Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [501-520] of 1389 Government quotesGovernment QuotesGovernment Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Whenever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.~ Heinrich Heine Love your country, but never trust its government.~ Robert A. Heinlein Goodness without wisdom always accomplished evil.~ Robert A. Heinlein The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.~ Patrick Henry Those who created this country chose freedom. With all of its dangers. And do you know the riskiest part of that choice they made? They actually believed that we could be trusted to make up our own minds in the whirl of differing ideas. That we could be trusted to remain free, even when there were very, very seductive voices – taking advantage of our freedom of speech – who were trying to turn this country into the kind of place where the government could tell you what you can and cannot do.~ Nat Hentoff We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million men cannot morally do, and government, representing many millions of men, cannot do.~ Auberon Herbert And what sort of philosophical doctrine is this -- that numbers confer unlimited rights, that they take from some persons all rights over themselves, and vest these rights in others. ... How, then, can the rights of three men exceed the rights of two men? In what possible way can the rights of three men absorb the rights of two men, and make them as if they had never existed. ... It is not possible to suppose, without absurdity, that a man should have no rights over his own body and mind, and yet have a 1/10,000,000th share in unlimited rights over all other bodies and minds?~ Auberon Herbert How should it happen that the individual should be without rights, but the combination of individuals should possess unlimited rights?~ Auberon Herbert Force and reason -- which last is the essence of the moral act -- are at the two opposite poles. The one who compels his neighbor... treats him, not as a being with reason, but as an animal in whom reason is not.~ Auberon Herbert If we cannot learn, if the only effect upon us of the presence of the dynamiter in our midst is to make us multiply punishments, invent restrictions, increase the number of our official spies, forbid public meetings, interfere with the press, put up gratings -- as in one country they propose to do -- in our House of Commons, scrutinize visitors under official microscopes, request them, as at Vienna, and I think now at Paris also, to be good enough to leave their greatcoats in the vestibules ... I venture to prophesy that there lies before us a bitter and an evil time.~ Auberon Herbert True liberty cannot exist apart from the full rights of property, for property is the only crystallized form of free faculties...The whole meaning of socialism is a systematic glorification of force... No literary phrases about social organisms are potent enough to evaporate the individual, who is the prime, indispensable, irreducible element.~ Auberon Herbert If government half a century ago had provided us with all our dinners and breakfasts, it would be the practice of our orators today to assume the impossibility of our providing for ourselves.~ Auberon Herbert Socialism is but Catholicism addressing itself not to the soul but to the sense of men... [Both implore you to] accept authority, accept the force which it employs, resign yourself to all-powerful managers, give up the free choice and the free act... They both seek to sacrifice man.~ Auberon Herbert [Socialism] is a creed even more denigrating than Catholicism, but it offers more tangible bribes for its acceptance.~ Auberon Herbert If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual. ~ Frank Herbert The possession of power over others is inherently destructive both to the possessor of the power and to those over whom it is exercised.~ George D. Herron But politicians who talk about failed policies are just blowing smoke. Government policies succeed in doing exactly what they are supposed to do: channeling resources bilked from the general public to politically organized and influential interests groups.~ Robert Higgs Talk is cheap -- except when Congress does it.~ Cullen Hightower The mistakes made by Congress wouldn't be so bad if the next Congress didn't keep trying to correct them.~ Cullen Hightower Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print