Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2022-02-16 Feb 16, 2022Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.~ P. J. O'RourkeThe Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to egalitarians, to people obsessed with fairness, to American presidential candidates in the year 2000 -- to everyone who believes that wealth should be redistributed. And that message is clear and concise: Go to Hell.~ P. J. O'RourkeThere’s a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any over-large concentration of like-minded individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.~ P. J. O'Rourke Feb 15, 2022Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.~ Eric HofferOur tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past while we silence the rebels of the present.~ Henry Steele CommagerThe right to comment freely and criticize the action, opinions, and judgment of courts is of primary importance to the public generally. Not only is it good for the public; but it has a salutary effect on courts and judges as well.~ James P. Hughes Feb 14, 2022We are reluctant to admit that we owe our liberties to men of a type that today we hate and fear -- unruly men, disturbers of the peace, men who resent and denounce what Whitman called 'the insolence of elected persons' -- in a word, free men. ~ Gerald W. JohnsonOnce a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.~ Harry S. TrumanFreedom includes the right to say what others may object to and resent…The essence of citizenship is to be tolerant of strong and provocative words.~ John G. Diefenbaker Feb 11, 2022Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act.~ The TalmudThe whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak.~ Wavy GravyThe great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think.~ William O. Douglas Feb 10, 2022Political agitation, by the passions it arouses or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimulate men to the violation of the law. Detestation of existing politics is easily transformed into forcible resistance of the authority which puts them in execution...~ Judge Learned HandTo sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.~ Abraham LincolnHe that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.~ Edmund Burke Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print