Quotes for Twitter

The following quotes are all 140 characters or less, which means that they are usable on Twitter.

Please enjoy them and share them with your followers.  And, of course, please tweet this page.  🙂

Any excuse will serve a tyrant. – Aesop
Capital isn’t scarce; vision is. – Sam Walton
The Sergeant is the Army. – Dwight Eisenhower
Hatred is a luxury of the idle. – Will Spencer
The real minimum wage is zero. – Thomas Sowell
One with the law is a majority. – Calvin Coolidge
Wrong must not win by technicalities. – Aeschylus
We make war that we may live in peace. – Aristotle
Lead, follow, or get out of the way. – Thomas Paine
Right is more precious than peace. – Woodrow Wilson
The God of War hates those who hesitate. – Euripides
The more corrupt the state, the more laws. – Tacitus
To live outside the law you must be honest. – Lao Tse
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. – Edmund Burke
The greatest remedy for anger is delay. – Thomas Paine
Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man. – Thomas Paine
Honor is self-esteem made visible in action. – Ayn Rand
If this be treason, make the most of it! – Patrick Henry
Laws are silent in times of war. – Marcus Tullius Cicero
Where there is no law, there is no freedom. – John Locke
Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant. – James Madison
I hate people who are intolerant. – Dr. Laurence J. Peter
The chief cause of problems is solutions. – Eric Sevareid
There is no such thing as a good tax. – Winston Churchill
Unnecessary laws are but traps for money. – Thomas Hobbes
Where law ends, tyranny begins. – William Pitt, the Elder
Only the dead have seen the end of war. – George Santayana
He who dares not to offend cannot be honest. – Thomas Paine
They’ll have to shoot me first to take my gun. – Roy Rogers
Character is much easier kept than recovered. – Thomas Paine
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. – Thomas Jefferson
The highest result of education is tolerance. – Helen Keller
Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. – Ayn Rand
All government, of course, is against liberty. – H. L. Mencken
Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. – Milton Friedman
In matters of principle, stand like a rock. – Thomas Jefferson
In war there is no substitute for victory. – Douglas MacArthur
Judge: a law student who marks his own papers. – H. L. Mencken
Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. – John Adams
The graveyards are full of indispensable men. – Charles de Gaulle
Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death. – Ayn Rand
Do not overestimate the decency of the human race. – H. L. Mencken
My country is the world. My religion is to do good. – Thomas Paine
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. – Thomas Jefferson
All bad precedents begin with justifiable measures. – Julius Caesar
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. – Robert Heinlein
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws. – Charles Louis de Secondat
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price. – Benjamin Franklin
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. – Voltaire
Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it. – Publilius Syrus
Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed. – Robert Heinlein
The more corrupt the Republic, the more the laws. – Giovanni Sartori
It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance. – Thomas Paine
Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy. – Orson Welles
We have it in our power to begin the world over again. – Thomas Paine
You can’t legislate morality; We legislate little else. – Robert Bork
Love is like war; easy to begin but very hard to stop. – H. L. Mencken
The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people. – Louis D. Brandeis
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. – Thomas Paine
Thought, not money, is the real business capital. – Harvey S. Firestone
It is seldom that liberty of any kinds is lost all at once. – David Hume
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
What this country needs is more unemployed politicians. – Edward Langley
Attempts to create heaven on earth invariably produce hell. – Karl Popper
Do what’s right for you, as long as it don’t hurt no one. – Elvis Presley
History teaches us many things; we learn very few of them. – Will Spencer
In the long run luck is given only to the efficient. – Helmuth von Moltke
In war there is no second prize for the runner-up. – General Omar Bradley
The aim of the law is not to punish sins. – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
The history of the world is but the biography of heroes. – Thomas Carlyle
The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man’s nature. – William James
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. – Thomas Paine
To save a man’s life against his will is the same as killing him. – Horace
War does not determine who is right – only who is left. – Bertrand Russell
When firearms go, all goes – we need them every hour. – George Washington
Why doesn’t everybody leave everybody else the hell alone? – Jimmy Durante
A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing something right.
Economic ignorance is the breeding ground of totalitarianism. – John Jewkes
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. – G. K. Chesterson
I like to pay taxes. It is purchasing civilization. – Oliver Wendell Holmes
It everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn’t thinking. – George Patton
Politics are a lousy way for a free man to get things done. – P.J. O’Rourke
The law of self-preservation is higher than written law. – Thomas Jefferson
The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. – Hyman G. Rickover
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. – John Gilmore
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it. – John Locke
The problem is not those who dream, but those who can only dream. – Ayn Rand
The share-the-wealth movement appeals most to those with the least to share.
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. – Gilbert Chesterton
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. – Margaret Thatcher
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein
Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct. – Thomas Carlyle
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. – H. L. Mencken
If a society is to remain free, its government must be controlled. – Ayn Rand
Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Put no constrictions on the people. Leave ’em ta Hell alone. – Jimmie Durante
The average man doesn’t want to be free. He wants to be safe. – H. L. Mencken
The clatter of arms drowns the voice of the law. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The power to tax involves the power to destroy. – Chief Justice John Marshall
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. – John F. Kennedy
Give me chastity and self-restraint, but do not give it yet. – Saint Augustine
…the people have a right to keep and bear arms. – Patrick Henry and George Mason
A generation which ignores history has no past and no future. – Robert Heinlein
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. – H. L. Mencken
People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women.
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money. – Thomas Jefferson
There are no dangerous weapons. There are only dangerous men. – Robert Heinlein
When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. – Harry Trueman
Every law is an evil for every law is an infraction of liberty. – Jeremy Bentham
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. – Edmund Burke
Thinking well is wise; planning well, wiser; doing well, wisest and best of all.
War is too serious a matter to be taught by the inexperienced. – Robert Heinlein
Distrust all men in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason. – Thomas Jefferson
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. – Ludwig von Mises
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. – Albert Einstein
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. – Thomas Paine
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. – Abraham Lincoln
I don’t make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts. – Will Rogers
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. – Abraham
There is no distinctly native American criminal class – save Congress. – Mark Twain
Whenever they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn people. – Heinrich Heine
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. – H. L. Mencken
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. – Albert Einstein
Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die. – Herbert Hoover
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. – H. L. Mencken
Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. – Malcolm S. Forbes
Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. – Daniel Webster
Humanize war? You might as talk about humanizing hell! – British Admiral Jacky Fisher
If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right. – Henry Ford
In nothing do humans approach so nearly to the gods as doing good to others. – Cicero
It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for. – Will Rogers
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. – Robert Heinlein
A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity. – Sigmund Freud
Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning. – General George S. Patton
Giving is not charity if it is someone else’s money. – Christian Harold Fletcher Riley
I like automatic weapons. I fought for my right to use them in Vietnam. – Oliver Stone
Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today. – Herman Wouk
Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth. – Chuck Norris
Show me your achievement – and the knowledge will give me courage for mine. – Ayn Rand
A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The best form of welfare for the troops is first-class training. – Field Marshal Rommel
Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. – Harry Emerson Fosdick
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. – Thomas Paine
The more he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation. – Dr. Laurence J. Peter
Don’t knock the rich. When did a poor person ever give you a job? – Dr. Laurence J. Peter
Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem. – Ronald Reagan
The trouble with political jokes is that they often get elected to office. – Tony Pettito
We are slaves of the law in order that we may be able to be free. – Marcus Tullius Cicero
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. – Benjamin Franklin
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. – Winston Churchill
An individual, thinking himself injured, makes more noise than a State. – Thomas Jefferson
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil. – Robert Heinlein
Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. – Calvin Coolidge
Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important. – T.S.Elliot
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. – Will Rogers
The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the facts in controversy. – John Jay
There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets? – Dick Cavett
Where there is no peril in the fight, there is no glory in the triumph. – Pierre Corneille
All life is a purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the choice of a goal. – Ayn Rand
Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. – Ayn Rand
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. – Thomas Paine
My grandmother wanted me to have an education so she kept me out of school. – Margaret Mead
What thinking rational human being has never been in conflict with his Gods? – Will Spencer
A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. – Robert Frost
“Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.” – Henry David Thoreau
Capital punishment is our society’s recognition of the sanctity of human life. – Orrin Hatch
Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. – Mark Twain
Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue. – Confucius
Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions. – Frank Lloyd Wright
When I get a little money, I buy books. And if there is any left over, I buy food. – Erasmus
A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. – Walter Lippman
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure. – Mark Twain
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. – Louis D. Brandeis
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law. – Winston Churchill
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. – Andre Gide
No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. – Mark Twain
The power of tax is not the power to destroy while this court sits… – Oliver Wendell Holmes
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance. – Thomas Paine
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts. – Edmund Burke
One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests. – John Stuart Mill
The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age…
The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop. – P.J. O’Rourke
There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence. – Robert G. Ingersoll
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. – H. L. Mencken
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors… and miss. – Robert Heinlein
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. – Albert Einstein
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. – Thomas Jefferson
Superior firepower is an invaluable tool when entering negotiations. – General George S. Patton
The concentration of troops can be done fast and easy, on paper. – Field Marshal Radomir Putnik
The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility. – British Sea Lord John Fisher
The right to revolt has sources deep in our history. – Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. – H. L. Mencken
Diplomats are just as essential in starting a war as soldiers are in finishing it. – Will Rogers
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. – Adlai Stevenson
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. – Henry Kissinger
The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government. – Barry Goldwater
There is only one justification for having sinned, and that is to be glad of it. – H. L. Mencken
The state represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised. – Charlton Heston
Government is not the generator of economic growth; working people are. – U.S. Senator Phil Gramm
Noncooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good. – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes. – Benjamin Disraeli
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. – Winston Churchill
The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be. – Lao Tsu
To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything. – Friedrich Hayek
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. – Voltaire
The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away. – John S. Coleman
There’s nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos. – Jim Hightower
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression. – Thomas Paine
If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable. – John F. Kennedy
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. – Sir Winston Churchill
Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark. – Walter Lippman
The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun. – Patrick Henry
The merit of our Constitution was, not that it promotes democracy, but checks it. – Horatio Seymour
The principle involved here is time-honored and true: and that is — it’s your money. – Robert Dole
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact. – Oliver Wendell Holmes
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather bed. – Thomas Jefferson
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property. – Thomas Jefferson
Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. – Winston Churchill
Taking money from some, extracting it by force, to give to others is just plain theft. – David Kelley
The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
They have the usual socialist disease; they have run out of other people’s money. – Margaret Thatcher
Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless. – Thomas Edison
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome. – Dr. Samuel Johnson
The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward. – John Maynard Keynes
We’re not really going to get anywhere until we take the criminality out of drugs. – George P. Schultz
A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity. – Robert Frost
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. – Edmund Burke
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. – Mark Twain
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. – Hubert Humphrey
You can have peace, or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once. – Robert Heinlein
You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth. – Henrik Ibsen
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. – Thomas Jefferson
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death. – Patrick Henry
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. – William Hazlitt
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. – P.J. O’Rourke
God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide. – Rebecca West
If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live. – Martin Luther King Jr.
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am. – Dr. Samuel Johnson
There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character. – H. L. Mencken
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon. – Thomas Paine
Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. – Thomas Huxley
He who stays on the defensive does not make war, he endures it. – Field Marshal Colmar Baron von der Goltz
I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials. – George Mason
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy. – Winston Churchill
The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets. – Will Rogers
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live. – Ayn Rand
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right. – Thomas Paine
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status. – Laurence J. Peter
God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it. – Daniel Webster
If we cannot end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. – John F. Kennedy
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free. – P.J. O’Rourke
Where the constitution is mute, we should vote about these matters rather than litigate them. – Robert Bork
Congress shall never disarm any citizen unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion. – James Madison
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. – Anne Frank
I have often thought that morality may perhaps consist solely in the courage of making a choice. – Leon Blum
It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income. – Benjamin Franklin
Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others. – William Allen White
The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed. – Alexander Hamilton
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself. – Elie Wiesel
Laws are like Cobwebs, which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through. – Jonathan Swift
Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain. – John F. Kennedy
Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. – Lord Acton
The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. – Mark Twain
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. – Thomas Paine
What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch of a free meandering brook. – Henry David Thoreau
When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free. – Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. – William James
Arms in the hands of citizens (may) be used at individual discretion…in private self defense… – John Adams
Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity, but your talent to their reason. – Ayn Rand
No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. – Calvin Coolidge
The right to be left alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. – Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
This [preparing my tax return] is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher. – Albert Einstein
We don’t seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business? – Will Rogers
Why are the people rebellious? Because the rulers interfere too much. Therefore they are rebellious. – Lao Tsu
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. – Mark Twain
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty – power is ever stealing from the many to the few. – Wendell Phillips
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free … it expects what never was and never will be. – Thomas Jefferson
Laws should be constructed so as to leave as little as possible to the decision of those who judge. – Aristotle
Men are failures not because they are stupid but because they are not sufficiently impassioned – Struthers Burt
That’s the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don’t care, individuals do. – Mark Twain
Too much of what is called “education” is little more than an expensive isolation from reality. – Thomas Sowell
If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence. – Thomas Jefferson
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. – Abraham Lincoln
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling. – Ambrose Bierce
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as they are injurious to others. – Thomas Jefferson
The moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing. – Thomas Jefferson
What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know; it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so. – Yogi Berra
Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will turn vegetarian. – Heywood Brown
Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. – Louis D. Brandeis
If we’ve learned anything in the past quarter century, it is that we cannot federalize virtue. – George H.W. Bush
I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error. – James Garfield
It is not the business of the law to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright. – Murray Rothbard
The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them. – Zachariah Johnson
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. – Herbert Spencer
Three groups spend other people’s money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision. – Dick Armey
When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income. – Plato
A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders. – Larry Elder
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it. – Martin Luther King Jr.
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. – George Orwell
If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism. – Thomas Sowell
The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. – John Adams
When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. – Benjamin Franklin
A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life. – Thomas Hobbes
When politics are used to allocate resources, the resources all end up being allocated to politics. – P.J. O’Rourke
It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions. – Aristotle
The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites. – Thomas Sowell
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. – Adam Smith
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. – Thomas Paine
Where there is Hunger, Law is not regarded; and where Law is not regarded, there will be Hunger. – Benjamin Franklin
All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don’t sit looking at it – walk. – Ayn Rand
Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from. – Thomas Sowell
If I knew for certain that a man was coming to my house to do me good, I would run for my life. – Henry David Thoreau
The history of Liberty is a history of the limitations of governmental power not the increase of it. – Woodrow Wilson
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. – Albert Einstein
This country has come to feel the same when congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer. – Will Rogers
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. – Thomas Paine
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. – Thomas Paine
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. – Henry David Thoreau
History teaches us that men and nations only behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. – Abba Eben
In war, the stronger overcomes the weaker. In business, the stronger imparts strength to the weaker. – Frederic Bastiat
The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his. – General George S. Patton
To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury. – Benjamin Tucker
Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. – John Locke
The pages of history shine on instances of the jury’s exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge
Each has freedom to do all that he wills provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other. – Herbert Spencer
Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics – a rational ethics – as a precondition of rebirth. – Ayn Rand
In 1950, the average family of four paid 2% of its earnings to federal taxes. Today it pays 24%. – William R. Mattox, Jr.
It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause. – H. L. Mencken
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt. – H. L. Mencken
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. – Plato
There is one source, O Athenians, of all your defeats. It is that your citizens have ceased to be soldiers. – Demosthenes
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience. – Adam Smith
Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive one; it is man and not materials that counts. – Mao Tse-tung
You see in this world there’s two kinds of people my friend, those with loaded guns, and those who dig … you dig! – Joe
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude. – William James
The minute you read something that you can’t understand, you can almost be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer. – Will Rogers
Always do what you say you are going to do. It is the glue and fiber that binds successful relationships. – Jeffrey Timmons
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. – Thomas Jefferson
Members of society must obey the law because they personally believe that its commands are justified. – Judge David Bazelon
My body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm … it is I who suffers, not the state. – Mark Twain
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing. The rest is mere sheep-herding. – Ezra Loomis Pound
Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. – Thomas Sowell
The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits. – Plutarch
The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation. – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Victory in war does not depend entirely on numbers or courage; only skill and discipline will ensure it. – Flavius Vegetius
But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing. – Thomas Paine
Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace. – James Madison
The free market is the only mechanism that has ever been discovered for achieving participatory democracy. – Milton Friedman
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. – Robert Heinlein
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand. – Milton Friedman
(What is good in life?) To crush your enemies, to drive them before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women. – Conan
You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them. – Malcolm Forbes
A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie. – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Every increase in the size of government necessitates a decrease in an individual’s freedom. – Christian Harold Fletcher Riley
Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice. And . . . moderation in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue. – Barry Goldwater
If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win. – Thomas Sowell
It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed. – Albert Einstein
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you. – Pericles (430 B.C)
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. – P.J. O’Rourke
Wise men say, and not without reason, that whosoever wished to foresee the future might consult the past. – Nicolo Machiavelli
Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. – Douglas Casey
Freedom and the power to choose should not be the privilege of wealth. They are the birthright of every American. – George Bush
Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. – Frederic Bastiat
In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. – Galileo Galilei
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. – Samuel Butler
No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against wrong and get peace from his acquiescence. – Woodrow Wilson
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. – Bertrand Russell
We are all full of weakness and errors, let us mutually pardon each other our follies it is the first law of nature. – Voltaire
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any reason but because they are not already common. – John Locke
He who decides a case without hearing the other side, though he decide justly, cannot be considered just. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. – James Madison
Congress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay. – Milton Friedman
Just as it is the duty of all men to obey just laws, so it is the duty of all men to disobey unjust laws. – Martin Luther King Jr.
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded. – Charles-Louis De Secondat
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
Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because it is the quality that guarantees all others. – Winston Churchill
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed militia is their best security. – Thomas Jefferson
How is it that Liberalism, getting more and more into power, has grown more and more coercive in its legislation? – Herbert Spencer
Natural justice is a symbol or expression of usefullness, to prevent one person from harming or being harmed by another. – Epicurus
Never appeal to a man’s ‘better nature.’ He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. – Robert Heinlein
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin
I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Republic … it means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose. – John Wayne
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. – Elie Wiesel
A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves…and include all men capable of bearing arms. – Richard Henry Lee
…an imperfect plan implemented immediately and violently will always succeed better than a perfect plan. – General George S. Patton
For we may not think ever to keep that people in subjection which hath always lived in liberty, if they be not disarmed. – Jean Bodin
Politicians never accuse you of ‘greed’ for wanting other people’s money — only for wanting to keep your own money. – Joseph Sobran
The authority of government … can have no pure right over my person and my property but what I concede to it. – Henry David Thoreau
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. – Gerald Ford
Force, violence, pressure or compulsion with a view to conformity, are both uncivilized and undemocratic. – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
I champion an economic order ruled by free prices and markets…the only economic order compatible with human freedom. – Wilhelm Ropke
One does not encourage “responsibility” by forcibly restricting the range of people’s authority over their own lives. – Butler Shaffer
The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. – Ronald Reagan
The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future. – Stephen Ambrose
There are not enough jails, not enough policemen, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people. – Hubert H. Humphrey
Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don’t have a gun, freedom of speech has no power. – Yoshimi Ishikawa
Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats. – Howard Aiken
First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst. – Dale Carnegie
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. – William Pitt
One definition of an economist is somebody who sees something happen in practice and wonders if it will work in theory. – Ronald Reagan
Science never tells a man how he should act; it merely shows how a man must act if he wants to attain definite ends. – Ludwig von Mises
Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn’t even get out of committee. – F. Lee Bailey
The taxpayer; that’s someone who works for the federal government, but doesn’t have to take a civil service examination. – Ronald Reagan
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. – H. L. Mencken
I am for the First Amendment from the first word to the last. I believe it means what it says. – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black
I am proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is — I could be just as proud for half of the money. – Arthur Godfrey
Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. – Thomas Jefferson
The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think. – H. L. Mencken
The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. – Douglas MacArthur
The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people. – Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. – Thomas Jefferson
We can foresee a time when . . . the only people at liberty will be prison guards who will then have to lock up one another. – Albert Camus
Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing — and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even. – Will Rogers
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. – Ambrose Bierce
In a democracy, the opposition is not only tolerated as constitutional, but must be maintained because it is indispensable. – Walter Lippman
You may think your actions are meaningless and that they won’t help, but that is no excuse, you must still act. – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
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 useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion. – William Ralph Inge
One determined person can make a significant difference; a small group of determined people can change the course of history. – Sonia Johnson
War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can. – Winston Churchill
You can protect your liberties in this world only by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can be free only if I am free. – Clarence Darrow