100 Great Quotes About Libertarianism

Oh how the politicians today spend too much damn money like drunken sailors during Fleet Week! I was raised in the Republican Omaha followed by the Republican donut surrounding Atlanta. (The local media mentions that Georgia is a Democrat state in the small towns and inside Atlanta's perimeter; but, a suburban ring that votes Republican keeps things interesting.) I became libertarian thanks to great thinkers like Neal Boortz, Herman Cain, Eric Von Haessler, Dennis Miller, P.J. O'Rourke, and Bill Maher---all of these men are brilliant, not to mention their humor ranges from mildly amusing to hilarious.

I want the freedom to live my life the way I want to and I want the government out of my life as much as possible. People refer to this as fiscally conservative and socially liberal. You do what you want, I will do what I want. I want to make money, pay little taxes, and to be left the fuck alone unless someone's rights are infringed. I can't express my views on politics any better than these 100 quotes. Enjoy!

    P.J. O'Rourke
  1. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
  2. One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.
  3. Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
  4. You can't get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism.
  5. No government as such is ever in favor of the freedom of the individual.
  6. You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.
  7. When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
  8. There is 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.
  9. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
  10. A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.
  11. No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power.

  12. Voting
  13. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.--James Bovard
  14. Legalize Freedom: Vote Libertarian.--Anonymous
  15. An inherent weakness of a pure democracy is that half the voters are below average intelligence.--Unknown
  16. The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.--Winston Churchill
  17. Voters who live off taxpayers are the Democrats' ace in the hole. The Democrats created big programs and never let the recipients forget it. This gives them an initial advantage of tens of millions of votes in any presidential election.--Joseph Sobran
  18. A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.--Alexander Tytler

  19. Money
  20. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.--G. Gordon Liddy
  21. Governments harangue about deficits to get more revenue so they can spend more.--Allan H. Meltzer
  22. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.--Winston Churchill
  23. We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.--Winston Churchill
  24. When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will.--Fredric Bastiat
  25. The average family pays more in taxes than it spends on food, clothing, and shelter combined.--Dick Armey
  26. The next revolution will be when those who work refuse to support those who don't.--Walter Hickel
  27. If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.--Milton Friedman
  28. The degree of a country's freedom is the degree of its prosperity.--Ayn Rand
  29. What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.--Tom Clancy
  30. Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.--Robert A. Heinlein
  31. Nationalized health is synonymous with delays, waiting lists, rationing, and high taxes.--Dr. Christopher Lyon
  32. The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless.--James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union
  33. The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are.--Henry Hazlitt
  34. Liberals love to say things like, "We're just asking everyone to pay their fair share." But government is not about asking. It is about telling. The difference is fundamental. It is the difference between making love and being raped, between working for a living and being a slave. The Internal Revenue service is not asking anybody to do anything. It confiscates your assets and puts you behind bars if you don't pay.--Thomas Sowell
  35. Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.--Calvin Coolidge

  36. Ronald Reagan
  37. The Government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
  38. As government expands, liberty contracts.
  39. Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.
  40. Government doesn't tax to get the money it needs, government always needs the money it gets.
  41. The ten most dangerous words in the English language are "Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help".
  42. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

  43. Harry Browne
  44. Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free.
  45. The government's War on Poverty has transformed poverty from a short-term misfortune into a career choice.
  46. Immigrants used to come to America seeking freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from government. Now they come looking for free health care, free education, and a free lunch.
  47. A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot – because the first leads inevitably to the second.
  48. The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, "See if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk".

  49. Drugs
  50. Alcohol didn't cause the high crime rates of the '20s and '30s, Prohibition did. And drugs do not cause today's alarming crime rates, but drug prohibition does.--US District Judge James C. Paine, addressing the Federal Bar Association in Miami, November, 1991
  51. Without the War on Drugs, the financial engine that fuels terrorist organizations would sputter to a halt.--Ron Crickenberger, Libertarian Party Political Director 2/4/02
  52. I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my value system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.--Milton Friedman
  53. According to George Hitchings, co-winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in medicine, FDA's five-year delay in approving the antibacterial drug Septra cost 80,000 lives.--Sam Kazman

  54. Education
  55. Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control.--Jack Hugh
  56. There are three things which I do not want the government choosing for me: my doctor, my school, and my God.--Doug Newman
  57. A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.--Isabel Paterson
  58. Public schools are government-established, politician- and bureaucrat-controlled, fully politicized, taxpayer-supported, authoritarian socialist institutions. In fact, the public-school system is one of the purest examples of socialism existing in America.--Thomas L. Johnson
  59. The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.--Abraham Lincoln
  60. Public Schools too often fail because they are shielded from the very force that improves performance and sparks innovation in nearly every other human enterprise – competition.--Robert Lutz/Clark Durant The essential notion of a capitalist society … is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force.--Milton Friedman
  61. First, God created idiots. That was just for practice. Then He created school boards.--Mark Twain

  62. Assholes
  63. How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.--Adolf Hitler
  64. There is only one way to kill capitalism – by taxes, taxes, and more taxes.--Karl Marx

  65. Good Point!
  66. America needs fewer laws, not more prisons.--James Bovard
  67. The U.S. Constitution may be flawed, but it's a whole lot better than what we have now.--Unknown
  68. Everything government touches turns to crap.--Ringo Starr
  69. Honest people are never touchy about the matter of being trusted.--Ayn Rand
  70. Democrats can never get any sleep because they are afraid somebody somewhere is making too much money. Republicans can never get any sleep because they are afraid somebody somewhere is having too much fun.--Anonymous
  71. Electing even a few Libertarians to a governing board, is akin to having a designated driver in a roomful of drunks.--Doug Klippel, LP County Chair, Jacksonville, FL
  72. The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.--Ayn Rand
  73. Fools object to being governed poorly, while the intelligent object to being governed at all.--Anonymous
  74. They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here?--Paul Harvey

  75. Tyranny
  76. There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.--Robert Heinlein
  77. The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.--H.L. Mencken
  78. A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.--Barry Goldwater
  79. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.--Robert A. Heinlein
  80. Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what your government is doing to you.--Joseph Sobran
  81. Why doesn't everybody just leave everybody else the hell alone?--Jimmy Durante
  82. It rankles me when somebody tries to force somebody to do something.--John Wayne
  83. Political correctness is tyranny with manners.--Charlton Heston
  84. Remember that the key words in the sentence "I want to help you" is "I want".--G. James
  85. If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.--Thomas Jefferson
  86. The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates.--Tacitus
  87. I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights.--Abraham Lincoln
  88. Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.--Milton Friedman

  89. Wisdom
  90. This country is a one-party country. Half of it is called Republican and half is called Democrat. It doesn't make any difference. All the really good ideas belong to the Libertarians.--Hugh Downs
  91. Liberals want the government to be your Mommy. Conservatives want government to be your Daddy. Libertarians want it to treat you like an adult.--Andre Marrou
  92. When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both.--James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union
  93. The Ten Commandments contain 297 words. The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words. A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words.--The Atlanta Journal
  94. When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress?--Marilyn French
  95. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.--Thomas Jefferson
  96. That government is best which governs least.--Henry David Thoreau
  97. Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.--Cousin Woodman
  98. The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.--Edmund Burke
  99. Gun control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You will pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins.--Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, whose testimony convicted John Gotti
  100. When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves.--George Pataki
  101. The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.--Benjamin Franklin
  102. I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.--Kee Hinckley
  103. Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.--H.L. Mencken
  104. The right most valued by all civilized men is the right to be left alone.--Justice Louis Brandeis
  105. Libertarianism is the philosophy which says that you can run your life better than the government can, and you have the right to be left alone in order to do it.--Anonymous
  106. Letting lawyers make laws is like letting doctors make diseases.--Anonymous
  107. It is better to correct your own faults than those of another.--Democritus
  108. "Solve" and "Problems" are not in the constitution.--Doug Newman
  109. There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.--F.A. Hayek
  110. The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.--Thucydides

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