Liberty Quotes - Page 18

But let it not be said that we did nothing. Let not those who love the power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty.

There are many forms of tyrants, but there are none so terrible as those stifling their own people in the name of freedom.

Can social progress be made without government?It's like saying 'can happiness be achieved without the initiation of violence? Can romance be achieved without rape? Can profitability be achieved without theft? Can economic growth be achieved without the mass indebted enslavement and counterfeiting of the federal reserve?'.

Countries adopting free-market capitalism have increased output 70-fold, halved work days and doubled lifespans.

The truth shall set your soul free.

Burke's admonition--"The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: We ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations"--never seems to have occurred to Hayek. The Arnoldian ideal of the disinterested intellectual willing to criticize one side and then the other in order to create balance and counteract the one-sidedness that led toward fanaticism: That, too, was as alien to Hayek as it had been to Marcuse. If it was partisanship that led Hayek to push forward intellectually to new insights, it was also partisanship that kept him from a balanced and rounded philosophy.Perhaps a familiarity with "the best that has been thought and said" about the market will aid us in obtaining a more disinterested and informed perspective. Such a perspective might well begin with Hayek's insights. But it would by no means end with them. p. 387

I think we need to consider a radical rewrite of any form of patriotism that serves the individual at the expense of the community, as that is nothing more than patriotism to one's own small and solitary cause.

Of all the religions in the world, perhaps the religion of liberty is the only faith capable of purity.

I don't have much patience for people who enjoy limitless liberty while decrying those who get their hands dirty to make sure it exists for them.

Love of liberty, the refusal to accept your soul's enslavement, not even in exchange for paradise; stalwart games over and above love and pain, over and above death; smashing even the most sacrosant of the molds when they are unable to contain you any longer - these are the great cries of Crete. (Report to Greco)

Liberty isn't everything. I just allows everything to happen.

Freedom is the inherent state of nature. A bird is free until you clip its wings and put it in a cage. Just because you pick up its shit, give it food and water, and let it do as it pleases within the confines of its cage does not make it any less a captive. Even if the cage was made of pure gold, the ornate bars would serve the same purpose.

The very term ‘public utility’ … is an absurd one. Every good is useful ‘to the public,’ and almost every good … may be considered ‘necessary.’ Any designation of a few industries as ‘public utilities’ is completely arbitrary and unjustified.

Legislating morality grows big government immensely, and helps fashion the noose the government will use to ultimately hang you by.

To eliminate statism is not to physically subdue the rulers, but to mentally liberate the ruled.

The earliest use of writing was strictly commercial and economic, not political or bureaucratic. It was trade, entrepreneurship, and stewardship of private property, not politics, "public education" or the creation of national mythology that allowed humankind to transition from prehistory to history. Just as trade, entrepreneurship, and stewardship of private property have always been on the forefront of civilization's advancement, so were they also the driving force behind civilization's emergence.

I would rather contend with an honest asshole than a duplicitous diplomat.

Faith is freedom.

I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality [in Europe] producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,...[One] means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.

If you kill, kidnap & rape your opponents claiming that you're fighting the terrorist that is not exist!Soon it'll be existing as you're sowing it!Miserable Egypt!

Lies don't make you happy. They just make you lie about being happy.

If any of the socialist chiefs had tried to earn his living by selling hot dogs, he would have learned something about the sovereignty of the consumers.

Enlightenment is the key to empowerment.

All it takes is common sense to understand that the Rajapaksa administration has vandalised every layer of the country’s resources to get rid of political obstacles while minimising the space available to facilitate the sharing of authentic political dissent. At the same time the opposition appears to be caged.

The central movement of the mind is the desire for unrestricted liberty and (...) this movement is invariably accompanied by its opposite, a dread of the consequences of liberty.

Time means a lot to me, paperwork wastes it, and I have always been a firm believer in my right to do anything I cannot be stopped from doing. Which sometimes entails not getting caught at it. This is not quite so bad as it sounds, as I am a decent, civilized, likable guy. So, shading my eyes against the blue and fiery afternoon, I began searching for ways to convince the authorities of this. Lying, I decided, was probably best.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.

Freedom is an expensive gift always worth fighting for. Even if it costs us!

What ranks above all else for economic and political reconstruction is a radical change of ideologies. Economic prosperity is not so much a material problem; it is, first of all, an intellectual, spiritual, and moral problem.

The vast majority of people are unthinking prejudice machines.

There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone' anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.

I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature. Tomorrow I shall contradict myself. That is the one way I have of asserting my liberty, the real liberty one does not find as a member of society.

[T]he state should not impose a preferred way of life, but should leave its citizens as free as possible to choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.

Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible ‘anarchy’, why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?

We've got this weird dysgenic situation where we're basically just paying idiots to breed and taxing intelligent people to stay away from each other with anything remotely resembling fertility.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of gratitude, now that would’ve worked. They would have been readily led to contentment, which would’ve then better lead them on to happiness.

The president, the secretary of state, the businessman, the preacher, the vendor, the spies, the clients and managers—all walking around Wall Street like chickens with their heads cut off—rushing to escape bankruptcy—plotting to melt down the Statue of Liberty—to press more copper pennies—to breed more headless chickens—to put more feathers in their caps—medals, diplomas, stock certificates, honorary doctorates—eggs and eggs of headless chickens—multitaskers—system hackers—who never know where they’re heading--northward, backward, eastward, forward, and never homeward—(where is home)—home is in the head—(but the head is cut off)—and the nest is full of banking forms and Easter eggs with coins inside. Beheaded chickens, how do you breed chickens with their heads cut off? By teaching them how to bankrupt creativity.

Sexual liberation is the root of all liberation.

I am not so much concerned with the right of everyone to say anything he pleases as I am about our need as self-governing people to hear everything relevant.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.

Political writers argue in regard to the love of liberty with the same philosophy that philosophers do in regard to the state of nature; by the things they see they judge of things very different which they have never seen, and they attribute to men a natural inclination to slavery, on account of the patience with which the slaves within their notice carry the yoke; not reflecting that it is with liberty as with innocence and virtue, the value of which is not known but by those who possess them, though the relish for them is lost with the things themselves. I know the charms of your country, said Brasidas to a satrap who was comparing the life of the Spartans with that of the Persepolites; but you can not know the pleasures of mine.

Rare are the handful of principles that incessantly drive us to stand even when we face the stark realization that we will likely perish in the standing. And rarer still is the person who will surrender all to protect such principles. Yet, the rudimentary principles of freedom and liberty pristinely untarnished by greed and selfishness took captive the hearts of simple people and raised this nation up from untamed wilderness and unchecked tyranny. And let us all be warned that without renewed adherence to these principles, we will rapidly return this nation to untamed wilderness and unchecked tyranny.

A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment ... is not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

Some that read this book will find its Libertarian and Constitutionalist slant a bit obtuse and maybe even off-putting. This author makes no apologies for viewing the history of the eugenics movement from this political perspective. It is the ethical and legal underpinnings of the American Revolution that remain as a guiding light while the eugenics movement continues to reemerge long after its alleged demise. Limited, or rather minimal government, goes a long way to curtail the disconnect that emerges when government grows so large that it no longer feels compelled to heed to the dictates of the governed.

I lent only half an ear to those well-intentioned folk who say that happiness is enervating, liberty too relaxing, and that kindness is a corruption for those upon whom it is practiced. That may be; but in the world as it is, such reasoning amounts to a refusal to nourish a starving man decently, for fear that in a few years he may suffer from overfeeding. When useless servitude has been alleviated as far as possible, and unnecessary misfortune avoided, there will remain as a test of man’s fortitude that long series of veritable ills, death, old age, and incurable sickness, love unrequited and friendship rejected or betrayed, the mediocrity of a life less vast than our projects and duller than our dreams; in short, all the woes caused by the divine nature of things.

I AM AN INDIAN,LIKE OTHER BILLION,HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY,HOPE TO FIND A GOOD WAY,WHERE THOUGHTS DIVINITY,IS NOT IN INFINITY,ITS UR LIBERTY.

First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.

Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?

People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have for example freedom of thought instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.

Creativity is the greatest expression of liberty.

So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.

Knowledge can never imprison you, but you can be captive to your ignorance.

Invariably, knowledge dictates life, liberty, and death, but those who have historically occupied the seats of power not only dictate what is defined as knowledge but also dictate what’s included, what’s excluded, and how it is filtered to society vis-à-vis America’s major institutions . . . particularly the educational system; ultimately, shaping the very essence of life.

Vengeance against predators is meals on wheels.

Liberty and Union now and for ever one and inseparable!

There are those that want "freedom" from individual responsibility. Then there are those that want individual "liberty." I choose the latter. I am a Libertarian

A "centrally planned economy" by definition discourages and despises participation by the masses. It's a bureaucratic oligarchy.

There are two and only two ways that any economy can be organized. One is by freedom and voluntary choice—the way of the market. The other is by force and dictation—the way of the State.

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.