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Those (who) seek to establish systems of Government based on the regimentation of all Human Beings by a handful of individual rulers...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.
Sep 10, 2025
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar; particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England
Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.
There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living.
Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I'm right.
The more people expect from government, the more biased they become against limiting government power.
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business overseas.
The truth was that all men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
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 knowing how it happened.
We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which 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, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would 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 satiated; 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.
That government is best which governs least.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
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.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
I have sworn upon the altar of god.
We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.
It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.