O'Rourke
God created the Heavens and the Earth, and on the sixth day He made man. On the seventh day God rested, and the Devil made liberals. — Selwyn Duke
God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity in the cloud, the oil in the earth. He left the rivers unbridged and the forests unfelled and the cities unbuilt. God gives to man the challenge of raw materials, not the ease of finished things. He leaves the pictures unpainted and the music unsung and the problems unsolved, that man might know the joys and glories of creation. — Thomas S. Monson (Ensign, Mar 1988)
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated without His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever. — Thomas Jefferson, 1781 (Inscription on a wall of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC)
Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. — Daniel Webster
Government doesn't solve problems; it subsidizes problems. — Ronald Reagan
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. — Thomas Paine
Government failure always justifies more government. — James Taranto
Government has no resources of its own. Government spending is no less than the confiscation of one person's property to give it to another to whom it does not belong. — Dr. Walter Williams
Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. — Dr. Walter Williams
Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.... We've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of government himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price. — Ronald Reagan
Government jobs don't pay the bill; they are the bill. — Roy Blunt, US Congress
Government programs didn’t arise because the people demanded them or because the free market was unable to provide needed services. They arose because the politicians found them to be a convenient way to buy votes with other people’s money, a convenient way to enlarge their own power, a convenient way to reward their political cronies, and a convenient way to keep people dependent on government. ― Harry Browne
Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives. — Ronald Reagan
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. — Ronald Reagan
Government welfare programs -- if they should exist at all -- should be limited to helping those who really need assistance. They should be safety nets, not dragnets that capture everyone. — Mark Skousen (Econopower, p 55)
Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly "reforming" their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The fact that they're always busy "reforming" is a implicit admission that they didn't get it right the first 50 times. —
Lawrence Reed
Heaven is purpose, principle, and people. Purgatory is paper and procedure. Hell is rules and regulations. — Dee Hock
Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil. — Doug Patton
Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified. — G. K. Chesterton
Greed isn't about wanting to keep what you've earned; it's about wanting goods, products or services that you aren't paying for or haven't earned. — John Hawkins
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves. — T.S. Eliot
He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. — Proverbs 10:4
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. — The Declaration of Independence, 1776 (History certainly repeats itself)
Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against. — W.C. Fields
Helping the poor through the government is like feeding the sparrows through cows. — Walter Williams, Economist
Here's Williams' roadmap out of poverty: Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen. Among both black and white Americans so described, the poverty rate is in the single digits. — Walter Williams, Economist
He's qualified, but he's out of the mainstream....He's stuck in the past. He believes the Constitution means what it says. — Charles Schumer, Liberal Democrat US Senator, making the case for a "no" vote on confirming Samuel Alito for the US Supreme Court, 2005
He who does not bellow out the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers. — Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done. — Leonardo da Vinci
History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy....These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened. — Benjamin Franklin
Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them. — Thomas Jefferson
How can there possibly be liberty and justice for all, when, in the name of justice, people claim rights to income, food, housing, education, health care, transportation, ad infinitum? We can't. Positive rights to receive such things, absent an obligation to earn them, must violate others' liberty, by taking some of their income without their consent. They are really just wishes, convertible into benefits for some only by employing the government to violate others' rights not to have what is theirs taken. — Pepperdine Professor Gary Galles, 2004
How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation? — James Madison (Federalist No. 41, 1788)
How does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal; apartheid is legal; Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist purges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people. — Walter E. Williams, All It Takes is Guts: A Minority View
How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin. — Ronald Reagan
How many times have we heard "free tuition," "free health care," and free you-name-it? If a particular good or service is truly free, we can have as much of it as we want without the sacrifice of other goods or services. Take a "free" library; is it really free? The answer is no. Had the library not been built, that $50 million could have purchased something else. That something else sacrificed is the cost of the library. While users of the library might pay a zero price, zero price and free are not one and the same. So when politicians talk about providing something free, ask them to identify the beneficent Santa Claus or tooth fairy. — Walter Williams
I am at liberty to vote as my conscience and judgment dictates to be right, without the yoke of any party on me...Look at my arms, you will find no party hand-cuff on them. — Davy Crockett (1786-1836) American frontiersman
I am concerned for the security of our great nation, not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within. — General Douglas MacArthur
I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple. Were we directed from Washington when to sow, when to reap, we should soon want bread. — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. — Benjamin Franklin,
"On the Price of Corn, and Management of the Poor," London Chronicle, Nov 1766
I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. — Thomas Jefferson
I am not part of the problem. I am a Democrat. — Al "Non Sequitur" Gore
I attended a second lecture on Socialism, by Mr. Finch; and after he got through, I made a few remarks... I said I did not believe the doctrine. — Joseph Smith (History of the Church 6:33)
I became a conservative by being around liberals and I became a libertarian by being around conservatives. — Greg Gutfeld
I believe in PAYGO, If I start a new program I will pay for it. If I intend to cut taxes for the middle class, then we're going to close some of the tax loopholes for corporations and the wealthy that are not working for shared prosperity. So we're going to have fiscal discipline. — Barack Obama, 27 Mar 2008 (Yeah. Right.)
I believe it is appropriate to have an overrepresentation of factual presentations on how dangerous it [global warming] is, as a predicate for opening up the audience. — Al Gore warming to Grist Magazine
I believe the best social program is a job. — Ronald Reagan
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations. — James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution (6 Jun 1788)
I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy -- but that could change. — Al Gore, 22 May 1998
I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve such spending] would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded. — Franklin Pierce (1804-1869), US President
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. — James Madison (1751-1836), US President, Father of the US Constitution, in disapproval of Congress appropriating $15,000 to assist some French refugees in 1792
I certainly think the free-market has failed. — Hillary Clinton, 4 Jun 2007
I could not say less in view of questions of such gravity that go down to the very foundations of the government. If the provisions of the Constitution can be set aside by an Act of Congress, where is the course of usurpation to end? The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but the stepping-stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich; a war growing in intensity and bitterness. — Justice Stephen J. Field (1816-1899) US Supreme Court Justice
I could totally win [President Bush] in a mind contest... Like if it was like a psychic thing and he was like, okay Rosanne, bring your best powers against my best powers, even though he's like totally world-wide connected, and I'm not so world-wide, I could so totally still win on account of like being female, being a grandmother and like, you know, being intelligent. I could totally win. — Actress/comedian Roseanne Barr putting her intelligence on display, Oct 2005
Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most powerful political weapons man has ever forged. — Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980)
I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire. — Winston Churchill (House of Commons, 1927)
I'd like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living. — John Wayne
I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office. — Milton Friedman
I do not believe that Washington should do for the people what they can do for themselves through local and private effort. — John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th US President
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it. — Thomas Jefferson
I don't blame only politicians. For the most part, they're only the instruments of a people who have growing contempt for our Constitution. You say, "Hold it, Williams. Now you've gone too far!" Check it out. How many votes do you think a James Madison-type senatorial candidate would get if his campaign theme was something like this: "Elect me to office. I will protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Because there's no constitutional authority for Congress spending on the objects of benevolence, don't expect for me to vote for prescription drugs for the elderly, handouts to farmers and food stamps for the poor. Instead, I'll fight these and other unconstitutional congressional expenditures." I'll tell you how many votes he'll get: It will be Williams' vote, and that's it. — Walter Williams, Economist
I don't know that I subscribe to the notion that power corrupts, but I do know that it releases inhibitions, causing one's true colors to shine through. — Selwyn Duke
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the acts. — Will Rogers
I don't think it's about more gun control. I grew up in the South with guns everywhere and we never shot anyone. This [shooting] is about people who aren't taught the value of life. — Samuel L Jackson, actor
I don't want anybody to be forced to buy a car they don't want or forced to use ethanol. Not in the 'land of the free and home of the brave' where we have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. — Rush Limbaugh, 24 Nov 2008
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. — Congressional Oath of Office (Yeah, right!)
I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. — Bible, 1 Timothy 2:1-5
[I]f adultery has always been understood as involving a man and a woman, how much more so has marriage always been an opposite-sex institution? — Jeff Jacoby
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. — George Orwell (1903-1950)
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be. — Thomas Jefferson
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too. — Somerset Maugham
If any would not work, neither should he eat. — 2 Thessalonians 3:10
I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form. — Calvin Coolidge, US President, 1925
If capitalism screws up, such as these banks, you get more government. But when government screws up, you don't get more capitalism. You get more government! — Rush Limbaugh, 17 Apr 2009
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children establishing in like manner schools throughout the union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of congress. — James Madison, issuing a warning about an unrestrained Congress in 1798
I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds. I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution. — President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), US President
If everyone is a victim, who's the victimizer? — Selwyn Duke
I feel that the greater destroyer of peace today is abortion. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. — Mother Teresa at the National Prayer Breakfast, 3 Feb 1994
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. — Anatole France
If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute. — Thomas Paine (Rights of Man, 1791)
[I]f industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out. — James Madison (Speech to Congress, 1789)
If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead. — Gelett Burgess
If I studied all my life, I couldn't think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress. — Will Rogers
If it can't be grown it must be mined! — Author Unknown
If it's only about power, you lose. — Dick Armey, Former US House Majority Leader
If Karl, instead of writing a lot about capital, had made a lot of it, it would have been much better. — Karl Marx's mother (attributed, but not verified)
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. — George Orwell (1903-1950)
If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave. — John Adams,
Rights of the Colonists, 1772
If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making? — Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. — James Madison, Federalist no. 51
If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn. — Dr. Walter Williams
If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all. — Will Durant (1885-1981)
If politics were like baseball, the Republicans would be smart to trade Senator John McCain to the Democrats for Senator Joseph Lieberman, even if they had to throw in a future draft choice. — Thomas Sowell
If President Bush were as intent on cracking down on illegal immigration as he is on insulting conservatives, we'd have a secure border by now. — Brian Darling, Heritage Foundation Senate Relations Director
If private companies won't put up their money, why should the taxpayers? — President Ronald Reagan when he outlawed Federal funding of stem-cell research
If 'pro' is the opposite of 'con' what is the opposite of 'progress'? — Paul Harvey
I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves. — Harriet Tubman
If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor. — Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
If someone says they shouldn't have to follow regulations because they're making food in their home, I'd say, "Why is your home so safe that it doesn't need that level of oversight and control?" — Robert Harrington, Director of the Casper-Natrona County Health Department, Wyoming on the state's decision to relax laws relating to the sale of "non-hazardous foods" like homemade jam and brownies (AP, 28 Jun 2010)
If the citizenry does not punish liars, then it cannot expect the truth. — James Bovard
If the government is the answer, it must have been a stupid question. — Author Unknown
If the Jewish reader forgets the seven million Christians murdered by the Nazis, along with the Jews, then not only will he let five million Jews die in vain, but has betrayed the Jewish heritage of compassion and justice. — Max I. Dimont (Jews, God and History)
If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of lawyers in the first place. — Charles Montagu
If the next centennial does not find us a great nation, it will be because those who represent the enterprises, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces. — James A Garfield
If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees. — Bill Clinton, US President, 12 Dec 1993
If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all,...it will be to meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. This is not a permissible state objective. — US Supreme Court on displaying the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, schools, and parks (Stone v. Graham, 1980)
If there is any Hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it. — Henry David Thoreau (Slavery in Massachusetts)
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. — Thomas Paine
If tomorrow the theory of manmade global warming were proved to be a false alarm, one might reasonably expect a collective sigh of relief from everyone. But instead there would be cries of anguish from vested interests. About the only thing that might cause global warming hysteria to end will be a prolonged period of cooling... or at least, very little warming. We have now had at least six years without warming, and no one really knows what the future will bring. And if warming does indeed end, I predict that there will be no announcement from the scientific community that they were wrong. There will simply be silence. — Roy Spencer, University of Alabama climate scientist
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal. — Emma Goldman
If we Americans are so rich and so smart, why can't we treat our citizens as well as the Finns do? They pay nothing for education at any level, including medical school or law school. Their medical care, which contributes to an infant mortality rate that is half of ours and a life expectancy greater than ours, costs relatively little....Unemployment benefits are good and last, in one form or another, indefinitely. — Robert Kaiser, former editor of The Washington Post (Where does the money come from for all this "free stuff" -- heaven?)
If we become a people who are willing to give up our money and our freedom in exchange for rhetoric and promises, then nothing can save us. — Thomas Sowell
If we buy into the notion that somehow property rights are less important, or are in conflict with, human or civil rights, we give the socialists a freer hand to attack our property. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy. — Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, 1802
If we care about our remaining liberties we must at some point let politicians and bureaucrats know we will not tolerate further encroachment on our God-given rights to liberty. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
If we could have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated and healthy children, a thousand other problems of government would vanish. We would assure ourselves of healthier minds, more vigorous bodies, to direct the energies of our nation to greater heights of achievement. — Herbert Hoover, US President
If we look to benefits only, we'll do darn near anything because there's always a benefit. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that there were 43,443 highway fatalities in 2005. If we had a maximum speed law of 15 mph, the death toll wouldn't be nearly as high, probably not even as high as 500. You say, "Williams, that's a crazy idea!" You're right, but let's not call it crazy; it's more accurate to say: saving some 43,000 lives aren't worth the cost and inconvenience of a 15 mph speed limit. — Walter Williams, Economist
If we're ignorant, we won't even know when government infringes on our liberties. Moreover, we'll happily cast our votes for those who'd destroy our liberties. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
If we suffer tamely an attack on our liberty, we encourage it and involve others in our doom. — Samuel Adams, 1771
If we keep treating our most important values as meaningless relics, that's exactly what they'll become. — Michael Josephson
If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave. — John "Birdman" Bryant (1943-2009)
If you believe in equal rights, then what do "women's rights," "gay rights," etc., mean? Either they are redundant or they are violations of the principle of equal rights for all. — Dr. Thomas Sowell, Nov 2013
If you came and you found a strange man... teaching your kids to punch each other, or trying to sell them all kinds of products, you'd kick him right out of the house, but here you are; you come in and the TV is on, and you don't think twice about it. — Jerome Singer
If you deprive a man of his right to fail in the righteous use of his property, you also deprive him of his right to succeed. If you remove from a man his right to "go to hell," you likewise remove his free agency to go to heaven. Satan's entire philosophy is based on a "something for nothing" philosophy: salvation without effort – a free gift. — Howard W. Hunter (BYU Devotional, 8 Mar 1966)
If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. — Mark Twain
If you ever injected truth into politics you would have no politics. — Will Rogers
If you have a right to someone else's approval, then they do not have a right to their own opinions and values. You cannot say that what 'consenting adults' do in private is nobody else's business and then turn around and say that others are bound to put their seal of approval on it. — Thomas Sowell
If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace....May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen. — Samuel Adams
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there would be a shortage of sand. — Attributed to Milton Friedman
If you're going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you, but the bureaucracy won't. – Admiral Hyman G. Rickover
If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. – Malcolm X
If you view abortion as somehow more sanitized and less vile than racism, you've been conditioned to accept the dominant paradigm our secular world expects you to conform to in order to neutralize you. Christianity condemns abortion & racism because all humans bear God's image. — Andrew T. Walker
If you want to make a conservative angry, tell him a lie. If you want to make a liberal angry, you tell 'em the truth. It works every time it's tried. — Rush Limbaugh, Nov 2010
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 D. Eisenhower
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves. — Sir Winston Churchill
I had no idea that after I left in 1986 they would evolve into a band of scientific illiterates….Clearly, my former Greenpeace colleagues are either not reading the morning paper or simply don't care about the truth. — Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder, writing in Canada's National Post (October, 2001)
I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents. — Sir Winston Churchill
I [have] concluded that the harm done by...hucksters is minor compared to the scams perpetuated by politicians. They promise fiscal responsibility. Then they spend like drunken sailors. They promise to cure poverty. Then their programs make it worse. They promise to create jobs. But then they make life so complex and unpredictable that entrepreneurs are afraid to create jobs. Almost none of their promises come true. But few people approach government with the skepticism it deserves....[B]eing gullible about government hurts everyone. Government is force. When it sells us bunk, we have to pay even if we don't believe in or want it. If we don't pay up, men with guns will make sure we do. It's good to be skeptical. It's really good to be skeptical about government. — John Stossel, 15 Dec 2010
I have never known a word to become absolute dogma, without a speck of evidence, the way "diversity" has. — Thomas Sowell
I have only one thing to say about the idea that Hispanics are reluctant to learn English: I've never been asked if I wanted to press two for German. — Selwyn Duke
I have seen gross intolerance shown in support of tolerance. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
I have seen the end of this nation and it is terrible...I will tell you in the name of the Lord that a secret band will sap the life of this nation. — Moses Thatcher (1842-1909), Quorum of Twelve Apostles, In an address in Franklin, Idaho (Franklin Ward Historical Record, 16 Jun 1882)
I have talked face to face with the godless communist leaders. It may surprise you to learn that I was host to Mr. Khrushchev for a half day when he visited the United States, not that I'm proud of it. I opposed his coming then, and I still feel it was a mistake to welcome this atheistic murderer as a state visitor. But, according to President Eisenhower, Khrushchev had expressed a desire to learn something of American Agriculture -- and after seeing Russian agriculture I can understand why. As we talked face to face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his and all other grandchildren will live under freedom he arrogantly declared in substance: 'You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you'll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.' And they're ahead of schedule in their devilish scheme. — Ezra Taft Benson, Devotional Address at Brigham Young University, circa 1968
I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the UD Congress. — Ronald Reagan (A thousand pages, at least. And that's before the bureaucrats get started with their regulations to implement the Ten Commandments.)
I hesitate to say anything nice about him, for fear that it would be used against him. And that's a terrible commentary on the state of politics and the political climate today. — John McCain, Republican Senator of Arizona, on Senator Joseph Lieberman, Democrat Senator of Connecticut
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the
people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their
control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but
to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses
of constitutional power. — Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Charles Jarvis,
1820
I'm not a Republican because I grew up rich. I'm a Republican because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life waiting for the government to come and rescue me.
— Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas, Feb 2009
I'm not sure I want popular opinion on my side - I've noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts. — Bethania McKenstry
Impeach any elected official who votes for a bill without reading it. Right, they would never be able to get anything done if that was a rule. Fine. Voting for a bill without reading it and understanding what it does, and being unable to explain the vote, in detail, to the electorate -- is malfeasance, violation of oath of office and grounds for removal. Everyone knows you do not sign anything you haven't read. That goes double for Congress. Yes it would slow things down. Good. Maybe the biggest part of the problem is that our electeds don't write these things -- and don't even know who does the writing! — Alan Korwin
I'm so glad there's California. It's kind of a big petri dish for the rest of the nation. Every time someone has a stupid idea, California tries it out, mercifully sparing the rest of us. — Tim Slagle
In 2005, Americans donated more than $95 billion to the developing world. That is almost four times what the U.S. government gives in foreign aid and many times more than what Europeans give in public and private donations, according to a study by the Hudson Institute, to be released next month. — Washington Times (Private charity outpaces, outperforms foreign aid)
In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions, and interests dictate. — Ayn Rand
In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility. — Norman Cousins
In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves. — Dr. Walter Williams
In a society in which it is a moral offense to be different from your neighbor your only escape is to never let them find out. — Robert A. Heinlein
In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend. — Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 31, 1788)
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote…the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities. — Ayn Rand
Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law. — Ayn Rand
Individuals are responsible for their own actions. Government cannot and should not protect us from ourselves. — Dr. Ron Paul, Congressman
Inequality exists as long as liberty exists. It unavoidably results from that very liberty itself. — Alexander Hamilton
In free countries, every man is entitled to express his opinions and every other man is entitled not to listen. — G. Norman Collie
In liberal land, the thinking goes like this: If a majority of Americans seek a change in direction they must be denied by the courts for their own good. But when a tiny sliver of the minority seeks change it must be granted them by a handful of judges for the nation's good. This phenomenon used to be referred to as the 'tyranny of the minority', but is now simply known as the New York Times editorial policy. — Lisa Fabrizio
In most modern politics, unfortunately, it may truly be said that those who make history never know history. — GK Chesterton (1874-1936)
In my estimation, more misery has been created by reformers than by any other force in human history. Show me someone who says, "Something must be done!" and I will show you a head full of vicious intentions that have no other outlet. What we must strive for always is to find the natural flow and go with it. — Frank Herbert (Dune)
In one sixth of British households, not one person works. One fifth of British children are raised in households where nobody works. — Mark Steyn, 2 Sep 2009
In order to avoid poverty, just do three things: finish high school, marry before having a child, and don't have a child until you're at least twenty years old. Only 8 percent of people who do all three of those things wind up poor, but a staggering 79 percent of those who fail to do them wind up in poverty. — Bernard Goldberg, Arrogance, p 12
In our attempt to blame poverty on prejudice, we have taught the poor to be prejudiced against the basic values necessary to sustain a free and civil society....We've taught them there are no real absolutes to the human condition -- except perhaps that the highest value in life is to acquire things. — Star Parker
In San Francisco, a chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood testified that she chooses methods of abortion that violate the new law because they are among the safest options. Asked by a government lawyer whether the fetus exhibits pain during the procedures, Maureen Paul replied, 'I have no idea what you mean.' — James Taranto
In spite of popular myths about capitalism oppressing the poor, the poor are worse off in those things provided by government, such as schooling, police protection, and justice. There are more good cars in the ghettos than good schools.
— David D. Friedman,
The Machinery of Freedom [1973]
In such a performance you may lay the foundation of national happiness only in religion, not by leaving it doubtful "whether morals can exist without it," but by asserting that without religion morals are the effects of causes as purely physical as pleasant breezes and fruitful seasons. — Benjamin Rush (letter to John Adams, 20 Aug 1811)
In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. — Mark Twain
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the days of the Founding Fathers, discrimination would have been the mark of a well-rounded, intelligent citizen. "Discrimination" meant "discernment" -- an ability to make nice judgments about what was good, what was bad, what was mediocre, what was fake, what was genuine. Today it means "being unpleasant to women, ethnic minorities, gay people, and the disabled." So it is that another fine and quintessentially conservative concept has been hijacked and corrupted by the liberal Left to advance its agenda of resentment, bitterness, and slavering entitlement. — James Delingpole
In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against such men because of creed or birthplace origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American and nothing but an American. — Theodore Roosevelt
In the United States there is no phenomenon more threatening to popular government than the unwillingness of newspapers to give the facts to their readers. — Nelson Antrim Crawford
In the United States today, the average individual, whoever he is, works from January to...late June to provide funds that the government controls. That is to say, government at one level or another, federal, state, or local -- directly through spending and taxes, and indirectly through rules, regulations, and mandates -- controls half the national income and can determine how that is spent. We're 50 percent socialist. Now, is that half freedom or half slavery? Neither of those statements would be wrong. We're partly free and we're partly enslaved. — Milton Friedman, Economist
In the West, a militant secularism has seized state power and the de-Christianization of America is well advanced. In the East, we had best recognize that the rage, militancy and intolerance so often on display are the unmistakable marks of a rising, not a dying, faith. — Pat Buchanan, Nationally Syndicated Columnist, Sep 2006
In this era of big government, we sometimes forget that many of our proudest achievements as a nation came not through government, but through private citizens, individuals whose genius and generosity flourished in this climate of freedom. — Ronald Reagan
In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country, and two words have been added to the Pledge of Allegiance, "under God." Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer, and that would be eliminated from schools, too? — Red Skelton, 1969
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. — Thomas Jefferson
I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. — Michael Crichton
Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors. — Thomas Henry Huxley, 1825-1895
I see abortion as a violent act. All other violence is handled at the state level. So don't try and act like I'm less Pro-Life than you are. — Dr. Ron Paul to Senator Rick Santorum during presidential debate, Jan 2012
I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek not for honor of the world, but for the glory of my God, and the freedom and welfare of my country. — General Moroni (Book of Mormon, Alma 60:36)
I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be new views. — Abraham Lincoln
I stand by all the misstatements that I've made. — Vice President Al Gore to Sam Donaldson, 17 Aug 1993
I take exception to folks saying that Obama and Pelosi are spending like drunken sailors. When I was a drunken sailor, I quit spending when I ran out of money. — Don Tracy, 2010
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here. — Patrick Henry, 1765
It costs ten times more to govern us than it used to, and we are not governed one-tenth as good. — Will Rogers
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctively native American criminal class - except Congress. — Mark Twain
It feels like coming home. — Bill Clinton, while strolling through Harlem, Feb 2001 -- with his Secret Service escort
It has been pointed out that the days of democracy are numbered once the belly takes command of the head. When the less affluent feel the urge to break a commandment and begin to covet that which their more affluent neighbors possess, they are tempted to use their votes to obtain instant satisfaction. Then equal opportunity at the starting line becomes an extended guarantee of at least a tie at the finish of the race. Under the euphemism 'the greatest good for the greatest number,' we destroy a system which has accomplished just that and move toward the managed economy which strangles freedom and mortgages generations yet to come. — Ronald Reagan
I think at core he's [Bill Clinton] an honest person....I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things. — Dan Rather, CBS News anchorman, 18 May 2001
I think government support for biomass energy is a measure of both the corruption and relative stupidity of our elected officials. That, in turn, is evidence of two problems. First off, the average voter isn't bright. Second, the average voter has little incentive to be well informed about what elected officials believe and do. — Randall Parker, 26 May 2008
I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched. — Hillary Clinton, 2 Sep 2005
I think it would be a mistake to make the military a 'first responder' in natural disasters, but FEMA should be reorganized along military lines. And the head of FEMA should always be either a National Guard general or a Coast Guard admiral. There are some jobs which require adult supervision. Too many of these are held by political hacks. — Jack Kelly, Oct 2005
I think most newspaper men by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, they can hardly be good newspapermen. — Walter Cronkite
I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. — Benjamin Franklin (1766)
I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse. — Milton Friedman
I think there is one more issue here -- that of the left-wing indoctrination of children to be subservient and not stand up to defend each other, much less themselves, from attack. You can readily see this philosophy being expounded on the national campaign trails by those who don't seem to have the clear vision of evil-versus-good and the moral obligation to stand between evil and the innocent; the tendency to define all violence as bad, such that when a country defends itself against suicide bombing of innocent children, it becomes morally equivalent in their minds to targeting a terrorist in his car; the argument that because America did not find a nuclear bomb in Saddam's closet the mass graves of innocent Iraqis don't qualify as sufficient motivation for defense from the outside. This is, in my opinion, a concerted effort to morally enfeeble our children -- and that will not only weaken our country. It will make the world more available for evil to have a triumphant reign. — Dr. Laura Schlessinger
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. — Thomas Jefferson
It is a dangerous concept that men of the armed forces must owe their primary allegiance to these temporary occupants of
the White House, instead of to the country and the Constitution to which they have sworn to defend. — General Douglas MacArthur (1880 - 1964)
It is a decision of the Supreme Court. So this is almost as if God has spoken. — Nancy Pelosi reacting to the Supreme Court's shameless yet shameful "Kelo" decision on eminent domain (No further word on Ms. Pelosi's condition at this hour)
It is amazing how many people act as if the right to free speech includes the right to be free of criticism for what you say -- which means that other people should not have the same right to free speech that they claim for themselves. — Thomas Sowell
It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to turn their prejudices into laws. — Thomas Sowell
It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. — Mother Teresa, speaking on abortion
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. — Voltaire (1694-1778) French Philosopher and Author
It is difficult to free fools from the chains the revere. — Voltaire (1694-1778) French Philosopher and Author
It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing, The people who count the votes decide everything. — Josef Stalin
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? — Thomas Jefferson (1781)
It is God's responsibility to forgive Bin Laden. It is our responsibility to arrange the meeting. — Author Unknown
It is hard to think of any word that has confused more issues than the word "rights." Nowadays, almost anything that anybody wants is called a "right" -- a magic word that does away with the need for evidence, logic or even common sense. — Thomas Sowell
It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. — William Gibbs McAdoo
It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil. — Fredrich von Hayek, Nobel Laureate in Economics, The Constitution of Liberty
It is inevitable, that eventually the people will demand absolute security from the state... And absolute security is absolute slavery. — Taylor Caldwell
It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government. — Mercy Warren (History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, 1805)
It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a
'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance. — Murray Rothbard
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard for their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend
chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens. — Adam Smith
It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error. — US Supreme Court in American Communications Association v. Douds
It isn't best that we all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races. — Mark Twain
It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it. — Al Gore
It isn't that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so much that isn't so. — Ronald Reagan
It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem. — GK Chesterton (1874-1936)
It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. — James Monroe
It is our duty to concentrate all our influence to make popular that which is sound and good, and unpopular that which is unsound. — Joseph Smith (History of the Church, 5:286)
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. — David Hume
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
It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton (The Cleveland Press, 1 Mar 1921)
It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government. — Thomas Paine
It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. — H.L. Mencken
It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data. And I am telling you Global Warming is a nonevent, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won't believe me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it. — John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel
It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagree. — Ayn Rand
It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
— Charles M. Province
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. — Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) 7th President of the US (Veto of the Second National Bank, 10 Jul 1832
It is true that Christianity doesn't fit neatly into political categories. But it's also true that the left doesn't fit even roughly into the Christian one. — Selwyn Duke
It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed. — Vladimir Lenin
It is unconstitutional for students to see the Ten Commandments since they might read, meditate upon, respect, or obey them. — Stone v. Graham, 1980, Ring v. Grand Forks Public School District, 1980, Lanner v. Wimmer, 1981
It is very difficult to find any real natural monopolies. Almost all actual monopolies are monopolies because of special privileges and grants that they get from the government. — Milton Fridman
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 satisfied; 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
It may not always be easy, convenient, or politically correct to stand for truth and right, but it is always the right thing to do. Always. — Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (October 1997 General Conference)
It's a free country. I wish it weren't, but it's a free country, and you got to, you got to respect that freedom. — Deval Patrick, Massachusetts Governor, a Democrat, objecting to the Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally on 28 Aug 2010 and typifying the Left's attitude toward free speech -- it's great only if they agree with it
It's a good thing we have free speech because it helps us find out who the real idiots are. — David Holm
It's a mark of the Dems' sophisticated and nuanced thinking that they can talk one way and act the other. It's only stupid little people who insist on leaders who say and do the same thing. — Michael Goodwin
It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered. If we're compassionate, we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint. — Penn Jillette
It's a problem when you wait on the government to do things for you. This country was designed not for the government to fix your life. It was designed for you to have freedoms, and liberty, and for the opportunity for you to fix your life. You're much better off if you do that. —
Dave Ramsey, Jun 2014
It's both logically and historically fallacious to conclude that, because something is desirable, government should subsidize it. — Don Boudreaux
It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled. — Mark Twain
It's government people, not rich people, who have the power to coerce and make our lives miserable. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives. — John Adams (Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756)
It's never too late – in fiction or in life – to revise. — Nancy Thayer
It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights – the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery – hay and a barn for human cattle. — Alexis de Tocqueville
It's often been said that there's no such thing as a stupid question, but whoever thought up that expression obviously never met a devout liberal. Either that or he was a liberal himself. — Edward L. Daley
It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. — Senator Richard J. Durbin, 2007
It's useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love, drunk or running for office. — Shirley McLaine
It really is difficult to imagine how people who have entirely given up managing their own affairs could make a wise choice of those who are to do that for them. One should never expect a liberal, energetic, and wise government to originate in the votes of a people of servants. — Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
It would be a healthy exercise for every politician to look in the mirror every morning and remind himself that he holds office only because, in a two-man race against another mediocrity, a modest majority of those half-informed people who imagined that their votes mattered reckoned that he was the lesser evil. And they weren't too sure about that. — Joseph Sobran
It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience. — John Adams
I've observed that the people who preach tolerance most are often the most intolerable. — Selwyn Duke
I've observed that the people who think the least want to change the way others think the most. — Selwyn Duke
I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution. — Harry Browne (1933-2006)
I want for our country enough laws to restrain me from injuring others, so that these laws will also restrain others from injuring me. I want enough government, with enough constitutional safeguards, so that this necessary minimum of laws will be applied equitably to everybody, and will be binding on the rulers as well as those ruled. Beyond that I want neither laws nor government to be imposed on our people as a means or with the excuse of protecting us from catching cold, or of seeing that we raise the right kind of crops, or of forcing us to live in the right kind of houses or neighborhoods, or of compelling us to save money or to spend it, or of telling us when or whether we can pray. I do not want government or laws designed for any other form of welfarism or paternalism, based on the premise that government knows best and can run our lives better than we can run them ourselves. And my concept of freedom, and of its overwhelming importance, is implicit in these aspirations and ideals. — Robert Welch (1899-1985) Author, Founder of the John Birch Society
I want people to be able to get what they need to live: enough food, a place to live, and an education for their children. Government does not provide these as well as private charities and businesses. — Davy Crockett (1786-1836) American hunter, frontiersman, soldier and politician
I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty. — President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
I would define a conservative, first as one who believes in the Constitution as it is written. That takes care of free speech, freedom of religion, the right to petition the government, the right to keep and bear arms and, in the words of William O. Douglas in one of his saner moments, 'the right to be let alone. Second, a conservative believes in small, limited government at every level. Along with this he believes strongly in individual responsibility. That is, a person or a family should take care of itself and turn for help to government only when all other means have been exhausted. It also means that society, before government, has a duty to take care of its own. Government should be a resource of last resort. Third, a conservative believes taxes should be levied for the purpose of financing the limited responsibilities of government such as providing for the common defense, catching and incarcerating criminals, minting money and filling potholes. Taxes should not be levied for the purpose of redistributing wealth... One other thing I think a conservative believes is that the parents, not government, are and should be responsible for the upbringing and behavior of their children. — Lyn Nofziger
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it. — Thomas Jefferson
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. —
Barry Goldwater (1909-1998), US Senator and presidential candidate, 1964
Jesus would never use government surrogates to force the people to "help others". — Philip Freneau
Jobs really come in the productive sector of the economy. The real jobs are where people are producing goods or services which other people will buy. Now, dependent on those people producing those goods, are a lot of others in the public sector. Now if you run up the public sector, you can only do it by draining money out of industry and commerce. But that's where the jobs are. And one of the reasons why you have to cut public expenditure is to get the money back out of the public sector, into industry and commerce, so that they, in fact, can invest, and improve, and expand; because that's where the secure jobs are. — Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)
Journalism: A profession whose business is to explain to others what it personally does not understand. — Lord Northcliffe
Judicial verbicide is calculated to convert the Constitution into a worthless scrap of paper and to replace our government of laws with a judicial oligarchy. — Sen. Sam Ervin (1896-1985)
Just because something is tradition doesn't make it right. — Anthony J. D'Angelo
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. — Pericles (495-429 BC)
Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness... We claim them from a higher source — from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives. — John Dickinson (1732-1808)
Know which officials are voted into office and which are appointed, and by whom. — Marilyn vos Savant
Law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge. — James Wilson (Of the Study of the Law in the United States, Circa 1790)
Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa's apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, and Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal, but did that make them moral? — Walter Williams
Legislatures represent people, not acres or trees. — Earl Warren
Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual -- or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. — Samuel Adams (Boston Gazette, 1781)
Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself -- and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty. — Nez Percé Chief Joseph (1840-1904)
[L]etting the government do the work is a good way to make bad decisions. — John Stossel
Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future. — John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th US President
Liberal (n.) a man with his mind open at both ends. — Colin Bowles
Liberal (n.) a person so open-minded their brains have fallen out. — Author Unknown
Liberal: A power worshipper without power. — George Orwell
Liberalism can't exist in sunlight. It's like Dracula. It's gotta hang around in a coffin all day and comes out only at night when nobody can see. — Rush Limbaugh, 16 Dec 2009
Liberalism doesn't work. Statism doesn't work. The Constitution does. The free market does. A free people will always come up with the best and the most practical and the cheapest alternatives. — Rush Limbaugh, 15 Aug 2013
Liberalism is a mental disorder. — Michael Savage
Liberalism is an ideology built on lies. It doesn't work. It can't work. It requires making false promises and breaking promises. — Rush Limbaugh, 26 Mar 2008
Liberalism is a spiritual disease induced by the dislocation from reality that results from the denial of Truth, of objective reality. — Selwyn Duke
Liberalism is the default position for people who don't think about politics much. — Mark Steyn Pearl, 11 Jul 2008
Liberalism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, can help themselves. — Author Unknown
Liberals believe that everyone has a right to his own opinion -- and then are shocked and outraged to find there is another opinion? — James Delingpole (365 Ways to Drive a Liberal Crazy )
Liberals can believe what they want to believe, but let us not flinch from identifying liberalism as the opposition party to God. — Ann Coulter, 2006
Liberals cannot win when Americans are allowed to vote, so they jam their insane ideas down our throats through the courts. In Bush's second term, there is no more important committee than the one charged with overseeing his judicial nominations. If Republicans blow this once-a-century opportunity to end the tyranny of the judiciary, they deserve to lose. — Ann Coulter
Liberals can't win on abortion, gay marriage and bans on the Pledge of Allegiance by allowing Americans to vote. That's why they need the courts to keep inventing rights to abortion, gay marriage and bans on the Pledge of Allegiance. Normal liberals know that, which is why they duck honest argument. — Ann Coulter
Liberals create economic circumstances that force businesses to lay people off, and then liberals blame capitalism for failing. When the economy is strong, liberals want to grow government. When the economy is weak, they want to grow government. There is no business cycle in government. There is just growth. — Rush Limbaugh, 5 Sep 2008
Liberals' creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which is about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor. It's a make-believe story, based on a theory that is a tautology, with no proof in the scientist's laboratory or the fossil record - and that's after 150 years of very determined looking. We wouldn't still be talking about it but for the fact that liberals think evolution disproves God. — Ann Coulter (Godless: The Church of Liberalism, 2006)
Liberals can't just come out and say they want to take more of our money, kill babies, and discriminate on the basis of race. — Ann Coulter
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. — William F. Buckley, Jr.
Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like Liberals do. They don't have the energy. If they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now. — Ann Coulter
Liberals love to divide us by economic class, and discuss policies in terms of which class will benefit or suffer by their passage. The problem is that class is a moving target. What are the magical income levels that define poor, middle, and rich? Further, Democrats assume that no one has the ability to rise above the economic situation into which they were born. People climb up the income ladder everyday when they work at it. — Herman Cain
Liberals may think of themselves as people who believe in certain principles but, if you observe their actual behavior, you are likely to discover that most liberals have a certain set of attitudes, rather than principles. Liberals may denounce 'greed,' for example, but in practice it all depends on whose greed. Nothing the government does is ever likely to be called 'greed' by liberals. ... Even when the lands seized under 'eminent domain' laws are turned over to casinos, hotels, or shopping malls -- places that will pay more taxes than working class homeowners -- liberals can never seem to work up the outrage that they display when denouncing 'greed' on the part of businesses whose prices are higher than liberals think they should be. It is not the principle of sacrificing other people's economic interests to your own that causes liberals to denounce greed. It is a question of who does it and what the liberals' attitudes are to those segments of the population." — Thomas Sowell
Liberals subscribe to Darwinism not because it's "science," which they hate, but out of wishful thinking. Darwinism lets them off the hook morally. Do whatever you feel like doing - screw your secretary, kill Grandma, abort your defective child - Darwin says it will benefit humanity! Nothing is ever wrong as long as you follow your instincts. Just do it - and let Mother Earth sort out the winners and losers. — Ann Coulter (Godless: The Church of Liberalism, 2006)
Liberals want benefits. Conservatives (real Americans) want opportunities. — Jim Prentiss
[Liberty] consists not in doing what one likes to do, but in doing what one ought to do. — David O. McKay (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay, p 205)
Liberty: Freedom from restraint. The power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, except from the laws of nature. — Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1856 Edition
Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of government is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government, not the increase of it. — Woodrow Wilson
Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. — MaxedOutMama
Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves the necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others. — William Allen White
Liberty lies in the hearts and minds of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. — Justice Learned Hand
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. — James Madison
Liberty lies in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious. — John Stuart Mill
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. — George Bernard Shaw
Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain. — John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th US President
Life is being trivialized and subjected to the vacillating whims of convenience and political correctness. Children are considered a choice rather than a blessing....Almost every trend indicates that we are on a slippery slope downward from God's plan for his children. — Elder M. Russell Ballard, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Listening to liberals invoke the sanctity of 'science' to promote their crackpot ideas creates the same uneasy feeling as listening to Bill Clinton cite Scripture. — Ann Coulter, 2006
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. — Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Man holds…rights, not from the Collective nor for the Collective, but against the Collective…man's protection against all other men. — Ayn Rand
Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true. — Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. — Reinhold Niebuhr
Many politicians... are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool... who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. — Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
McVeigh's decision to go vegetarian groups him with some of the world's greatest visionaries. — Bruce Friedrich praising Oklahoma City bomber and mass-murderer Timothy McVeigh, for choosing a vegetarian last meal
Men cannot be governed and remain men. Domesticate the wolf and he changes both physically and mentally. His muzzle shrinks, his teeth diminish, he loses size, speed, and strength, He grows spots. His ears flop. His brain withers. He becomes a dog. Men are on the verge of becoming dogs -- the changes are underway already -- unless we do something to stop it. — The Ceo Lia Wheeler, Phoebus Krumm
Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves. — DH Lawrence, 1922
Michael Moore simultaneously represents everything I detest in a human being and everything I feel obligated to defend in an American. Quite simply, it is that stupid moron's right to be that utterly, completely wrong. — Dennis Miller
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice. — Thomas Paine (Letter Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation, 1792)
Morality is not defined by individual choice. — Rush Limbaugh
Most budget "cuts" lamented by the media are actually reductions in proposed increases - bureaucrats' spending dreams unfulfilled. Far too many legislatures ultimately approve spending increases in excess of population and service needs, or tax-base growth, or in inflation, growing government and saddling earners with increased burdens of taxation to carry the load. — Gary Marbut
Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor. — Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own....The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional "do-gooders," who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others. — Henry Grady Weaver (The Mainspring of Human Progress, p 40-41)
Most of the work of government does not need to be done. And, if you can remember that, if we could all remember that, this country would be better off. — Lyn Nofziger
Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion -- in the long run, these are the only people who count. — Robert Heinlein
Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility. — Sigmund Freud (Austrian neurologist and father of psychoanalysis)
Most mass transit systems cause more greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile than the average automobile. For example, the Washington Metro produces almost 20 percent more CO2 per passenger mile than the average car. The cost of cutting a ton of emissions through more fuel-efficient cars is near zero. The cost of doing so through rail transit is nearly $5,000 per ton. — Randal O'Toole, Cato Institute
Much of what government does is based on the premise that people can't do things for themselves. So government must do it for them. More often than not, the result is a ham-handed, bumbling, one-size-fits-all approach that leaves the intended beneficiaries worse off. Of course, this resulting failure is never blamed on the political approach -- on the contrary, failure is taken to mean the government solution was not extravagant enough. — John Stossel
Much of what we call "social problems" consist of the fact that intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world. From this they conclude that it is the real world which is wrong and needs changing. — Thomas Sowell
My definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you
earn. Do you disagree?...how much of what I earn belongs to you--and why? — Dr.
Walter Williams
My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize. — Congressman Hank Johnson on Guam
My husband may have his faults, but he has never lied to me. — Hillary Clinton
NASA scientists announced that recent observations of Mars suggest that the planet is undergoing a climatic shift. Images over the past three Martian years indicate that the southern polar cap is slowly shrinking, indicating Mars is undergoing "global warming." No word from the Left yet as to whether President Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Treaty is responsible for this. — The Federalist Patriot, 23 Sep 2005
Nations cannot endure in sin. — Ezra Taft Benson (Ensign, Nov 1975, p 32)
Necessity is the excuse for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of the tyrant and the creed of the slave. — William Pitt, 1763
Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves. — William Pitt, 1783
Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things. — Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff for Obama
Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, they don't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous. — Will Rogers (1879-1935)
Never could an increase of comfort or security be a sufficient good to be bought at the price of liberty. — Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) French-born British writer
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. — Margaret Mead
Never in the history of the world has there been a situation so bad that the government couldn't make it worse. — Author Unknown
Never vote for a bill to apply to the "other guy" that you don't want applied to you. The pendulum shifts. — Rebecca L Gray
Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff. — Adlai Stevenson
New studies outlining college students' ignorance of history are forcing us to re-examine our aphorisms...Santayana: 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it a highly sought-after voting bloc.' —
Mallard Fillmore
Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then -- we elected them. — Lily Tomlin
Ninety-nine weeks of unemployment benefits, that's an associate degree. — Newt Gingrich, 16 Jan 2012
Ninety-one percent of poor Americans own a color TV. Twenty-nine percent of poor Americans own two or more! — Heritage Foundation
No good ever came of mass emotion. The audience that's easily moved to tears is as easily moved to sadistic dementia. — P.J. O'Rourke
No government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life. — Doctrine and Covenants 134:2
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! — Ronald Reagan
No idea is as bad as the evil it takes to suppress it. — J.F. Schulman
No longer content to ruin their own children, liberals insist on being subsidized by the taxpayer to ruin everyone else's children, too. — Ann Coulter, 2006
No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation. — General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)
No man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. — Ayn Rand
No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine. — William Blum, US Department of State
No matter how worthy the cause, it is robbery, theft, and injustice to confiscate the property of one person and give it to another to whom it does not belong. — Dr. Walter Williams
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No one has the right to destroy another person's belief by demanding empirical evidence. — Ann Landers, Director, Handgun Control, Inc.
No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others. — Ayn Rand
No public man can be just a little crooked. — Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) US president
[No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton (Debate with Bertrand Russell, BBC Magazine, 27 Nov 1935)
Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights. — Dr. Walter Williams
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nothing is easier than spending public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody. — Calvin Coolidge, US President (1873-1933)
Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters. — Samuel Adams
Nothing is more fraudulent than calls for a "dialogue on race." Those who issue such calls are usually quick to cry "racism" at any frank criticism. They are almost invariably seeking a monologue on race, to which others are supposed to listen. — Thomas Sowell, black economist
Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear. — Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. — Milton Friedman, Economist
Nothing so infuriates champions of 'diversity' as much as an opinion diverse from their own. — Author Unknown
Not long ago, I heard a CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) news anchor announce that Canada had "created 56,100 new jobs in the previous month." It sounded like good news. But looking at the numbers, I found that of those 56,100 new jobs, 4,200 were self-employed, 8,900 were in private businesses, and the remaining 43,000 were on the public payroll. In other words, 77 percent of the new jobs were government jobs paid for by the poor slobs working away in the remaining 23 percent. So it wasn't good news, it was bad news about the remorseless transfer of human resources from the vital dynamic sector to the state. — Mark Steyn, 29 Sep 2007 at Hillsdale College
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, 'We don't know how lucky we are.' And the Cuban stopped and said, 'How lucky you are! I had someplace to escape to.' In that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth. — Ronald Reagan
Nowhere in this country are racial quotas likely to get voter support. But such quotas exist because elected officials do not have to risk their careers by voting for quotas because they can leave that to judges. — Thomas Sowell
Now, more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If the people be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand those high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. — James A Garfield
Nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse-gas-emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand....There is now a great deal of scientific evidence showing nuclear power to be an environmentally sound and safe choice. — Patrick Moore, PhD, co-founder Greenpeace (Testimony to the U.S. Congressional Subcommittee on Energy and Resources, 28 Apr 2005)
Occasionally, we receive questions as to the propriety of Church members receiving government assistance instead of Church assistance. Let me restate what is a fundamental principle. Individuals, to the extent possible, should provide for their own needs. Where the individual is unable to care for himself, his family should assist. Where the family is not able to provide, the Church should render assistance, not the government. We accept the basic principle that 'though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.' — Ezra Taft Benson (General Conference Apr 1977)
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. — George Washington, Farewell Address, 19 Sep 1796
Of all the 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 barons' cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point; 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. — CS Lewis
Oftentimes, the line between bully and victim is very thin indeed. As a matter of fact, the most vicious, nasty and sadistic people you are likely to ever run into will probably view themselves as victims or advocates on behalf of those they believe have been victimized. — John Hawkins
Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again. — Grover Cleveland
Once the government approves something, it's no longer immoral. — Reverend Lovejoy from The Simpsons
One by one, the Democratic Party keeps having to abandon all the insane positions that have made it the funny, silly party we've come to know and love. — Ann Coulter, 2006
Once created, federal programs are nearly impossible to eliminate. — Rep. Ron Paul
Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, why not prevent him from reading bad books and bad plays?... The mischief done by bad ideologies is more pernicious...than that done by narcotic drugs. — Ludwig von Mises
Once you start catering to people's pathologies, it seldom ends well or at a
reasonable point. — John Hawkins
One can ignore reality, but one cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. — Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
One human life is as precious as a million lives, for each is infinite in value. — Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits (Jewish Views on Abortion, p 4)
One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them. — Thomas Sowell
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. — Thomas B Reed, 1886
One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. — Milton Friedman, Economist
One of the traditional methods of imposing statism, or socialism, on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it. — Ronald Reagan, US President
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. — Thomas Bracket Reed, 1886
One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary. — Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
One of the most important things Congress needs to understand is that Americans want to be just as independent of our conservative servants as much as we need to be independent of our liberal servants. — John Longenecker
One of the problems with being middle-of-the-road is that you can get run over from either direction. — Richard C. Miller
[One] reason the Democratic Party has trouble knowing what it stands for, and thus articulating its purpose, is that it is so spooked by polls, focus groups and past defeats that it's afraid to take any vivid and differentiating stands, and seeks refuge in the muck of small issues. But small issues are small. And in this case don't even offer a philosophical pattern. 'We stand for lower college loan costs and better prescription drug benefits.' That's something you'd die on the battlefield for, isn't it? — Peggy Noonan
One way to prevent progress is arguing that any first step will be unfair to somebody. — Ashleigh Brilliant
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have need of masters. — Benjamin Franklin
Only if you sacrifice for a cause will you love it. — Victor L. Brown (Ensign, Nov 1975, p 66)
Opposing the status quo generates a cloak of media invisibility regardless of party or ideology. — Steve Dasbach
O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all? — Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1778
Our culture has accepted two huge lies: The first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate. — Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch located in Lake Forest, California
Our current welfare system…encourages illegal immigration by discouraging American citizens from taking low-wage jobs. This creates greater demand for illegal foreign labor. Welfare programs and minimum wage laws create an artificial market for labor to do the jobs Americans supposedly won't do. — Dr. Ron Paul, Congressman
Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have. — Richard Salent, former president of CBS News
Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue. — Bill Ruder, President John F. Kennedy's Secretary of Commerce
Our national problems usually do not cause nearly as much harm as the solutions. — Thomas Sowell
Our nation is divided between those who want freedom and those who want free stuff. Free stuff didn't build this country! —
Herman Cain
Our out-of-control budget also erodes personal freedom. When government grows, as Thomas Jefferson once famously put it, 'liberty yields.' Dollar by trillion dollar we are voluntarily giving up our liberties for a government that promises us, in return, a blanket of protection from cradle to coffin. Republicans are steering us in the direction of the 'workers' paradise' of a European socialist welfare state. The reply from the Democrats is faster, faster. — Stephen Moore, 2004
Our problem is not a temporary explosion of spending either because of a war or hurricanes or disasters. It's our entitlements which are draining our economy and which everybody, particularly the liberals, will not index for income. — Charles Krauthammer
"Outsourcing" charity to the government is not only inefficient, it's not charity. Worse still, it's evil. —
Selwyn Duke
Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me. — George Orwell
Partisans of same sex marriage demand to know how two 'gay' men pledging themselves to one another can possibly hurt a 'straight' couple. Indirectly. If marriage is to include 'gay' men and women, by what standard can we exclude non-gay threesomes? Nothing in the Supreme Court's or other courts' rulings have provided a principled grounds upon which to forbid adult incest, polygamy or polyandry. Homosexuals bristle at this argument. But they must answer a question: How does a homosexual father convince his daughter that polygamy is out of the question? Marriage must, if the word is to retain its meaning, be only between one man and one woman. For as critics on both sides of the debate acknowledge, we're having a hard time upholding the integrity of marriage among the heterosexual population. At this moment, we ought to be reinvesting marriage with the honor it once commanded, not bleeding it of substance. Such a drastic social experiment should not be undertaken on the strength of a 4-to-3 vote of one state's high court. If a constitutional amendment is required, so be it. — Mona Charen
Paying people to be poor only produces more poverty. Paying people not to work only produces more non-workers. Clearly the proliferation of government entitlements is destroying the American work-ethic -- which has underpinned American exceptionalism and prosperity. — William Pauwels, Sep 2013
PC [Political Correctness] is the verbal equivalent of burning books. It is mind and thought control, pure and simple. — Gary Sepp
Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. — Ronald Reagan
[P]eople do not ask for socialism because they know that socialism will improve their conditions, and they do not reject capitalism because they know that it is a system prejudicial to their interests. They are socialists because they believe that socialism will improve their conditions, and they hate capitalism because they believe that it harms them. They are socialists because they are blinded by envy and ignorance. — Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), Economist
People do not have the right to unregulated rights in this country. — Al Sharpton (A rare case where the guy is correct -- but this statement wasn't made as an observation. His comment was a declaration of what he and the rest of the Left want to do to us commoners. We've ignorantly elected far to many politicians eager to regulate away our rights. The nation's founders started shooting over less.)
People unfit for freedom -- who cannot do much with it -- are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a 'have' type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a 'have not' type of self. — Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)
People who believe in religious values, strong moral principles, right and wrong, limited government, constitutionally delegated powers, rule of law, low taxation, individual responsibility, free markets and free enterprise, private property, due process, marriage, human rights and similar beliefs are the heart of the American way, centrist and moderate, though routinely characterized as fascist or the radical right by the collectivists running the news media. — Alan Korwin, 2 Aug 2007
People who denounce the free market and voluntary exchange are for control and coercion. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe. — Andy Rooney
Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is why anyone would want more money and more power in the hands of the federal government, which is really the basis of Obama's campaign. — Burt Prelutsky, 2008
Police and firefighters are great, but they don't create wealth. They protect it. That's crucial. Teaching is a wonderful profession. Teachers help educate people to become good citizens so that citizens can then go create wealth. But they don't create the wealth themselves. — Rush Limbaugh, 12 Jun 2012
Political correctness can best be described as Cultural Marxism, in which Marxist tactics and strategies are applied to cultural, rather than economic forms. The hallmark of political correctness is that it requires a suspension of reality and it engenders a victim mentality that seeks to convince people of their victim status and the need for "protection" from their "oppressors." — Bryan Hyde
Political correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. — Author Unknown
Political correctness is dangerous. In our country, one of the founding principles is freedom of thought and expression, and political correctness muffles people. — Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon
Political correctness is just tyranny with manners. — Charlton Heston
Political correctness is the enemy of personal respect. — Rabbi Gerald Meister
Political Correctness remains just what it was intended to be: a sophisticated and dangerous form of censorship and oppression, imposed upon the citizenry with the ultimate goal of manipulating, brainwashing and destroying our society. — Author Unknown
Political history is far too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villains from fiction. — W.H. Auden
Politically incorrect: A truth that people on the Left find too painful to acknowledge and therefore do not want expressed. — Dennis Prager
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge where there is no river. — Nikita Khrushchev
Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
Politicians thrive by selling cosmetic solutions to problems. But successfully solving those problems puts bureaucrats out of business. — Charlton Heston, 2002
Politics gives guys so much power that they tend to behave badly around women. And I hope I never get into that. — Bill Clinton, as a student, to a female acquaintance
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy. — Ernest Benn
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies. — attributed to Groucho Marx
Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable -- the art of the next best. ― Otto von Bismarck
Poverty in Egypt, or anywhere else, is not very difficult to explain. There are three basic causes: People are poor because they cannot produce anything highly valued by others. They can produce things highly valued by others but are hampered or prevented from doing so. Or, they volunteer to be poor. — Walter Williams,Economist
Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power. — George Bernard Shaw
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. — Lord John Dalberg-Acton (1834-1902) English Historian (Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 5 Apr 1887, Essays on Freedom and Power, p 335-36)
President [George W.] Bush has asked Congress to enact a constitutional amendment making it national law that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. The perceived need for a constitutional amendment should be an embarrassment for all of us -- it's simply more evidence of our moral decline. If it were possible for previous generations of Americans to know about this marriage controversy, they'd probably be embarrassed and shocked, and might ask, 'What in the hell has happened to America?' — Walter Williams
President [George W.] Bush has never said that fetal stem cells cannot be used for research. He said 'federal money' cannot be used to fund such research. If leading scientists believed fetal stem-cell research would prove to be so fruitful in curing Alzheimer's, why is the private money not pouring in hand over fist? Do you realize how many billions a cure for Alzheimer's would be worth, let alone all the other cures some are claiming fetal stem-cell research would lead to? Forget Alzheimer's -- do you know how much middle-aged men would pay for a GENUINE baldness cure? — Ann Coulter
Private contractors are taking over many jobs formerly on the federal payroll. Government workers have known better days. There was great esprit de corps among federal workers who flocked to Washington, DC during the Great Depression to help President Franklin D. Roosevelt. — Helen Thomas, 2005 (Only a liberal could think that private contractors are a bad thing)
Private property and freedom are inseparable. — George Washington
Progressivism...is hubris and conceit mixed with a tyrannical impulse, and it is one of the reasons we have so much moralizing in America today, yet so little morality. — John Daniel Davidson
Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently to build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence. — Abraham Lincoln
Protecting privacy only seems to matter to liberals when it comes to 14-year-old girls seeking abortions behind their parents' backs, illegal aliens seeking sanctuary from the police, and registered sex offenders objecting to community registration requirements. — Michelle Malkin, Oct 2005
Public officials are elected primarily for one purpose -- to solve public problems. You have a right to ask any candidate about his understanding of the problems facing us, his acceptance of responsibility for solving those problems, and whether he has a fresh approach or just offers the same old bargain-basement politics. — Ronald Reagan
Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. — Dr. Ron Paul, US Congressman
Real Patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. — George Washington, Farewell Address, 19 Sep 1796
Reformation in government follows reformation in opinion. — Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789 (ME 7:366, Papers 15:138)
Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market." — Catechism of the Catholic Church #2425
Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness. — Samuel Adams (letter to John Trumbull, 16 Oct 1778)
Religion is the only solid base of morals and that morals are the only possible support of free governments. — Gouverneur Morris
Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday and St. Tuesday, will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them. — Benjamin Franklin (letter to Collinson, 9 May 1753)
Republicans will continue to win as long as Democrats remain the first party of big government. That wouldn't be so bad, if only Republicans would stop being the second party of big government. — Paul Jacob
Research shows that the presence of women [in government] raises the standards of ethical behavior and lowers corruption. — Hillary Clinton
Rights impose no obligations on [neighbors] except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights. — Ayn Rand
Satan need not get everyone to be like Cain or Judas, though he relishes such dramatic “success.” He needs only to get able men like Pilate or Agrippa to see themselves as sophisticated neutrals.” -- Neal A. Maxwell (Deposition of a Disciple, p.88)
[Satan] plans to destroy liberty and freedom...and to set up in place thereof the greatest, most widespread, and most complete tyranny that has ever oppressed men. He is working under such perfect disguise that many do not recognize either him or his methods. Heber J. Grant (1856-1945), Oct 1942
Say what you like about the Islamic world, but they show tremendous initiative and energy and inventiveness, at least when it comes to threatening death to the infidels every 48 hours for one perceived offense or another. If only it could be channeled into, say, a small software company, what an economy they'd have. — Mark Steyn
Secret combinations lusting for power, gain, and glory are flourishing. A secret combination that seeks to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries is increasing its evil influence and control over America and the entire world. — Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994), 2 Oct 1988
Security is a false god; begin making sacrifices to it and you are lost. — Paul Bowles
Security is a kind of death. — Tennessee Williams
Security is mostly superstition. — Helen Keller
See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay....If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system. — Frederic Bastiat, French economist (1801-1850)
Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing. But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others....This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man -- in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain. — Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
Seventy-four percent of 1998 high school seniors were considered by educators to be too ignorant of the political system to make reasonable ballot choices. — Robert S Wieder, Raw Data: Significa, Insignifica, Stats and Facts, Apr, 2000
Seventy percent of all shows have sexual content, up from 56% in the first study in 1998 and 64% in 2002. Two-thirds (68%) of all shows include talk about sex, and 35% of all shows include sexual behaviors. The proportion of shows with sexual content in prime-time on the major broadcast networks has also increased. Nearly eight in ten such shows (77%) include sexual content, compared to 67% in 1998 and 71% in 2002. In those shows that do include sexual content, the number of sexual scenes per hour is also up, to an average of 5.0 scenes an hour in the full composite week sample. In fact, because of increases in both the percent of shows that have some sexual content and the number of sexual scenes in those shows, the total number of sexual scenes in the program sample has nearly doubled since this study was first conducted in 1998 (up 96% from 1,930 to 3,783). Among the top 20 most-watched shows by teens, 70% include some kind of sexual content, and nearly half (45%) include sexual behavior. — The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Sex on TV 4, 9 Nov 2005
Should Palin and McCain prevail come November, feminism can curtsy and treat herself to a hard-earned vacation. The greatest achievement of feminism won't be that a woman reached the vice presidency, but that a woman no longer needed feminists to get there. — Kathleen Parker, Syndicated Columnist, on feminism and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, Sep 2008
Shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom. — Adlai Stevenson
Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty. — Patrick Henry, 7 Jun 1788
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian (1906-1945)
Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word. — Charles de Gaulle
Since only an individual man can possess rights…"individual rights" is a redundancy. But…"collective rights" is a contradiction in terms. — Ayn Rand
Since the Global Warming science is all settled [as claimed by Al Gore], we can now de-fund all those studies that are costing billions? — Author Unknown
Since the only proper function of a government is to protect man's rights, it cannot claim title to his life in exchange for that protection. — Ayn Rand
Since wealth is the only thing that can cure poverty, you might think that the left would be as obsessed with the creation of wealth as they are with the redistribution of wealth. But you would be wrong. — Thomas Sowell
Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? — William O. Douglas (1898-1980), US Supreme Court Justice
Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing us to slavery. — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) (The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1, p 130)
Sixty-eight percent of Americans say the media are having a detrimental effect on moral values in America. Poll conducted by Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates for the Culture and Media Institute, released March 9, 2007
Skin color doesn't make a person who they are; their color has nothing to do with who they are. But to people who tend to be superficial, superficial things mean a lot. People who tend to be deep are able to see through that and evaluate a person for who they are. — Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon
Slavery has always had bad economics, that is why peasantry was invented. A slave owner has to provide for his slaves, a peasant is responsible for himself, but still owes the landowner his labor. — Jymm
So, Barack Obama thinks Israel should give up the land it acquired in the Six-Day War, rolling back to its 1967 borders....I was talking to a friend last night who had this alternative suggestion: Leave Israel alone and roll back the US Government to its 1967 size. I wish he had said 1965. — Roger Kimball, Columnist, May 2011
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. — Winston Churchill
Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. — Thomas Sowell
Socialism never works no matter how much money you pour into it. — Jason Lewis, 11 Apr 2008
So here's my advice to persons who want to see a woman elected as president: cut the whining, stop playing the gender card, and start acting like a man. — Carey Roberts
So many of our laws and policies are based on the presumption that controlling the flaws of others is the key to promoting good. But controlling others too often becomes the basis for unjust and tyrannical laws that perpetuate a different kind of evil that afflicts everyone instead of providing justice. — Bryan Hyde, 26 Aug 2013
Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals could believe them. — Michael Levine
Some people have faith in science and use religious principles in its practice while demanding the scientific methodology of religion. Why would you expect that what is taught our children in the schools about evolution be the standard against which we should measure the scriptures? Scientific theories are just that. They are theories, not facts. The scriptures contain "the word of God revealed to many." I don't think that there is much question about whether to believe God or science. The problem arises when we try to put unsupportable interpretations on the word of God and unsubstantiated belief in the theories of scientists. Scientific theories change so fast that college text books of fifty years ago have no value in today's curricula. — Ask Gramps, www.ldsliving.com
Some people say I go too far in wanting to cut the government. They say I want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. But here's what they don't understand: It's Rosemary's baby. — Harry Browne
Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true. But many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly — and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence. — Thomas Sowell
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. — Mark Twain
Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself, 'Lillian, you should have remained a virgin.' — Lillian Carter (mother of PUY President Jimmy Carter)
Stop being delusional! The idea that government can solve our problems is nuts. Government doesn't make jobs, it interferes with making jobs. Government doesn't create wealth, it takes wealth from people who make it and spends it. All too often it just gives it away -- redistribution of wealth also known as socialism -- the arch enemy of The American Way. We the people have to realize that government is the problem, and stop running so fast to elected officials and seeking solutions from them. If we turn our backs on government, its influence over us will decrease. Ostracism and public shunning! — Alan Korwin
Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught in falsehoods school. And the one man who dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool. — Plato (429-347 BC)
Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow. — Glen Beaman
Substituting democratic decision making for what should be private decision-making is nothing less than tyranny dressed up. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
Suppose I divide the total amount of money spent on these [welfare] programs by the number of people labeled poor... If that [money] were really going to the poor, they'd be among the rich. — Milton Friedman
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. — Mark Twain
Swing voters are more appropriately known as the 'idiot voters' because they have no set of philosophical principles. By the age of fourteen, you're either a Conservative or a Liberal if you have an IQ above a toaster. — Ann Coulter
Talk radio is running America... We have to deal with that problem. — Trent Lott, US Senator, 2007
Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn't have in your home. — David Frost
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent. — Napoleon Bonaparte
That book [the Bible], sir, is the rock on which our Republic rests. When that book falls, I assure you that the liberties you enjoy will go with it. — Andrew Jackson
That government is best which governs least. — Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) (Civil Disobedience (1849)
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Thomas Jefferson
That's my job. I'm a newsman. That's what I try to do, is make news. — CNN's Wolf Blitzer revealing to Bill Clinton the true nature of 24-hour news
The act of reaching into one's own pockets to help a fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else's pocket is despicable. — Dr. Walter Williams
The American heritage was one of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and freedom from government. 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
— Harry Browne
The American people are frustrated with Washington, and I share their anger. There are too many politicians who are so busy fighting partisan battles that they have fallen out of touch with the folks back home – they have stopped listening. — US Representative Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)
The American people must be willing to give up a degree of personal privacy in exchange for safety and security. — Louis Freeh, Director of the FBI, 1993
The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened. — Norman Thomas, Socialist Party presidential candidate 1936-68, Cofounder of the American Civil Liberties Union
The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honor you can bestow on him. It means that you recognize his superiority to yourself. — Joseph Sobran (1946-2010)
The basic difference between being assertive and being aggressive is how our words and behavior affect the rights and well-being of others. — Sharon Anthony Bower
The battle over judicial appointments today is a battle over how much power judges should have in our system of government. If judges are masters over the charter they have sworn to protect, then 'we the people' are not. — Orrin Hatch, US Senator
The beauty of doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly. Only when you do something is it almost impossible to do it without mistakes. Therefore people who are contributing nothing to society, except their constant criticisms, can feel both intellectually and morally superior. — Thomas Sowell
The best good thing that politicians can do for the economy is to stop doing bad. In part, this can be achieved through reducing taxes and economic regulation, and staying out of our lives. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
The best mind-altering drug is the truth. — Lily Tomlin
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away. — Ronald Reagan
The best thing we could do with the immigration crisis is eliminate the welfare state in America. — Jason Lewis, 11 Apr 2008
The best way to help the poor is not to become one of them. — Bill Gates
The bigger the government, the less I do for myself, for my family and for my community. That is why we Americans give more charity and devote more time to volunteering than Europeans do. The European knows: The government, the state, will take care of me, my children, my parents, my neighbors and my community. I don't have to do anything. The bigger question in many Europeans' lives is, 'How much vacation time will I have and where will I spend that vacation?' That is what happens when the state gets bigger -- you become smaller. — Dennis Prager
The biggest problem in the world could have been solved when it was small. — Witter Bynner
The Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively. — Walter Lippmann
The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances. — Harry Browne (1933-2006), www.DownsizeDC.org
"[The Bill of Rights is] designed to protect individuals and minorities against the tyranny of the majority, but it's also designed to protect the people against bureaucracy, against the government. — Judge Lawrence Tribe
The brilliant idea that was America has always suffered vastly more damage at the hands of those who profess loudly to be its saviors, than from any threat, internal or external, that those saviors have claimed to be saving us from. — L. Neil Smith
The Church must take right ground in regard to politics. Christians have been exceedingly guilty in this matter, but the time has come when they must act differently. God cannot sustain this free and blessed country which we love and pray for unless the Church will take right ground. [God] will bless or curse this nation according to the course [Christians] take [in politics]. — Rev. Charles Finney
The civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical, to demand the credentials of all statements that claim to be facts. — Bergan Evans (1904-1978), English professor
The collective cannot decide what is to be the purpose of a man's existence nor prescribe his choice of happiness. — Ayn Rand
The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. — John Philpot Curran
The Conservative creed has never offered a life of ease without effort. Democracy is not for such people. Self-government is for those men and women who have learned to govern themselves. — Margaret Thatcher
The Constitution is a piece of paper and can't defend itself. We have to defend it. If we don't stand and do something, we have rule my man, not rule by law. The courts can do whatever they want. The legislatures can do whatever they want. So, if we don't stand up and defend and make [sure] that Constitution [is read] properly, we're in trouble. — Alan Gotlieb, 27 Jul 2008
The constitution is a radical document. It is the job of government to reign in people's rights. — Bill Clinton, US President, MTV, 1992
The Constitution plainly is not adequate to protect the individual against the growing bureaucracy....The individual is almost certain to be plowed under, unless he has a well-organized active political group to speak for him....But if a powerful sponsor is lacking, individual liberty withers.... — William O. Douglas, Justice of US Supreme Court, 1968
The Democrats are playing you for a chump and if you vote for them, not only are you a chump, you are a traitor to your race! — Malcolm X
The Democrats ran on 'Honesty' and I told 'em at the time they would never get anywhere. It was too radical for politics. The Republicans ran on 'Common Sense' and the returns showed that there were 8 million more people in the United States who had 'Common Sense' enough not to believe that there was 'Honesty' in politics. — Will Rogers
The difference between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats have accepted some ideas of socialism cheerfully, while Republicans have accepted them reluctantly. — W. Cleon Skousen (The Naked Capitalist, p 130)
The economic welfare of all our people must ultimately stem not from government programs, but from the wealth created by a vigorous private sector. — Ronald Reagan
The essence of government is force, and most often that force is used to accomplish evil ends. — Dr. Walter Williams
The existence of laws, regulations, and procedures has never been sufficient to compel men to obedience. Productive obedience comes through the exercise of free will. — Dean L. Larsen, (Ensign, May 1980(
The Democrats may remember their lines, but how quickly they forget the lessons of the past. — Ronald Reagan, US president
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded. — Charles-Louis De Secondat
The doctrine that "human rights" are superior to "property rights" simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others. — Ayn Rand
The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information. — Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980), US Supreme Court Justice (New York Times v. Unites States)
The end of law is not to abolish or restrain but to preserve freedom. — John Locke
The EPA should not be in the business of picking and choosing what kind of cars and trucks Americans can drive, and neither should President Obama. — Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation
The family is a creation of God. It is the basic creation. The way to strengthen the nation is to strengthen the homes of the people. — Gordon B. Hinckley (Ensign, May 1998, p 51)
The first battlefield is the rewriting of history. — Karl Marx
The first casualty of political conquest is the truth. — Author Unknown
The first duty of a newspaper is to be accurate. If it is accurate, it follows that it is fair. — Herbert Swope
The first rule of conservatism is to accept the fact that if you are true to yourself, Susan Sarandon will never hug you in public. — Former Rep. Dick Armey
The folks in Washington are making suckers out of us. They will give certain kinds of handouts to get you to vote for them, while empowering themselves to stay in office. We're losing our liberty bit by bit by bit. — Walter E. Williams, 7 Jun 2010
The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families....How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers? — John Adams, Diary, 1778
The Founding Fathers of this nation were not so presumptive as to presume the power to create or grant rights (creating rights for anyone requires creation of another person's responsibility to fulfill those rights -- see, for example, the unconstitutional creation of "entitlements" in recent US history). Neither the United States Constitution nor the Bill of Rights "created" rights. Those rights we have pre-existed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and they were granted to all mankind by God (see, again, the Declaration of Independence). The Declaration of Independence also defines the purpose of government thus: "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men...." — Scott Bradley
The goal in life is to be the best at what you're good at -- not to make everyone equal. — James Delingpole (365 Ways to Drive a Liberal Crazy )
The government cannot give to anyone anything that it does not first take from someone else. — Author Unknown
The government is not your salvation. The government is not your road to prosperity. Hard work and education will take you far beyond what any government program can ever promise. — Mia Love, Mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah
The government once drew to it people who loved liberty. It now draws to it people who love power. —
Judge Andrew Napolitano
[T]he greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled. — Aldous Huxley, Proper Studies
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. — Louis Brandeis, US Supreme Court Justice (1928)
The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people. — Thomas Jefferson
The great paradox of the civil rights revolution is that instead of enforcing and expanding equality before the law, the revolution created differential rights based on race, gender and, any day now, sexual orientation. The great liberal revolution, centuries in the making, that brought forth equality in law has been overthrown. In its place we see rising a new feudal legal order of status-based rights. — Paul Craig Roberts
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid. — Art Spander
The Grecians and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty but not the principle, for at the time they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind. — Thomas Paine (The American Crisis, No. 5, 21 Mar 1778)
The Greeks...labored under the delusion that their democracy was a guarantee of peace and plenty, not realizing that unrestrained majority rule always destroys freedom, puts the minority at the mercy of the mob, and works at cross-purposes to the effective use of human energy and individual initiative. — Henry Grady Weaver (The Mainspring of Human Progress)
The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good. — Ruth Benedict
The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. — Bible, Ecclesiastes 10:2
The height of statesmanship is to come home with a dam, even if you have nowhere to put it. — Will Rogers (1879-1935)
The high cost and inequitable character of our medical care system are the direct result of our steady movement toward reliance on third-party payment. A cure requires reversing course, re-privatizing medical care by eliminating most third-party payment, and restoring the role of insurance to providing protection against major medical catastrophes. — Milton Friedman, economist
The high standards and strict moral codes of Christianity aren't there to
keep people from having fun; they're in place to keep them from doing things
that seem like fun at first, but help to ruin their lives over the long haul. — John Hawkins
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of the struggle between central authority and individual liberty. — Craig J. Cantoni
The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it. — Woodrow Wilson, US President
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. — Dante
The incomplete thinker has an agenda that is the embodiment of his visceral passions and uses conclusions arrived at through incomplete thought to justify it. The complete thinker draws conclusions based on complete thought and has a justifiable agenda that is the embodiment of them. — Selwyn Duke
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. — Sir Winston Churchill
The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic. — HL Mencken
The Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of freedom; the gospel of the Son of God is the gospel of liberty. — Joseph F. Smith said
The lack of civic engagement is the path to bad government. — Author Unknown
The language Congress uses to describe their spending is corrupt beyond redemption. Think about the term entitlement. If one American is entitled to something he didn't earn, where in the world does Congress get the money? It's not Santa or the Tooth Fairy. The only way Congress can give one American a dollar is to first take it from another American. Therefore, an entitlement is a congressionally given right for one American to live at the expense of another. In other words, Congress forcibly uses one American to serve the purposes of another American. As such, it differs in degree, but not kind, from that uglier part of our history where black people were forcibly used to serve the purposes of their slave masters. — Walter E Williams, Economist, 1 Jun 2011
...the [LDS] Church has not found it possible to follow along the lines of the present general tendency in the matter of property rights, taxes, the curtailment of rights and liberties of the people, nor in general the economic policies of what is termed the "New Deal"....unless the people of America forsake the sins and the errors, political and otherwise, of which they are now guilty and return to the practice of the great fundamental principles of Christianity, and of Constitutional government, there will be no exaltation for them spiritually, and politically we shall lose our liberty and free institutions....We believe that our real threat comes from within and not from without, and it comes from the underlying spirit common to Naziism, Fascism, and Communism, namely the spirit which would array class against class, which would set up a socialistic state of some sort, which would rob the people of the liberties which we possess under the Constitution, and would set up such a reign of terror as exists now in many parts of Europe....We confess to you that it has not been possible for us to unify our own people even upon the necessity of such a turning about, and therefore we cannot unfortunately, and we say it regretfully, make any practical suggestion to you as to how the nation can be turned about. — Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and David O. McKay (signed as the First Presidency, in letter to the US Treasury, 30 Sep 1941)
The leftist thought police are a menace to civilization and free speech. They are turning us into an ideological state, a place where ideology isn't rejected when it departs from Truth but Truth is rejected when it departs from ideology. — Selwyn Duke
The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity. — Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) 8th President of the United States
The less government we have, the better. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America. Work must be found for able-bodied but destitute workers. The Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief. I am not willing that the vitality of our people be further sapped by the giving of cash, of market baskets, of a few hours of weekly work cutting grass, raking leaves or picking up papers in the public parks. We must preserve not only the bodies of the unemployed from destitution but also their self-respect, their self-reliance and courage and determination. — President Franklin Roosevelt, justifying expansion of government busy-work programs in his
1935 State of the Union Address
The liberal is continually angry, as only a self-important man can be, with his civilization, his culture, his country and his folks back home. His is an infantile world view. At the core of a liberal is the spoiled child -- miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats. — P.J. O'Rourke
The liberal view is America in a permanent state of decline. They want everybody to believe that everybody else in this country is barely hanging on, and that the only solution is more and more of what has created the poverty circumstances. Because it is liberalism that creates poverty, promotes poverty, extends poverty, and spreads it -- and they want eight more years of power to keep doing it. — Rush Limbaugh, 6 Jun 2008
The life of an ant and that of my child should be granted equal consideration. — Michael W. Fox, senior scholar, Humane Society of the US
The long fight to save wild beauty represents democracy at its best. It requires citizens to practice the hardest of virtues -- self-restraint. — Edwin Way Teale
The mainstream media doesn't have a liberal bias or a conservative bias. It has a Statist bias. — James Wilson
The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. — Thomas Jefferson
The market focuses on television news...have been so severe to create a vacuum on news coverage. This is exceedingly dangerous to democracy. If most of the people get most of their news from the televisions, as polls continue to show, most of the people in the United States are inadequately informed and totally uninformed.... — Walter Cronkite, 2 Oct 1999
The media are so full of themselves -- among other things that they are full of -- that they act as if the government exists to provide them with something to publicize. The time is long overdue to put these people in their place. — Thomas Sowell
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. — H.L. Mencken
The metaphor, "Separation of Church and State", was extracted, out of context, from a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists in reply to a letter from them expressing concern that the Federal Government might intrude in religious matters by favoring one denomination over another. Jefferson's reply was that the First Amendment would preclude such intrusion. — Ron Paul, US Congress, 2002
The minute you say you want to meet liberalism halfway you're moving the center ground into their part of the field. — Mark Steyn Pearl, 11 Jul 2008
The mob is easily led and may be moved by the smallest force, so that its agitations have a wonderful resemblance to those of the sea. — Polybius, Greek historian of the Hellenistic period
The moral justification of capitalism is man's right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. — Ayn Rand
The moral tragedy that has befallen Americans is our belief that it is okay for government to forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another – that in my book is a working definition of slavery. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of
Economics
The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates. — Cornelius Tacitus (55-117 AD)
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. — Cornelius Tacitus (55-117 AD)
The more government focuses on those things that are not their most fundamental duty, the more they fail at those things that are. — Carolyn Pippen, candidate for US Senate, 2024
The more laws, the less justice. — Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)
The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is, in effect, far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State. — Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987) (The Ethics of Redistribution [1952] p 72)
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. ― attributed to George Orwell
The most expensive commodity we have in this country is ignorance. It's not gasoline, not rice, not wheat, not corn. The most expensive commodity we have is the ignorance of way too many Americans. It is ignorance that allows liberalism to prosper. — Rush Limbaugh, 3 Apr 2008
The most fundamental right is the right to be left alone. — Justice William Brandeis, US Supreme Court
The most impressive feat the Left has accomplished is convincing millions of people that decapitating a child inside the womb is worthy of celebration. That alone should teach us to never underestimate the power of a lie and the willingness of ignorant people to believe it. — Allie Beth Stuckey
The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it. — Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood
The nation is built upon the foundation of its homes and the home upon its families. — Spencer W Kimball (Ensign, Nov 1974, p 9)
The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten. — Calvin Coolidge, US Presidnet
The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations. — Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish philosopher and economist
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule. — Samuel Adams (1722-1803)
The new morality preached from the media's pulpit is nothing more than the old immorality. — Elder M. Russell Ballard, Oct 2003
The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power. — General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)
The only "crisis" in health care in this country is that doctors are paid too little. It's only a matter of time before the best and brightest students forget about medical school and go to law school instead. How long can a society based on suing the productive last? You can make 30 times as much money as doctors by becoming a trial lawyer suing doctors. You need no skills, no superior board scores, no decade of training and no sleepless residency. But you must have the morals of a drug dealer. The Democratic Party treats doctors like they're Klan members. They wail about how much doctors are paid and celebrate the trial lawyers who do absolutely nothing to make society better, but swoop in and steal from the most valuable members of society. — Ann Coulter, Sep 2007
The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide. — Barrack Obama
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights. — Ayn Rand
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over a member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. — John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), British philosopher
The only religious belief driving opinions about evolution is atheism. God can do anything, including evolution. But the value of Darwinism for atheists is that it is the only way they can explain why we are here. (It's an accident!) If evolution doesn't work out for them, they'll have to expand on theories about extraterrestrials or comets bringing life to earth. — Ann Coulter (Godless: The Church of Liberalism, 2006)
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. — John Bartlett
The only way to make a difference is to acquire power. — Hillary Clinton, in her senior year of college (yeah, acquire power like Mother Teresa did)
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice. It is conformity. — Rollo May
The other day I found myself, for the umpteenth time, driving in Vermont behind a Kerry/Edwards supporter whose vehicle also bore the slogan 'Free Tibet.' It must be great to be the guy with the printing contract for the 'Free Tibet' stickers. Not so good to be the guy back in Tibet wondering when the freeing thereof will actually get under way. For a while, my otherwise not terribly political wife got extremely irritated by these stickers, demanding to know at a pancake breakfast at the local church what precisely some harmless hippy-dippy old neighbor of ours meant by the slogan he'd been proudly displaying decade in, decade out: 'But what exactly are you doing to free Tibet?' she demanded. 'You're not doing anything, are you?' 'Give the guy a break,' I said back home. 'He's advertising his moral virtue, not calling for action. If Rumsfeld were to say, 'Free Tibet? Jiminy, what a swell idea! The Third Infantry Division [will] go in on Thursday,' the bumper-sticker crowd would be aghast. — Mark Steyn
The Palestinian people [do] not exist... In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism." — Zahir Muhse'in, PLO Executive Committee member (quoted in the Dutch newspaper Trouw)
The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. — Plato (429-347 BC)
The people know it is impossible to rightly govern without God and the Bible. — George Washington
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The philosophies of men surround us. The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance. Do not be deceived. — Thomas S Monson, 2015
The phrase "separation between the church and state" appears nowhere in any of our founding documents. It is neither in the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution. It is however, in the Humanist Manifesto and the Russian Constitution. It was a major plank in the Communist Manifesto. But it is not now, nor has it ever been an American ideal. Why don't more of our leaders know that? — Dave Daubenmire
The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away. — John Strider Coleman
The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority. — Will Durant
The poor have been used as human shields behind which the expanding welfare state can advance. The goal is not to keep the poor from starving but to create dependency, because dependency translates into votes for politicians who play Santa Claus. We have all heard the old saying about how giving a man a fish feeds him for a day, while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Independence makes for a healthier society, but dependency is what gets votes for politicians. For politicians, giving a man a fish every day of his life is the way to keep getting his vote. 'Entitlement' is just a fancy word for dependency. — Thomas Sowell, economist
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined [and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce, — James Madison, Federalist Paper #45
The preposterous conceit that the fossil record has produced a mosaic of organisms consistent with evolution except for the occasional "gap" is absurd. Evolution is nothing but a gap. It's a conjecture about how species might have arisen that is contradicted by the fossil record and by nearly everything we have learned about molecular biology since Darwin's day. — Ann Coulter (Godless: The Church of Liberalism, 2006)
The presidency is more than just a popularity contest. — Al Gore
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. — Plato
The primary reason for government growth (and the "incumbent advantage") is that we've yet to convince people to refuse to be bribed with their own money. — Boyd K.
The principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature. — Sir William Blackstone,
Commentaries on the Laws of England
The principal feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things–war and hunger and date rape–liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things... It's a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don't have to be brave, smart, strong, or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal. — PJ O'Rourke
The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. — Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, 1816
The principle of the Constitution is that of a separation of legislative, Executive and Judiciary functions, except in cases specified. If this principle be not expressed in direct terms, it is clearly the spirit of the Constitution, and it ought to be so commented and acted on by every friend of free government. — Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1797
The principles of Jefferson are the axioms of a free society. — Abraham Lincoln
The problem with money in politics is that government is involved in running big business, small business and your business....If you want to solve the money-in-politics issue, then get the government out of the board rooms. As soon as that happens, the board rooms will go back to minding their own business, instead of minding the government's business. — John Ransom
The problem with political jokes is that too often they get elected. — Slick Times
The problem with sitting on the fence is that ya gotta get off sometime. — Blaine Nay
The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. — Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister
The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men. — Samuel Adams
The public good is promoted best by people pursuing their own private interests. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
The purpose of government, according to our Founders, is to protect our freedom so we can do the rest. Today, people ignorantly demand and politicians speciously promise anything under the sun -- at someone else's expense -- an impossible model attracting support from useful idiots. But hope springs eternal -- the worse it gets the better it gets. As the unchecked government juggernaut picks up speed, the freedom movement will grow also, and a return to constitutional governance and love of personal liberty -- a libertarian mindset in the classical sense -- will sweep the nation. If we're lucky. — Alan Korwin
The question to be asked of people in the media, and that they should ask themselves, should be: "Is your first loyalty to your audience or to your ideology?" The same question should be asked of educators, especially those who see themselves as "agents of social change," even though that is not the job description under which they have been hired and paid. — Thomas Sowell
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. — George Orwell
There ain't no ticks like poly-ticks. Bloodsuckers all. — Davy Crockett (1786-1836) American frontiersman
The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits. — Plutarch (abt 45-125 AD) Priest of the Delphic Oracle
The real gamble in this election is playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expecting a different result. The real gamble in this election is playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expecting a different result. — Barack Obama, a candidate for the US presidency at the time. Once elected, however, he selected mostly retreads from the Clinton administration for his own administration
The real guarantee of freedom is an equilibrium of social forces in conflict, not the triumph of any one force. — Max Eastman (1883-1969) (Reflections on the Failure of Socialism, 1955)
The reality is that those who value other things above their own freedom will one day lose that very freedom -- along with their valuables. — Karen Mehall
There are many ways to victimize people. The most insidious is to convince them that they're victims. — Tom Robbins
There are really only two ways to interpret the Constitution -- try to discern as best we can what the Framers intended or make it up. No matter how ingenious, imaginative or artfully put, unless interpretive methodologies are tied to the original intent of the Framers, they have no more basis in the Constitution than the latest football scores. To be sure, even the most conscientious effort to adhere to the original intent of the framers of our Constitution is flawed, as all methodologies and human institutions are; but at least originalism has the advantage of being legitimate and, I might add, impartial. — Clarence Thomas, US Supreme Court Justice
There are some bills we don't need to read, we already know how we're going to vote. — Henry Brown, US Congressman
There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them. — George Orwell (1903-1950)
There are two ways to enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt. — John Adams
The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships. — Ayn Rand
The record is clear: when a Republican is in the White House, conservatives not only lose their backbone, they also lose their brain cells. They walk around in a daze without the ability to even see what is going on right before their eyes. They become "mind-numbed robots" with no commitment to principle whatsoever. — Chuck Baldwin, 5 Oct 2007
The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces. — Maureen Murphy
There are three dangers that threaten the church from within, and the authorities need to awaken to the fact that the people should be warned unceasingly against them. As I see them, they are flattery of prominent men in the world, false educational ideas, and sexual impurity. — Joseph F. Smith
The reason this country continues its drift toward socialism and big nanny government is because too many people vote in the expectation of getting something for nothing, not because they have a concern for what is good for the country. A better educated electorate might change the reason many persons vote. If children were forced to learn about the Constitution, about how government works, about how this nation came into being, about taxes and about how government forever threatens the cause of liberty perhaps we wouldn't see so many foolish ideas coming out of the mouths of silly old men. — Lyn Nofziger (1924-2006) American journalist, political consultant, author, Press Secretary for President Reagan
There exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness … we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained. — George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789
There is a cult of ignorance...nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. — Isaac Asimov
There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle Sir, is not to the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death. — Patrick Henry, 1775
There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as De Tocqueville describes it, 'a new form of servitude.' — Friedrich August von Hayek, economist (1899-1992)
There is a point where political correctness becomes an acid that erodes freedom. — Bill O'Reilly
There is a threat posed to freedom by the enormous power of the modern state. History teaches the danger of government that overreaches: political control takes precedence over free economic growth; secret police, mindless bureaucracy-all combining to stifle individual excellence and personal freedom. — Ronald Reagan, speech to the British Parliament in 1982
There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people. — Adam Smith
There is no central plan for freedom. - Ernest Hancock
There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. - Charles de Montesquieu, French lawyer and philosopher (d. 1755)
There is no moral argument that justifies using the coercive powers of government to force one person to bear the expense of taking care of another. - Dr. Walter Williams
There is no problem anywhere on the earth which cannot be solved better in liberty than under any other system. — John Longenecker, 7 Jan 2011
There is no public morality without private virtue. — Eran A. Call (Oct 1997 LDS General Conference)
There is no right to a job, a house, a loan, a fringe benefit, an apartment, a "living wage," a parking spot, a discount, a product, or a service. — Laurence Vance,
The Free Market at Work
There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. — Edmund Burke
There is no such thing as a liberal...There hasn't been for a long, long time. I never use the word and you shouldn't either - nobody should. 'Liberal' is what socialists call themselves when they don't want you to understand that they plan to take away your rights, your property, and eventually your life. — Alexander Hope
There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion. — Winston Churchill
There's nothing shameful about being poor -- but, if you stay poor over the
long haul in a country like America, you're doing something wrong. — John Hawkins
There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. — Ayn Rand
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
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. — PJ O'Rourke
There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the 'wall of separation' that was constitutionalized in Everson....But the greatest injury of the 'wall' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights....[N]o amount of repetition of historical errors in judicial opinions can make the errors true. The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history....It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned....Our perception has been clouded not by the Constitution but by the mists of an unnecessary metaphor. It would come as much of a shock to those who drafted the Bill of Rights, as it will to a large number of thoughtful Americans today, to learn that the Constitution, as construed by the majority, prohibits the Alabama Legislature from endorsing prayer. George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God. History must judge whether it was the Father of his Country in 1789, or a majority of the Court today, which has strayed from the meaning of the Establishment Clause. — William Rehnquist, US Supreme Court, Wallace v. Jaffree (472 U.S. 38, 48, n. 30 [1984])
There is something about a Republican that you can only stand him just so long; and on the other hand, there is something about a Democrat that you can't stand him quite that long. — Will Rogers
There is too much power in Washington and too much power in government, and not enough power at the grassroots and not enough power with the average American. — Newt Gingrich
There is truly a profound struggle occurring over the future direction of the country...hardest fought of these struggles is over the future of the judiciary. — Hillary Clinton
There's a basic rule in business: If you tell people that a product is free, they treat it like it has no value. We've spent the last 70 years in this country telling our poor that money and property are free. Of course, they don't attribute any value to money or property, then. Of course, they treat others' property as though it's valueless, to be stolen or taken at whim. The liberalism of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson and President Obama hasn't turned thieves into sudden lovers of big-band swing. It's turned more and more Americans into thieves. Don't blame poverty. Blame morality. And blame a government and a society that have abandoned the notion of responsibility for juvenile delinquency. — Ben Shapiro, columnist, Jan 2011
There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. — Ayn Rand
There's something terribly wrong when an American soldier overseas can't receive Scriptures in the mail, but a Muslim chaplain can preach freely among al-Qa'ida and Taliban enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay. — Michelle Malkin
The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of oppression, if they are strong enough, whether by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable. — Ulysses S. Grant
The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. — John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th US President
The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. — Ayn Rand
The right to property…does not mean that others must provide him with property. — Ayn Rand
The right to property…is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. — Ayn Rand
The right to travel enables the free exercise of the other rights we most cherish. We should not have to check our constitutional freedoms at the curb simply because we decide to leave the house. Sadly, freedom of movement has been one of the most disparaged rights throughout human history, and our country is no exception. If we are ever to be truly free, then we must possess an absolute, uninhibited right to travel throughout America and the world free from interference by government. — Judge Andrew Napolitano (not to be confused with Janet "the system worked" Napolitano)
The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed. — Maya Angelou
The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys. — Thomas Jefferson
These folks in the environmental green movement are busy bodies. They think they were put on earth to tell you how to lead your life, and they'll do and say anything to get that power. — Jason Lewis, 20 Jun 2008
The Shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as a destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty. — Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern. — Ronald Reagan, 5 Oct 1981
The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television. — Andrew Ross
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. — Ayn Rand
The so-called 'stimulus plan' [of Feb 2009] cooked up mostly by House Democrats is, in reality, a plan to stimulate government and make it an even greater presence (and burden) in our lives. The appeal to speed and urgency by President Obama is an invitation to overlook details of the bill, which would accelerate the transformation of America from a capitalistic system that exalts the individual to a socialistic system that exalts the state. — Cal Thomas, Syndicated Columnist
The society that draws a line between its fighting men and its thinking men will find its fighting done by fools an its thinking done by cowards. — Sir William Francis Butler (1838–1910)
The sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression. — Alabama Constitution, Article 1, Section 35
The sooner all the animals are extinct, the sooner we'll find their money. — Ed Bluestone
The State is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else. — Frederic Bastiat, 19th century French economist
The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness, independence, personal dignity, all vanish. — Frederic Bastiat, French economist (1801-1850)
The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business. — Milton Friedman, economist (1912-2006)
The sun is the deciding factor in the earth's temperature -- not you, not cars, not cows passing gas. Lose your arrogance, puny humans. — Rush Limbaugh, 19 Dec 2008
The superior man understands what is right. The inferior man understands what is popular. — Confucius
The Ten Commandments, despite the fact that they are the basis of civil law and are depicted in engraved stone in the United States Supreme Court, may not be displayed at a public courthouse. — Harvey v. Cobb County. 1993
The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life. — Theodore Roosevelt
The threat posed by humans to the natural environment is nothing compared to the threat to humans posed by global environmental policy. — Fred Smith Jr., Competitive Enterprise Institute Founder
The topic of stupid people can no longer be ignored, because for the first time in history stupid people have more political power than anyone else, and the consequence of allowing them all that power now looms like the shadow of doom over America. — Dave Duffy
The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree. — Dr. Walter Williams
The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. — Herbert Agar (1897-1980)
The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so. — Ronald Reagan
The truth which makes men free is, for the most part, the truth which men prefer not to hear. — Herbert Sebastian Agar
The ultimate result of shielding men from folly is to fill the world with fools. — Herbert Spencer
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. — Frank Zappa
The United States realizes that a citizen must be protected whether he wants to be or not -- controlled, regulated, and intimidated in every aspect of everything he does, for his own good. He must not be permitted to ride a bicycle without a helmet, smoke if he chooses, or go to a bar where smoking is permitted. He cannot be trusted to run his life. — Fred Reed
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. — H.L. Mencken
The US Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. — Benjamin Franklin
The [US] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals...it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government...it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government. — Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
The use of history is to tell us...past themes, else we should have to repeat, each in his own experience, the successes and the failures of our forebears. — Judge Learned Hand
The US military has had considerably more success in turning Iraq around than liberals have had in turning the ghettos around with their 40-year 'War on Poverty.' So far, fewer troops have been killed by hostile fire since the end of major combat in Iraq than civilians were murdered in Washington, DC, last year (239 deaths in Iraq compared to 262 murders in DC). How many years has it been since we declared the end of major U.S. combat operations against Marion Barry's regime? How long before we just give up and pull out of that hellish quagmire known as Washington, DC? — Ann Coulter, Dec 2003
The virtuous need but few laws; for it is not the law which determines their actions, but their actions which determine the law. — Theophrastus
The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is ... legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay. ... If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system. — Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
The "War on the Rich" is a War on Employers and small entrepreneurs, and ultimately on the middle class. Until more Americans understand that, the left will continue this destructive job-killing agenda. — Rush Limbaugh, 16 Dec 2010
The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation. — Vladimir I. Lenin
The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience. — Albert Camus
The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly and then you give some of it back flambouantly. — Thomas Sowell
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. — H.L. Mencken, In Defense of Women, 1920
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois. — Gustave Flaubert
The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. — Michael Crichton (1942-2008)
The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians. — Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881)
The world may long remember our generation as the last of the educated mind and the educated heart, so sensitive in understanding, so wretched over failures, so modest about our triumphs, so permissive with everyone who wanted to do his own thing that we let civilization go to hell without any curiosity about what would replace it. — Mrs. C. Girard Davidson, a Portland, Oregon, housewife, speaking to a Congressional committee (Quoted by Vaughn J. Featherstone,
Ensign, Nov 1975, p 7)
The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be, and has often been . . . the main source of mischief and disaster. — Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), Economist
They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion -- that the state cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man. — William Graham Sumner
They're terrible people, liberals. They believe -- this can really summarize it all -- these are people who believe you can deliver a baby entirely except for the head, puncture the skull, suck the brains out and pronounce that a constitutional right has just been exercised. That really says it all. — Ann Coulter
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. — Ronald Reagan
They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. — Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Things in our country run in spite of the government, not by the aid of it. — Will Rogers (1879-1935)
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. — Will Rogers (1879-1935)
This isn't the Democratic party of our fathers and grandfathers. This is the party of Woodstock hippies. I was at Woodstock -- I built the stage. And when everything fell apart, and people were fighting for peanut-butter sandwiches, it was the National Guard who came in and saved the same people who were protesting them. So when Hillary Clinton a few years ago wanted to build a Woodstock memorial, I said it should be a statue of a National Guardsman feeding a crying hippie. — John Ratzenberger, actor
This is the number one responsibility of the Latter-day Saints -- to get in the struggle to preserve freedom. Everywhere that Communism succeeds, missionary work, temple work, everything the Church does, dies. Your number one responsibility is to preserve freedom. — David O. McKay
Those in need are expected to do all they can to provide for themselves. Then families are expected to assist in taking care of their less-fortunate members. And then the resources of the Church are made available. — Gordon B. Hinckley (Ensign, May 2004, p 57)
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses. — Plato
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana
Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them. — Jorge Santayana
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. — Thomas Paine
Those who have been intoxicated with power...can never willingly abandon it. — Edmund Burke
Those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is; in general the greater the understanding the greater the delusion; the more intelligent the less sane... The heresy of heresies was common sense. — George Orwell (1984)
Those who insist that a Church program exist for every contingency and need are
as much in error as their counterparts who demand that government intervene in
every aspect of our lives. In both instances the ideal balance is destroyed with a
resultant detriment to human progress. — Dean L. Larsen (Ensign, May 1980)
Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. — Frederick Douglass
Three-fifths to two-thirds of the federal budget consists of taking property from one American and giving it to another. Were a private person to do the same thing, we'd call it theft. When government does it, we euphemistically call it income redistribution, but that's exactly what thieves do -- redistribute income. — Walter Williams, Economist
'Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government. — George Washington
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like
administering medicine to the dead. — Thomas Paine
To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones.— George Washington (Letter to James Welch, 1799)
Today, candor compels us to admit that our vaunted two-party system is a snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation. Our two parties have become nothing but two wings of the same bird of prey. — Pat Buchanan
Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government. It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. — Stephen Moore (We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers, 1 Apr 2011)
Today, one of the biggest threats facing families in America is the out-of-control spending in Washington that is piling up nearly insurmountable deficits and debt for future generations. It fuels the expansion of a federal government that stifles private sector growth, innovation, and job creation. — Congressman Jim Jordon
Today, the animating principles of the American idea are entirely absent from public discourse. To the new Administration, American exceptionalism means an exceptional effort to harness an exceptionally big government in the cause of exceptionally massive spending. The can-do spirit means ... A high-school student in Dillon, South Carolina (writing) to the President to ask him to do something about the peeling paint in her classroom. He read the letter out approvingly in a televised address to Congress. Imagine if ... the national bureaucracy in Washington becomes responsible for grade-school paint jobs from Maine to Hawaii. What size of government would be required for such a project? And is it compatible with a constitutional republic? — Mark Steyn
To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America. Work must be found for able-bodies but destitute workers. The federal government must and shall quit this
business of relief. — President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Annual message to Congress, 4 Jan 1935
To God and posterity you are accountable for [your rights and your rulers]....Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you. — Mathias Burnet
To ignore the facts does not change the facts. — Author Unknown
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize. — Voltaire
Tolerance is the last virtue of a dying society. — Aristotle
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
To mind your own business incorporates the whole duty of man. — Brigham Young (Journal of Discourses (JD) 10:289)
To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character. — Alexander Hamilton
Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair. — George Burns
Too many in the media act as if decency is a violation of the First Amendment. — Thomas Sowell
Too often we and our enemies are portrayed as moral equivalents. — Michael Barone, 13 Jun 2006
Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. — John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th US President
To put blind faith in government is as stupid as putting blind faith in what a used-car salesman tells you. It is also un-American. In our great country, sovereignty rests with the people, and the proper attitude of a citizen toward government at all levels is courteous skepticism. Elected officials and bureaucrats are your servants, not your masters. — Charley Reese
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you're not allowed to criticize. — Voltaire
To sin by silence, when we should protest makes cowards out of men. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it. — Thomas Jefferson (letter to Joseph Milligan, 6 Apr 1816)
To the liberal, Utopia always lies just within sight but just beyond reach. It is always around the next corner, where you find the next governmental contrivance, in the form of a law, regulation, mandate, tax, or federal program. — Selwyn Duke
To those who cite the First Amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions every day, I say: The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny. — Ronald Reagan, US President
True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions....It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly considered punishment. — Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice. ― Martin Luther King Jr.
Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? ....we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments....To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves. — Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia: Religion, 1784
Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it. — Maimonides (1135-1204)
Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now - always. — Albert Schweitzer
Truth never damages a cause that is just. — Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
Tyrants always start out with small measures that appear reasonable. Revealing their complete agenda from the start would encounter too much resistance. — Walter Williams
Tyranny is always better organized than freedom. — Charles Peguy
Under a proper social system…a private individual may do anything except that which is legally forbidden; a government official may do nothing except that which is legally permitted…This is the American concept of "a government of laws and not of men." — Ayn Rand
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. — Albert Einstein
Up until the 1960s there was no separation of church and state in its [current] sense. The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or exercising the free exercise thereof." The amendment was made to protect the church from the state, not vice versa. The phrase "separation of church and state" was coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to a church. He assured them that the government was not going to establish a state religion because a "wall of separation has been erected between church and state." — Sterling Strait, Anchorage, Alaska, Apr 2001
Using standard media terminology, socialist or communist collectivists are mischaracterized as liberal or politically left, while mainstream, centrist, American-oriented individuals are described as "right" leaning. In reality, right describes fascists, and few in the country (outside of some government bureaucrats and other misfits) fit that description. — Alan Korwin, 2 Aug 2007
Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another. Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property. In vices, the very essence of crime -- that is, the design to injure the person or property of another -- is wanting. It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever
practices a vice with any such criminal intent. He practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others. Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and co-equal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property. For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth. — Lysander Spooner (1808-1887)
Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing. — Bernard Baruch
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. — John Stuart Mill
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war is much worse....A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. — John Stuart Mill,
1806 - 1873 ("The Contest in America," Fraser's Magazine, Feb 1862)
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography. — George Bernard Shaw
We again warn our people in America of the constantly increasing threat against our inspired Constitution and our free institutions set up under it. The same political tenets and philosophies that have brought war and terror in other parts of the world are at work amongst us in America....Communism and all other similar isms bear no relationship whatever to the United Order. They are merely the clumsy counterfeits which Satan always devises of the gospel plan… Latter-day Saints cannot be true to their faith and lend aid, encouragement, or sympathy to any of these false philosophies. They will prove snares to their feet. — Heber J. Grant (Grant and McKay p 273, 343)
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. — C.S. Lewis
Wealth is based on productivity, and productivity is expandable. In fact, productivity is fabulously expandable. — PJ O'Rourke
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. — Ayn Rand
We are in danger of forgetting that the Bill of Rights reflects experience with police excesses. It is not only under Nazi rule that police excesses are inimical to freedom. It is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. It is too easy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily and then brazenly and brazenly in the end. — Felix Frankfurter, US Supreme Court Justice
We are involved in an intense battle. It is a battle between right and wrong, between truth and error, between the design of the Almighty on the one hand and that of Lucifer on the other. For that reason, we desperately need moral men and women who stand on principle, to be involved in the political process. Otherwise, we abdicate power to those whose designs are almost entirely selfish. — Gordon B. Hinckley
[W]e are living in a sick Society filled with people who would not directly steal from their neighbors but who are willing to demand that the government do it for them. — William Comer
We are now reaping the benefits of a welfare state. For more years than most can remember, we have been told by those holding office that they will take care of us. We have provided food, clothing and shelter to the extent that the recipients became entirely dependent on government resources to live. They have reached the point that no longer do they have the knowledge to take care of themselves. They will sit there and drown or go hungry, and curse the fact that the government has not gotten them out of this mess. When it is all said and done, there is but one person who is responsible for me, and that is me. The responsibility falls to me to take care of my family, not the government. Society, not government, has an obligation to provide care and sustenance to those who, because of age or physical impairment cannot take care of themselves, but able-bodied people who stand around and complain that no one is doing anything for them deserve whatever the fates cast in their direction. Life is hard, and you either get tougher or you get washed away -- it is as simple as that. Politicians will never, ever take care of you -- they only want one thing from you, and that is to stay in power as long as they can. In a situation like Katrina, they will stand in front of the cameras and microphones and denigrate everyone above them in government to take the eye off of their pathetic efforts. This is a situation that they have created, and now the good citizens of the area will have to step in and clean up the mess that has been created by the politicians. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen -- there are too many good people who live in that area for it not to happen. I love the people of New Orleans and the surrounding parishes, but I despise the politicians....I just hope that when the area is rebuilt, they stay away from the massive welfare system they had before -- absolutely no good comes from welfare. It depletes available resources, making it ever more difficult for what passes as government to respond to the true needs of the community. — Robert Johnson, retired New Orleans Police Captain, commenting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Sep 2005
We believe that our real threat comes from within and not from without, and it comes from that underlying spirit common to Nazism, Fascism, and Communism, namely, the spirit which would array class against class, which would set up a socialistic state of some sort, which would rob the people of the liberties which we possess under the Constitution....As we see it, there is no way in which we can, to use your own words, "preserve and perpetuate our freedom—freedom to govern ourselves, freedom of speech, and freedom to worship God according to our own light," except we shall turn away from our present course and resume the normal course along which this great country traveled to its present high eminence of prosperity, of culture, of universal education, and of the peace and contentment which we enjoyed prior to the inauguration of the "New Deal". These things are not matters of partisan politics with us. We care nothing as Church leaders about partisan politics as such, nor about the dominance of one party or the other. We grant to every man the right to vote as he wishes, and we would not control his vote even if we could. But we do reserve to ourselves the right to tell our people what we think is right regarding politics as affecting the fundamentals of our government system, to warn them of the dangers that lie under the present course, and to try to persuade them that their peace, their happiness, and their security do not lie along the path of the present trends of government. Truly, we do not believe that -- again to quote your own words -- we can "preserve and perpetuate our freedom—freedom to govern ourselves, freedom of speech, and freedom to worship God according to our own light" unless we turn squarely about and return to the old-time virtues, and re-enthrone our liberties and free institutions. — Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., David O. McKay (A Letter to the Treasury from the LDS First Presidency in 1941)
We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end. — G.K. Chesterton
We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us. — Vladimir Lenin
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. — Edward R. Murrow
We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans. — President Bill Clinton (USA Today, 11 March 1993, page 2A)
We can't expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have communism. — Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet dictator
(We)...can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people. — Hillary Clinton, 4 Jun 2007
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object ro a state-enforced equality. Then they say we are against equality. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. — Frédéric Bastiat
We don't have a natural right to take the property of one person to give to another; therefore, we cannot legitimately delegate such authority to government. — Dr. Walter Williams
We don't need to ban water from planes; we need to keep terrorists off them. To most effectively do so, we need to get over our obsession with "bad" things (laptops, lighters, bottled water) and start looking for bad people. — Robert Poole, Reason Foundation
We don't teach our children that healthy relationships involve drunken, naked parties in a hot tub with strangers -- but that's what they see on TV. We don't teach them to express their anger by seeing how much blood they can draw with a round of ammo, but that's what they learn in the most popular video games. And we don't teach our kids that the height of success is inheriting a family fortune to buy Gucci bags without ever working a day in your life, but that's how Paris Hilton gets by on TV. You can say that kids know this isn't real, but when they're fed a steady diet of these depictions over and over again from the time they're very young, this behavior becomes acceptable -- even normal. — Senator Barack Obama, speaking at the 9 Nov 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation press conference to release its latest study of sex on television
We have 23 million people unemployed in this country. They all have, for the most part, a telephone, a place to live, a flat screen, a car, and they're eating. That's not the way people lived on unemployment, say, in the Great Depression -- or in the 1970s, even. — Rush Limbaugh, 8 Nov 2013
We have a deficit of moral courage in the United States Congress. We have many learned individuals who know what is right but have not the courage to stand against the moral corruption that is now attempting to undermine our republic. — Dr. Tom Coburn
We have a national shortage on responsibility. — Jason Lewis, 10 Apr 2008
We have a species of parasites in America -- some call them Democrats, who think that America's greatness comes from government. — Neil Boortz
We have confused the free with the free and easy. — Adlai E. Stevenson
We have failed our children if we have not passed on to them a realistic perspective of government. We must insure that they know that it is not okay to raid people's paychecks and steal their property, even if doing so seems to be in the best interest of society. We must not take it for granted that our children know the importance of spiritual things and understand the foundations of traditional morality. We must insure that they do. Walt Disney would not know the company he founded only a generation ago. He would roll over in his grave at what those at the helm of Disney today have made of his dream. Henry Ford would turn away in disgust at what the Ford Foundation is doing with his fortune. I am certain that the Founding Fathers would be distressed at the way we have allowed their carefully constructed, much debated words...twisted so as to kick God and the Bible out of our schools and to protect the purveyors of obscenity. They would wonder in disbelief at the income taxes we allow to be confiscated from our paychecks today and the property that is stolen without compensation by means of egregious land use regulations. In their day, they would have hung the government official who told them that they could not build a deck on the back of their house without a government permit or could not own a gun without the government's consent.... Today, 'church going' Walt [Disney] would not even be welcome to sit on the board of directors of his own company. Today, neither George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, nor James Madison could be elected to Congress in any of the states from which they hailed two centuries ago. That's what happens when a generation or two fails to pass on to their children and those who work under them the values and traditions that form the very underpinnings of their society. Precious things slip away, for the price of liberty really is eternal vigilance. — Bill Sizemore
We have gone too far and there's only one way out -- and it's not raising taxes, because you could never raise tax rates enough to deal with this kind of debt and deficit. At some point, this country has to grow up and say we're going to stop spending so much, or being so reckless about what we do spend. — Mark Belling, 11 Jun 2010
We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. — Doctrine and Covenants 121:39
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. — John Adams (1798)
We have rights, as individuals, to give as much of our own money as we please to charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of public money. — Davy Crockett (1786-1836) American frontiersman, soldier and politician
We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people. — Theodore Roosevelt, 1907
We have staked the whole future of our new nation not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments. — James Madison, the primary author of the US Constitution
We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own...in order to create this common ground. — Hillary Clinton, 4 Jun 2007
We in America have reached the point where the nation's laws cannot protect our children. The bizarre parsing and twisting of each constitutional right has eroded our fundamental right to live in a country where violent behavior is prosecuted to the full extent of the law. — Bill O'Reilly
[W]e insist on the principle that no danger or crisis, foreign or domestic, will be solved by Americans surrendering more of their constitutional liberties, in the foolish hope that a bigger government will provide greater security. — Larry P. Arnn (1952- ) President of Hillsdale College,
Michigan
We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective. — Dave Barry
Welfare is another of our major problems. We are a humane and generous people and we accept without reservation our obligation to help the aged, disabled, and those unfortunates who, through no fault of their own, must depend on their fellow man. But we are not going to perpetuate poverty by substituting a permanent dole for a paycheck. There is no humanity or charity in destroying self-reliance, dignity, and self-respect ... the very substance of moral fiber. — Ronald Reagan
Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence. — Ronald Reagan
We live in a complex world with currents of conflict everywhere to be found. Political machinations ruin the stability of nations, despots grasp for power, and segments of society seem forever downtrodden, deprived of opportunity, and left with a feeling of failure. — Thomas S. Monson
We live in a country that values individual enterprise, personal responsibility and individual freedom. The more the government takes out of your pocket the less we have of all three of those things. — Karl Rove, 9 Aug 2010
Well, I'm looking at it, as a matter of fact, Chris, because I think there ought to be an opportunity to present the other side. And unfortunately, talk radio is overwhelmingly one way. — Senator Dianne Feinstein to Chris Wallace of Fox News, 2007
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex -- but Congress can. — Cullen Hightower
We must become involved in civic affairs. As citizens of this republic we cannot do our duty and be idle spectators. — Ezra Taft Benson (Ensign, Nov 1987, page 102)
We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. — William Faulkner
We must never forget that the Constitution was the negotiated middle for the founding of this nation. To consider it radical would be to not understand it.
— Carolyn Pippen, candidate for US Senate, 2024
We must reject the idea that every time a law is broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions. — Ronald Reagan
We need to make it clear that the free use of the public airwaves continues to come with certain obligations ... to reflect not the basest elements of American culture but the profound and the proud. — Barack Obama, US Senator from Illinois (Advertising Age, 9 Nov 2005)
We need to re-regulate the media. — Howard Dean, President of the Democrat Party, 2007
We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy
knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy. — Chris Hedges
[W]e ought to vote to dissolve the Congress and go home and wait for the next election. — Trent Lott, US Senator (Amen!)
We pay too little attention to the reserve power of the people to take care of themselves. We are too solicitous for government intervention, on the theory, first, that the people themselves are helpless, and second, that the government has superior capacity for action. Often times both of these conclusions are wrong. — John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., US President
We're developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won't be ale to think. — Rod Serling (1924-1975)
We regard the minimum wage as one of the most, if not the most, anti-black laws on the statute books. — Milton Friedman
We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. — Hillary Clinton, 29 Jun 2004
We're not, we're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. — Barrack Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, 28 Apr 2011 (Apparently, once a businessman has made enough money -- whatever BO's imagined limit is -- that businessman should dissolve his business, stop providing the product or service that is popular with his customers, and lay off all his employees, thus ensuring that
said businessman doesn't make too much money.)
Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread. — Thomas Jefferson
We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. — John Adams (1797)
We should remember the way the ACLU works to get their agenda into law. They have never taken a single issue to the public and worked through the democratic system of voting. Rather, they find a sympathetic liberal activist judge to make law from the bench. — Donald E. Wildmon, American Family Association
We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. — George Orwell
We want the best for everybody, folks, and that means not subsidizing idleness so that people become dependent on government -- and vote Democrat forever. — Rush Limbaugh, 19 Nov 2009
We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us. — Lionel Trilling
What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive? — Irv Kupcinet
What our nation needs is a separation of "business and state". That would mean crony capitalism and crony socialism could not survive. — Dr. Walter Williams, Professor of Economics
What then does it mean to be free? Freedom means to have matured to the full knowledge of our dangerously many responsibilities as a human being. We have learned that everything we do, and even say or think, has consequences. — F. Enzio Busche (Ensign, Nov 2000, p 83-84)
What do Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden have in common? They both have friends who bombed the Pentagon. — Rush Limbaugh, 7 Oct 2008
What does it mean whether you hold the deed...or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? ...Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. — Ronald Reagan
What do you get when you hold a conference with 1,200 people who are all afraid of offending one another? I'll tell you what you don't get. You don't get unity, and you don't get agreement on anything....We Christians may interpret the Bible differently; we may apply it to life differently; we may have arguments over exegesis. But the Bible has to be the ultimate authority. Otherwise we end up worshiping the goddess of tolerance and believing that tolerance takes precedence over truth....This kind of so-called "tolerance" can never bring people together, but only...pull them farther apart. — Charles Colson, commenting on the "Spiritual Activism Conference" which took place in Washington, DC in Jul 2006
Whatever Congress wishes to give, it has to first take other people's money. Thus, at the root of the welfare state is the immorality of intimidation, threats and coercion backed up with the threat of violence by the agents of the U.S. Congress. In order for Congress to do what some Americans deem as good, it must first do evil. It must do that which if done privately would mean a jail sentence; namely, take the property of one American to give to another. — Walter E. Williams
[W]hat has defined us as a nation since our founding is the capacity to shape our destiny--our determination to fight for the America we want for our children. Even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don't yet know precisely how we're going to get there. We know we'll get there. — Barack Obama, alleged president of the United States revealing his profound understanding of the process of setting and achieving goals, 15 Jun 2010
What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? — Abraham Lincoln
What is euphemistically called government-corporate 'partnership' is just government coercion, political favoritism, collectivist industrial policy, and old-fashioned federal boondoggles nicely wrapped up in a bright-colored ribbon. It doesn't work. — Ronald Reagan, US President
What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion. — Ayn Rand
What is the real cause of this trend toward the welfare state, toward more socialism? In the last analysis, in my judgment, it is personal unrighteousness. When people do not use their freedoms responsibly and righteously, they will gradually lose these freedoms....If man will not recognize the inequalities around him and voluntarily, through the gospel plan, come to the aid of his brother, he will find that through "a democratic process" he will be forced to come to the aid of his brother. The government will take from the "haves" and give to the "have nots." Both have lost their freedom. Those who "have," lost their freedom to give voluntarily of their own free will and in the way they desire. Those who "have not," lost their freedom because they did not earn what they received. They got "something for nothing," and they will neither appreciate the gift nor the giver of the gift. Under this climate, people gradually become blind to what has happened and to the vital freedoms which they have lost. — Howard W. Hunter on Socialism and Freedom (Devotional Address, Brigham Young University, 8 Mar 1966)
What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary? — Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington, DC
What's just has been debated for centuries, but let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well, then, tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you - and why? — Walter Williams, Economist
What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. — Edward Langley, American Artist (1925-1995)
What was new about [the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki] was the technology, not the morality. More people were killed with ordinary bombs in German cities or in Tokyo. Vastly more people were killed with ordinary bullets and cannon on the Russian front. Morality is about what you do to people, not the technology you use. — Thomas Sowell
What we buy, and pay for, is part of ourselves. — Amelia E. Barr
When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When government does it, it sends you the bill. And when government does it for 40 years, the bill comes in two ways: higher taxes and inflation. Make no mistake about it, inflation is a tax and not by accident. — Ronald Reagan
When American people no longer believe that this is a place where only their willingness to work hard...determines their success in life, we'll have a bunch of people sitting on a couch waiting for their next government check. — Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey
When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it -- without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud -- to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed. — Frederick Bastiat (1801-1850), French economist, The Law, Jun 1850
When a student addresses an assembly of his peers, he effectively becomes a government representative; it is therefore unconstitutional for that student to engage in prayer. — Harris v. Joint School District, 1994
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. — PJ O'Rourke
When did we reach the point that you have to have a certain philosophy because of the color of your skin? When did that happen? — Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon
Whenever we are attacked, people are willing to give up someone else's liberties for their own security. — Judge Andrew Napolitano
When it comes to realism about elections, Democrats (the Evil Party) generally do better than Republicans (the Stupid Party). Democrats really want to win. They're motivated by a belief that America is a sexist, racist, homophobic, unfair, unequal country. At the same time, they believe that society can be fundamentally changed by the political process. Therefore, getting and keeping political power means everything, and justifies any and all subterfuges. In addition, many Democrats know that if they don't win, they don't eat. Many leftwing activists live on government paychecks, or government grants to organizations that, like ACORN, meet their budgets with taxpayer money. Democrats know they'll get the votes of the illegals, and that's why they favor open borders. That's political reality. — Bill Sumner
When I was a child, I was told anyone could be president. I'm beginning to believe it. — Author Unknown
When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.— Dr. Ron Paul, US Congressman
When Rome collapsed in the Fifth century, its enemies numbered only a fraction of those the Romans had defeated in the Punic Wars five hundred years earlier. Decline is a choice. It always is. — Victor Davis Hanson
When surveys of the national media have shown that half of journalists are religiously unaffiliated and 86 percent never attend church or synagogue, it's not a surprise that they just don't get it. — Brent Bozell
When the framers of the American republic spoke of "the people"…they meant a sum of individuals, each of whom…retains his inviolate guarantee of individual rights. — Ayn Rand
When the government subsidizes something, there's unlimited demand. — Jason Lewis, 10 Apr 2008
When white man discovered this country, Indians were running it: no taxes or debt, women did all the work, and the men went fishing. And the white man thought he could improve on a system like that! — Author Unknown
When you accept food stamps, you accept an unearned handout that other working people are paying for. You do not earn food stamps or welfare payments. Every individual who accepts an unearned government gratuity is just as morally culpable as the individual who takes a handout from taxpayers' money to pay his heat, electricity, or rent. There is no difference in principle between them....The price you pay for 'something for nothing' may be more than you can afford. Do not rationalize your acceptance of government gratuities by saying, 'I am a contributing taxpayer too.' By doing this you contribute to the problem which is leading this nation to financial insolvency. — Ezra Taft Benson (BYU 1977)
When you educate someone with good natural instincts, you get a leader. When you educate someone with poor natural instincts, you get a liberal. — Kevin Burget, 22 Nov 2000
When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, "Who is destroying the world?" You are. — Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed. — Ayn Rand (1905-1982) (Atlas Shrugged)
When you skip voting, it is not rebellion. It is surrender. — Author Unknown
When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar; you're telling the world that you fear what he might say. — Tyrione Lannister
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. — Thomas Sowell
Where did we get this idea that we need to save the environment? Has the environment ever tried to save us? No. Since the dawn of time, nature has tried to kill us. Earthquakes, plagues, sharknados -- nature is always trying to find new ways to wipe us out. — Frank J. Fleming
Where I live in Manhattan and where I work at ABC, people say 'conservative' the way people say 'child molester.' Leftist thinking is just the culture that I live in and the culture the reporters who populate the mainstream media live in. — John Stossel
Where morality is present, laws are unnecessary. Without morality, laws are unenforceable. — Author Unknown
Which is the greater problem facing Americans today: Ignorance or apathy? Too many people reply, "I don't know, and I don't care." — Author Unknown
While we spend men and money to fight for freedom in other lands, the courts and Congress continue to nibble away at it here at home. — Lyn Nofziger
[W]ho are "your people"? I ask because US Attorney General Eric Holder, who is black, used the phrase "my people" in congressional testimony [last] week. ... In pandering to skin-deep identity politics and exacerbating race-consciousness, Holder has given the rest of us a golden opportunity to stand up, identify "our people" and show the liberal poseurs what post-racialism really looks like. ... It's government of, by and for the people -- all the people. Not just the ones still shackled by reflexive Democratic Party loyalty. We are beholden not to our skin pigment or ethnic tribes, but to American ideals, tradition, history and faith in the individual. — Michelle Malkin
Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past. — George Orwell, 1984
Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel. — Ayn Rand
Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. — Benjamin Franklin
Who or what is this "Hollywood" that is so out of touch with our values? Why is it they endeavor to subvert us with clandestine propaganda? How do they intend to capture and convert us? Is it by what they show and say or is there a more subversive and dastardly agenda in what they prepensely leave out? God is omnipresent, so why is He so difficult to find in the movies? — Keith Merrill, Academy Award-winning movie director
Why don't we see Peace Activists demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most? Peace activists always seem to demonstrate here in America, where it's safe. Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy. — Raymond S. Kraft, Sep 2006
Why is it that the most ideologically driven people invariably seem to believe that they, uniquely, are completely free of ideological bias? — Arle Richard Lommel, 19 Jun 2014
Why is it that those who clamor the loudest for diversity seem to believe that diversity does not include straight white Christians? — Blaine Nay
Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them? — Ann Coulter
Why should jurists feel compelled to defer to unconstitutional precedent that was born of the casting aside of constitutional precedent? — Selwyn Duke
Without data, we're just another schmuck with an opinion. — D. Chris Anderson, PhD
Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech. —Benjamin Franklin (1722)
With Republicans in power, man exploits man. With Democrats, just the opposite.
— Richard B. Boddie
Women who have given children up for adoption feel bittersweet. Women who have had abortions just feel bitter. — Fredrica Matthews-Green, radio commentator, National Public Radio
Would you be willing to give up your favorite federal government program if it meant never having to pay income tax again? — Harry Browne (1933-2006)
Yes, the Left does love diversity of everything but opinion. — Al Rantel, 2004
You are not what you believe in, you are what you will fight for! — Boston T. Party
You cannot begin to solve a problem until you admit you have a problem. — Bernard Goldberg, Arrogance, p 238
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. — Reverend William JH Boetcke (1873-1962) German-born Presbyterian clergyman, 1916 (often erroneously attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
You cannot claim both full equality and special dispensation. — William Raspberry
You cannot get freedom back by defending what you have left. — Tommy Crier
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should be doing for themselves. — Abraham Lincoln
You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. — Pastor Adrian Pierce Rogers (1931-2005), in a sermon in 1984 quoting Pastor Gerald L K Smith (1898-1976)
You cannot make men equal without taking away their freedom. — David Horowitz
You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society. — C.S. Lewis
You cannot think of any greater gift that could come to a man or woman than the freedom of choice. — David O. McKay (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay, p 205)
You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money. — P.J. O'Rourke
You can't add a runway to an airport in America without years of carefully researched environmental impact statements. But you [the courts] can radically reorder the fundamental social unit of society [the family] without political process or serious research. — Orson Scott Card
You can’t pick and choose which types of freedom you want to defend. You must defend all of it or be against all of it. — Scott Howard Phillips
You can't reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into. — Oscar Wilde
You can't reason a man out of what he wasn't reasoned into. — Jonathon Swift
You don't change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall. — Jawaharlal Nehru
You had better be ready to change your mind when needed. — Henry B. Wilson
You have no rights except those you are willing to take. — Jack A Sol
You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. — Erma Bombeck
You have to realize, the country has a lot of what we call low-information people. In the old days you'd call 'em morons. Today they're the people running the country....What the White House wants the nation's morons -- ahem, low-information voters -- to believe is that we would not have a deficit or a national debt if the rich were paying their fair share. — Rush Limbaugh, 18 Dec 2012
You know, I wanted to sit on a jury once and I was taken off the jury. And the judge said to me, 'Can you tell the truth and be fair?' And I said, 'That's what journalists do.' And everybody in the courtroom laughed. It was the most hurtful moment I think I've ever had. — Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America, 12 Jul 2007
You know the one thing that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to have their fair say. — Bill Clinton, US President, 29 May 1993
You know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a president. — Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who needs a remedial civics class
You need only 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 Austin Beard, historian
Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking. — P. J. O'Rourke
Your silence gives consent. — Plato (427 BC to 347 BC)
You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action. — Anthony Robbins
You use the name of Deity in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution of the United States, and yet you cannot use it in the schoolroom. — Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Great Britain
You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything. — Aaron Tippin
You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too. — John Kenneth Galbraith
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats, procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing. — Thomas Sowell
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