Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2026-08-12 Aug 12, 2026Tolerance is the positive and cordial effort to understand another's beliefs, practices, and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them.~ Joshua LiebmanThe strength of the constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are constitutional rights secure.~ Albert EinsteinEvery device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. The indications are that such an impairment is brought about not by strengthening the individual and pitting him against the possessors of power, but by distributing and diversifying power and pitting one category or unit of power against the other. Where power is one, the defeated individual, however strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse.~ Eric Hoffer Aug 11, 2026The First Amendment says nothing about a right not to be offended. The risk of finding someone else's speech offensive is the price each of us pays for our own free speech. Free people don't run to court -- or to the principal -- when they encounter a message they don't like. They answer it with one of their own.~ Jeff JacobyProfound insights arise only in debate, with a possibility of counterargument, only when there is a possibility of expressing not only correct ideas but also dubious ideas.~ Andrei SakharovThe civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical, to demand the credentials of all statements that claim to be facts.~ Bergan Evans Aug 10, 2026The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime. ~ Max StirnerThe less government we have the better - the fewer laws and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal government is the influence of private character, the growth of the individual.~ Ralph Waldo EmersonThe Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively.~ Walter Lippmann Aug 7, 2026Governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. Its one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.~ H. L. MenckenThe proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good. The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it's in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they'll do you harm, why isn't it all right to say you must not eat too much because you'll do harm? Why isn't it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you're likely to die? Why isn't it all right to say, "Oh, skiing, that's no good, that's a very dangerous sport, you'll hurt yourself"? Where do you draw the line?~ Milton FriedmanAssuming that either the left wing or the right wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.~ Pat Paulsen Aug 6, 2026True, it is evil that a single man should crush the herd, but see not there the worse form of slavery, which is when the herd crushes out the man.~ Antoine De Saint-ExuperyDoes it not seem a vast waste of valuable human material that the pioneers of thought, those who by their genius dare to clear unknown paths in the arts and sciences and in government, should have to conform to the dictates of that non-creative, slow-moving mass, the majority? An appeal to the majority is a resort to force and not an appeal to intelligence; the majority is always ignorant, and by increasing the majority we multiply ignorance. The majority is incapable of initiative, its attitude being one of opposition toward everything that is new. If it had been left to the majority, the world would never have had the steamboat, the railroad, the telegraph, or any of the conveniences of modern life.~ Charles T. SpradingAny attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism.~ Herman Hesse Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print