Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2012-02-13 Feb 13, 2012Fidelity to the public requires that the laws be as plain and explicit as possible, that the less knowing may understand, and not be ensnared by them, while the artful evade their force.~ Samuel CookeThe federal criminal code currently includes more than 3,000 offenses and hardly a congressional session goes by without an attempt to add new sections.~ Stephen ChippendaleLaws are made for men of ordinary understanding, and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties, which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.~ Thomas Jefferson Feb 10, 2012The New Deal is inconsistent with the principles of limited government and with the constitutional provisions designed to secure that end.~ Richard A. EpsteinThe task of government in this enlightened time does not extend to actually dealing with problems. Solving problems might put bureaucrats out of work. No, the task of government is to make it look as though problems have been solved, while continuing to keep the maximum number of consultants and bureaucrats employed dealing with them.~ Bob EmmersThe men the American people admire most extravagantly are the greatest liars: the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.~ H. L. Mencken Feb 9, 2012What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.~ Friedrich HoelderlinBeing paid by the government to shelve books in a library, whether as an employee or as an Americorps member, is no more laudable or valuable than being paid by Crown Books to stock bookshelves in a bookstore. A host of private-sector jobs provide enormous public benefits—consider health care professionals, medical and scientific researchers, entrepreneurs, inventors, and artists. Many of these people earn less than they could in alternative work; they have chosen to serve in their own way. Yet government programs that equate public employment with service to society effectively denigrate service through private employment.~ Doug BandowWe are not liberated until we liberate others. So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. In giving them freedom, we free ourselves.~ Marilyn Ferguson Feb 8, 2012In the general course of human nature, A power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.~ Alexander HamiltonWhen we compare the laws made today and the method and purpose of their making, with those of the past, we find them to be in perfect harmony. It was the law and custom of the past to provide for a class of idlers, it was customary for the powerful to enslave the weak, for the rich to rob the poor, for the unscrupulous to make laws in their own interests, even as it is the law and custom today. Surely it must be evident that law does not have its basis in justice, but rather in custom. To both law and custom, justice is a total stranger.~ Charles T. SpradingThe superior man understands what is right. The inferior man understands what is popular.~ Confucius Feb 7, 2012Welfare rights are pseudo-rights: They rely on the force of law to take private property for the use of others without compensation and without consent. Public charity is forced charity; it is not a virtue but a vice.~ James A. DornLegislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time are either psychopaths or mountebanks.~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe[N]o one’s ever been able to show me any difference between democracy and brute force. It’s just a majority ganging up on a minority with the minority giving in to avoid getting massacred.~ L. Neil Smith Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print