Best 728 quotes in «libertarian quotes» category

Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence.

Consider Social Security. The young have always contributed to the support of the old. Earlier, the young helped their own parents out of a sense of love and duty. They now contribute to the support of someone else's parents out of compulsion and fear. The voluntary transfers strengthened the bonds of the family; the compulsory transfers weaken those bonds.

Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth.

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.

Decriminalization would take the profit out of drugs and greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the drug-related violence that is currently plaguing our streets.

Democracy is indispensable to socialism.

David and Charles Koch are pretty much as far right as you can get on the ideological spectrum without falling off. They are far right libertarians, very anti-government, very pro-business, very anti-tax, anti-regulatory, in favour of free markets ruling the day.

Democracy is the current industry standard political system, but unfortunately it is ill-suited for a libertarian state.

Democracy is the suggestion box for slaves.

Democracy is the road to socialism.

Don't tax you, don't tax me; Tax the companies across the sea.

Dependence leads to subservience.

Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy.

Economist Frederick Thayer has studied the history of our balanced-budget crusades and has come up with some depressing statistics. We have had six major depressions in our history (1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1929); all six of them followed sustained periods of reducing the national debt. We have had almost chronic deficits since the 1930s, and there has been no depression since then - the longest crash-free period in our history.

Economics is sometimes associated with the study and defense of selfishness and material inequality, but it has an egalitarian and civil libertarian core that should be celebrated.

Equality of opportunity is freedom, but equality of outcome is repression.

Even those who identify themselves as libertarians follow an overtly anti-rationalist philosophy, as even a brief acquaintance with the work of Friedrich Hayek should make clear. The argument against reason in this literature is straightforward: it is impossible for any individual to acquire enough reliable information to make a rational decision, any actions founded on rational thought will therefore be delusional, any attempts at reason should therefore regarded as dangerous, and all action should instead be guided by tradition.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

Fascism isn't a libertarian doctrine! It just isn't, never will be and it can't be cast as one.

Form 1040 was chosen by the IRS because for every $50 you earn, you get 10 and they get 40.

Damn the Solar System. Bad light; planets too distant; pestered with comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better myself.

Faced with the pain of freedom, man begs for his shackles.

For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.

For every new mouth to feed, there are two hands to produce.

Formerly an anti-Semite was somebody who hated Jews because they were Jews and had a Jewish soul. But nowadays an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews.

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.

Freedom is still the most radical idea of all.

For the totalitarian mind, adherence to state propaganda does not suffice: one must display proper enthusiasm while marching in the parade.

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

Government is not the solution, but rather the cause of our problems.

Government has a monopoly on the legal use of force and violence.

Gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice.

Gravity. It's not just a good idea; it's the law!

Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them.

Government should stay the hell out of people's business.

He who controls the past controls the future.

Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly "reforming" their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact that they're always busy "reforming" is an implicit admission that they didn't get it right the first 50 times.

Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control.

How to obtain freedom has been, and is, mankind's most important quest.

I am a Libertarian Republican in the Goldwater style.

Government, in it's last analysis, is organized force.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.

History has witnessed the failure of many endeavors to impose peace by war, cooperation by coercion, unanimity by slaughtering dissidents.... A lasting order cannot be established by bayonets.

However insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible.

I am perfectly happy to compromise and work with anybody. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians. I’ll work with Martians. If — and the if is critical — they're willing to cut spending and reduce the debt.

I am so old that I can remember when liberals were liberal - instead of being intolerant of anything and anybody that is not politically correct.

I became very much, if I have to describe myself, I'm sort of a Libertarian Capitalist, and I was looking for, what's the economic engine that's going to drive us into space?

I am interested in politics so that one day I will not have to be interested in politics.

I believe in a libertarian communist society.