Thoughts
From Ron Paul
Our Constitution was written to restrain government, not the people.
2019-01-24 at 13:14:46
From Donald W. Shorack
Persons with no desire for self-control, anxious for the security of lives planned and controlled for them by others, may view with patient resignation the prevailing trend away from freedom in the United States and in most other lands. Things are going their way. But anyone who views with alarm the growing interventionism will want to plan his escape soon. By tomorrow, or next month, or next year, he might have lost the will--and the capacity--to be free. The escape route, the path to freedom, lies in self-help, self-control, self-responsibility, self-reliance, self-improvement. And slow starters are unlikely to make it.
2019-01-23 at 14:57:18
From M. Russell Ballard
It may not always be easy, convenient, or politically correct to stand for truth and right, but it is the right thing to do. Always.
2019-01-22 at 15:07:03
From Louis Dembitz Brandeis
In a government of laws, existence of government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it invites everyman to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.
2019-01-14 at 14:50:44
From Andrew P. Napolitano
The president has sworn not only fidelity to the United States Constitution but also to take care that federal laws be enforced. If he could disregard that oath, if he could ignore those laws, if he could spend money not authorized by Congress, if he could occupy private property not subject to eminent domain against the will of the owners - in short, if he could make the laws, as well as enforce them, then he would not be a president. He would be a monarch.
2019-01-12 at 14:25:17
From John Locke
Should a robber break into my house, and with a dagger at my throat make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title, by his sword, has an unjust conqueror, who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown, or some petty villain. The title of the offender, and the number of his followers, make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers punish little ones, to keep them in their obedience; but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own possession, which should punish offenders.
2019-01-10 at 16:03:59
From Henry David Thoreau
There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few went to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
2019-01-09 at 12:48:27
From Daniel Webster
I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy.
2019-01-07 at 16:16:21
From William Graham Sumner
It is of the essence of militarism that under it military men learn to despise constitutions, to sneer at parliaments, and to look with contempt on civilians.
2019-01-03 at 13:49:17
From James F. Clarke
Conscience is the root of all courage; if a man would be brave, let him obey his conscience.
2018-12-18 at 15:37:10
More From Aldous Huxley
The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own:
2018-12-12 at 18:48:51
More From Thomas Paine
Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undertake to support it.
2018-12-11 at 12:00:41
More From Ludwig von Mises
It must be obvious that liberty necessarily means freedom to choose foolishly as well as wisely; freedom to choose evil as well as good; freedom to enjoy the rewards of good judgment, and freedom to suffer the penalties of bad judgment.
2018-12-10 at 14:37:25
From Tom Mullen
In very practical terms, labor is the means of survival. To claim ownership over another persons labor is to claim ownership over his life. It is the principle that underpins slavery.
2018-12-08 at 12:12:12
From Herbert Spencer
The more numerous public instrumentalities become, the more is there generated in citizens the notion that everything is to be done for them, and nothing by them. Every generation is made less familiar with the attainment of desired ends by individual actions or private agencies; until, eventually, governmental agencies come to be thought of as the only available agencies.
2018-12-05 at 14:40:58