FREEDOM QUOTATIONS -- governments
Art Buchwald 1971
"I always wanted to get into politics,
but I was never light enough to make the team."
Doug Casey 1979
"The thought of how far the human race
would have advanced without government
simply staggers the imagination."
unknown (?) 1971
"We see in politicians what we see in
rats:
creatures so free from conviction, so totally dependent on the temptations and
conditioning of their immediate environment,
that to understand them requires nothing more
complicated than a look at geography and
a list of campaign contributors."
David Friedman 1973
"In the ideal socialist state, power
will not attract power freaks.
People who make decisions will show not the
slightest bias toward their own interests.
There will be no way for a clever man to bend
the institutions to serve his own ends.
And the rivers will run uphill."
Thomas Jefferson 1787 Paris
"A little rebellion now and then is a
good thing, and
as necessary in the political world, as
storms in the physical."
Vivien Kellems 1952
"They can take every penny we earn,
including the clothes off our backs.
There isn't enough wealth in this great, rich
country of ours to satisfy the wants of
the plundering, grasping, greedy,
unscrupulous, thieving gangsters and scoundrels
who have been breed and nurtured by the
income tax and
seized control of our government."
John Locke 1690 London
"Whenever the legislators endeavor to
take away and destroy the property of the people,
or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary
power,
they put themselves into a state of war with the people,
who are
thereupon absolved from any further obedience."
John Naisbitt 1982
"The AFL-CIO giving money to the
Democratic Party
has all the appearances of dinosaurs mating."
Native American 1890
"The government made us many promises, more than I can remember.
But they never kept but one:
they promised to
take our land, and they took it."
Tom Paine 1776
"These are the times that try men's
souls.
Tyranny is not easily conquered;
the harder the conflict, the more glorious
the triumph.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too
lightly.
It would be strange indeed if
so celestial an article as freedom, should not
be highly rated."
Robert Ringer 1979
"Ask not what those in power can do for you
ask what you can do for those in power."
Will Rogers 1935
"This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by aid of it."
Murray Rothbard 1978
"Despite our great heritage of economic
and political thought and practice,
we have not had a fully integrated and
consistent theory of liberty.
We now have that systematic theory. All other
theories and systems have clearly failed:
socialism, liberalism, conservatism. Liberty
has never been fully tried to
fulfill the world dream of liberty and
prosperity for all mankind."
Herbert Spencer
"The ultimate result of shielding men
from the effects of folly
is to fill the world with fools."
Hunter Thompson 1972
What a fantastic monument to all the best
instincts of the human race
this country might have been,
if we could have kept it out of the hands, of
greedy little political hustlers.
Henry David Thoreau 1849
"We've heard it said, that government is
best which governs least.
That government is best which governs not at
all,
and when men are prepared for it,
that will be the kind of government they will
have.
Is a democracy the last improvement possible
in government?
Isn't it possible to take a step further
towards recognizing and
organizing the rights of men?
I imagine a State allowing a few to live aloof from it,
who fulfill all the duties of neighbors and
fellow-men.
A State which bore this kind of fruit
and allowed 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."
Claire Wolfe 1995
"It's too late to work within the system,
but too early to shoot the bastards."
FREEDOM QUOTATIONS -- religion
George Carlin 1999
"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man in the sky, who watches everything you do,
every minute of every day. And he has a special list of 10
things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these
things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and
torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn
and choke and scream and cry, for ever and ever until the
end of time...
but he loves you, and needs money."
John Denver 1980
"We live in a world of separationists.
Alienation began in The
Church.
Nothing is more insidious than
the separateness caused by The
Church."
Will and Ariel Durant 1975
"The state allowed The Church to manage
the making of wills--
which encouraged sinners to buy promissory notes, collectible in
heaven,
in exchange for earthly property bequeathed to The Church."
Thomas Edison
"So far as religion is concerned, it's a damned fake. Religion is all bunk."
Gandhi 1947
We needlessly divide life;
if a man has true religion in him,
it must show itself in the smallest details of life.
In the other world there are neither Hindus, nor Christians, nor Moslems.
Ruth Green
"There was a time when religion ruled the world: we know it as the dark ages."
Robert Ingersoll IF 1880
If Cathedrals had been Universities
If Temples had been Observatories
If Priests had been Philosophers
If Astrology had been Astronomy
If the Black Arts had been Chemistry
If Superstition had been Science
If Religion had been Humanity
The world would be a heaven filled with love,
and liberty and joy.
Jefferson: "Religions are all alike: founded on fables and myths."
H.L. Mencken 1935
"Clergymen are the ticket scalpers
outside the gates of heaven.
Religion has been a curse to mankind."
Martin Niemoller 1945
"In Germany the Nazis came for the communists, and I did not speak up because I was not a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionists. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up because I was Protestant. Then they came for me. By that time there was no one left to speak up for anyone."
[ It's an old, tragic story: tyranny will pick
on despised groups (drug dealers, cults, homosexuals, militias, prostitutes, etc), then
once the precedents are established, those powers can be used on ANYONE. This explains why
the ACLU is often in court defending various "untouchables".
So when the police,
DEA, INS, IRS, BATF and/or "Justice" Department come after you... ]
Tom Paine Age of Reason 1794
"Every other species of tyranny is
limited to the world we live in;
but religious tyranny attempts to stride beyond the
grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity."
Jarret Wollstein 1969
"It doesn't matter whether the coercive
individuals or groups identify themselves as bandits, Mafia, Church, party, government,
chief, Pharaoh, king, high priest or president.
If they initiate force, they are all
simply criminals,
regardless of their aliases and pretensions."
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Colorado and Oregon libertarian friends
James Libertarian Burns, for assisting with the essay "Imagine Freedom", and general criticism
Randall K. Hylkema cartoons, c/o Reason Magazine
Vic Lockman for the IRS thief picture
Ron Cobb ( copyright pwoolley@fastbooks.com.au )
Definitions, dates and spelling are based on
Merriam-Webster's Third International Dictionary and
the Encyclopedia Britannica
Some of the quotations have been edited.