110+ Walter E. Williams Quotes On Education, Slavery And Hard Work

Walter E. Williams is an American economist and professor of economics at George Mason University. He is a well-known libertarian and a prolific author of books and articles on economics and public policy. He is also a frequent guest on radio and television programs, including the Rush Limbaugh Show. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Walter E. Williams on leadership, education, slavery.

Top 10 Walter E. Williams Quotes

1. But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you - and why?
2. Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.
3. No matter how worthy the cause, it is robbery, theft, and injustice to confiscate the property of one person and give it to another to whom it does not belong.
4. Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.
5. In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.
6. The Founders knew that a democracy would lead to some kind of tyranny. The term democracy appears in none of our Founding documents. Their vision for us was a Republic and limited government.
7. Always be suspicious of those who pretend to know it all, claim their way is the best way and are willing to force their way on the rest of us.
8. I prefer a thief to a Congressman. A thief will take your money and be on his way, but a Congressman will stand there and bore you with the reasons why he took it.
9. The prospects are dim for a society that makes mascots out of the unproductive and condemns the productive.
10. Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Walter E. Williams Short Quotes

• Vote for me. I'll use my office to take another American's money and give it to you.
• Politicians exploit economic illiteracy.
• A caged canary is safe but not free.
• The essence of government is force, and most often that force is used to accomplish evil ends.
• The only organized political party with a Christian vision of morality is the Libertarian Party.
• If the Constitution framers would come back today, they would have contempt for most of us.
• I have nothing against rich people. In fact, I've been struggling most of my life to join them.
• I learned that you have to evaluate the effects of public policy as opposed to intentions.
• Multiculturalists argue that different cultural values are morally equivalent. That's nonsense.
• Reaching into someone else's pocket to assist one's fellow man hardly qualifies as charity.

Walter E. Williams Quotes About Education

In keeping Americans ill-educated, ill-informed and constitutionally ignorant, the education establishment has been the politician's major and most faithful partner. It is in this sense that American education can be deemed a success. — Walter E. Williams

Students who are alien and hostile to the education process ought to be removed. You say, "What will we do with them?" I say that's a secondary issue. The first priority is to stop thugs from making education impossible for everyone else. — Walter E. Williams

Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense. — Walter E. Williams

As American education and intelligence becomes replaced by feelings and emotion, not seeing the forest for the trees has become a major problem. — Walter E. Williams

Walter E. Williams Famous Quotes And Sayings

There are people in need of help. Charity is one of the nobler human motivations. The act of reaching into one's own pockets to help a fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else's pocket is despicable and worthy of condemnation. — Walter E. Williams

(F)or 50 years, the well-meaning leftist agenda has been able to do to blacks what Jim Crow and harsh discrimination could never have done: family breakdown, illegitimacy and low academic achievement. — Walter E. Williams

How does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal; apartheid is legal; Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist purges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people. — Walter E. Williams

Powerful government tends to draw into it people with bloated egos, people who think they know more than everyone else and have little hesitance in coercing their fellow man. Or as Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek said, "in government, the scum rises to the top". — Walter E. Williams

Communism and socialism is [sic] seductive. It promises us that people will contribute according to ability and receive according to needs. Everybody is equal. Everybody has a right to decent housing, decent food and affordable medical care. History should have taught us that when we hear people talk this stuff - watch out! — Walter E. Williams

Here's Williams' roadmap out of poverty: Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen. Among both black and white Americans so described, the poverty rate is in the single digits. — Walter E. Williams

The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn't come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree. — Walter E. Williams

However, if we wish to be compassionate with our fellow man, we must learn to engage in dispassionate analysis. In other words, thinking with our hearts, rather than our brains, is a surefire method to hurt those whom we wish to help. — Walter E. Williams

Today's liberals wish to disarm us so they can run their evil and oppressive agenda on us. The fight against crime is just a convenient excuse to further their agenda. I don't know about you, but if you hear that Williams' guns have been taken, you'll know Williams is dead. — Walter E. Williams

We will not make inroads into the gun-violence problem until we acknowledge the underlying causes of youth behavior today, compared to yesterday. ... we must come to the realization that laws and regulations alone cannot produce a civilized society. It's morality that is society's first line of defense against uncivilized behavior. — Walter E. Williams

You can bet the rent money that whatever politicians do will end up harming consumers. ... Economic ignorance is to politicians what idle hands are to the devil. Both provide the workshop for the creation of evil. — Walter E. Williams

Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We're working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we've fallen easy prey to charlatens, quacks, and hustlers. — Walter E. Williams

There are many farm handouts; but let's call them what they really are: a form of legalized theft. Essentially, a congressman tells his farm constituency, "Vote for me. I'll use my office to take another American's money and give it to you." — Walter E. Williams

Wealth comes from successful individual efforts to please one's fellow man ... that's what competition is all about: "outpleasing" your competitors to win over the consumers. — Walter E. Williams

Reduced employment opportunities is one effect of minimum wage legislation. The minimum wage law has imposed incalculable harm on the disadvantaged members of our society. The only moral thing to do is to repeal it. — Walter E. Williams

More important than anything else is for Americans to wise up to class warfare demagoguery and reject the politics of envy. — Walter E. Williams

Preaching doom and gloom has been beneficial to the political class. They use it to gain more power and control. — Walter E. Williams

Recent school shootings have lured ill-informed Americans into a war on our Second Amendment guarantees, led by the nation's tyrants and their useful idiots. ... The Second Amendment was given to us as protection against tyranny by the federal government and the Congress of the United States. — Walter E. Williams

The public good is promoted best by people pursuing their own private interests. This bothers some people because they're more concerned with motives than with results. — Walter E. Williams

Having children is not an act of God. It's not like you're walking down the street and pregnancy strikes you; children are a result of a conscious decision. For the most part, female-headed households are the result of short-sighted, self-destructive behavior of one or two people. — Walter E. Williams

Whether we want to own up to it or not, the welfare state has done what Jim Crow, gross discrimination and poverty could not have done. It has contributed to the breakdown of the black family structure and has helped establish a set of values alien to traditional values of high moral standards, hard work and achievement. — Walter E. Williams

Universities have failed in their function of the pursuit of academic excellence by having dumbed down classes and granting degrees to students who are just barely literate and computationally incompetent. — Walter E. Williams

Once Congress establishes that one person can live at the expense of another, it pays for everyone to try to do so. — Walter E. Williams

One of the wonderful things about free markets is that the path to greater wealth comes not from looting, plundering and enslaving one's fellow man, as it has throughout most of human history, but by serving and pleasing him. — Walter E. Williams

Discrimination is simply the act of choice. Scarcity requires us to choose; scarcity is the cause of discrimination! — Walter E. Williams

Government income redistribution programs produce the same result as theft. In fact, that's what a thief does; he redistributes income. The difference between government and thievery is mostly a matter of legality. — Walter E. Williams

Tariff policy beneficiaries are always visible, but its victims are mostly invisible. Politicians love this. The reason is simple: The beneficiaries know for whom to cast their ballots, and the victims don't know whom to blame for their calamity. — Walter E. Williams

I don't know about you, but if you hear that Williams guns have been taken, you'll know Williams is dead. — Walter E. Williams

The framers gave us the Second Amendment not so we could go deer or duck hunting but to give us a modicum of protection against congressional tyranny. — Walter E. Williams

Tyrants always condemn and seek to replace the market process with government coercion because tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrants think they should do. — Walter E. Williams

The difference between a thief and a congressman: When a thief steals your money, he doesn't expect you to thank him. — Walter E. Williams

Government schools can go for decades delivering low-quality services, and what's the result? The people who manage it earn higher pay. It's nearly impossible to fire the incompetents. And, taxpayers, who support the service, are given higher tax bills. — Walter E. Williams

If our country is to survive and prosper, we must summon the courage to condemn and reject the liberal agenda, and we had better do it soon. — Walter E. Williams

If grade inflation continues, a college bachelor's degree will have just as much credibility as a high school diploma. — Walter E. Williams

If you hate my guts and have designs to hurt me, and I see you building a cannon aimed at my house, I am not going to wait for you to finish construction. — Walter E. Williams

In general, presidents and congressmen have very limited power to do good for the economy and awesome power to do bad. The best good thing that politicians can do for the economy is to stop doing bad. In part, this can be achieved through reducing taxes and economic regulation, and staying out of our lives. — Walter E. Williams

Charity is reaching into one's own pockets to assist his fellow man in need. Reaching into someone else's pocket to assist one's fellow man hardly qualifies as charity. When done privately, we deem it theft, and the individual risks jail time. — Walter E. Williams

Profit is vital to human well-being. Profit is the payment to entrepreneurs just as wages are payments to labor, interest to capital and rent to land. In order to earn profits in free markets, entrepreneurs must identify and satisfy human wants and do so in a way that economizes on society's scarce resources. — Walter E. Williams

Maybe I'm overly pessimistic, but most of Africa is a continent without much hope for its people... What [Africa] needs, the West cannot give. ...what Africans need is personal liberty...[and] guarantees of private property rights and rule of law. — Walter E. Williams

Whenever there's a tragedy involving gun use, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, the gun-control lobby and the news media seize it as another opportunity to exploit the emotions of uninformed American people for political gain. — Walter E. Williams

The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not now, the normal state of human affairs. The normal state for the ordinary person is tyranny, arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own government. — Walter E. Williams

Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights. — Walter E. Williams

A recent study by David Green and Laura Casper, 'Delay, Denial and Dilution,' written for the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, concludes that the World Health Organization calculated that Britain has as many as 25,000 unnecessary cancer deaths a year because of under-provision of care. — Walter E. Williams

The message coming out of Washington, especially from our leftist politicians and the news media, is that we solve our budget problems by raising taxes on the rich. If Americans were more informed, such a message would be insulting to our intelligence. There are not enough rich people to satisfy Congress' appetite. — Walter E. Williams

No matter how much of our liberty Washington takes away in the name of security, there are no guarantees that there won't be another terrorist attack. Instead of attacking American liberties, the government ought to go after terrorists in their countries of origin. It should be like what our military attempted during WWII. Don't wait to defend ships against the kamikaze -- bomb the fields where they take off. — Walter E. Williams

Most Americans, who think Congress has a right to do anything for which they can get a majority vote, ignore the clearly written constitutional restraints on Congress. — Walter E. Williams

When it came to the 2000 election, 84 percent of Ivy League faculty voted for Al Gore, 6 percent for Ralph Nader and 9 percent for George Bush. In the general electorate, the vote was split at 48 percent for Gore and Bush, and 3 percent for Nader. — Walter E. Williams

Many of the wonderful achievements of the 20th century were the result of the pursuit of profits. Unfortunately, demagoguery has led to profits becoming a dirty word. Nonprofit is seen as more righteous, particularly when people pompously stand before us and declare, 'We're a nonprofit organization.' — Walter E. Williams

Liberals believe government should take people's earnings to give to poor people. Conservatives disagree. They think government should confiscate people's earnings and give them to farmers and insolvent banks. The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one's property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage. — Walter E. Williams

Trying to get government to be as efficient as business is as hopeless as trying to teach cats to bark and dogs to meow. — Walter E. Williams

Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery. — Walter E. Williams

Most of our country's serious problems can be laid at the feet of Congress and the White House and not at capitalism. — Walter E. Williams

There is no question that if one were to ask whether we Americans are moving towards more liberty or more government control over our lives, the answer would unambiguously be the latter - more government control over our lives. We might have reached a point where the trend is irreversible and that is a true tragedy for if liberty is lost in America, it will be lost for all times and all places. — Walter E. Williams

An increasing amount of climate research suggests a possibility of global cooling. — Walter E. Williams

Legislators aren't known for being rocket scientists. — Walter E. Williams

Economic planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite backed up by the brute force of government. — Walter E. Williams

Saying the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don't have a Constitution. — Walter E. Williams

If we buy into the notion that somehow property rights are less important, or are in conflict with, human or civil rights, we give the socialists a freer hand to attack our property. — Walter E. Williams

The crucial question for any policy is not what, are its intentions, but what are its effects? — Walter E. Williams

If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn. — Walter E. Williams

It was not until the Abraham Lincoln administration that an income tax was imposed on Americans. Its stated purpose was to finance the war, but it took until 1872 for it to be repealed. During the Grover Cleveland administration, Congress enacted the Income Tax Act of 1894. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1895. It took the Sixteenth Amendment (1913) to make permanent what the Framers feared -- today's income tax. — Walter E. Williams

I believe in helping our fellow man in need. I believe that reaching into your own pockets to help someone in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into somebody else's pockets to help your fellow man in need is despicable. And, or those of us who are Christians, I'm very sure that when God gave Moses the commandment Thou Shalt Not Steal, he did not mean ...unless you get a majority vote in Congress. — Walter E. Williams

The belief that society benefits from destruction is lunacy. — Walter E. Williams

We might think of dollars as being 'certificates of performance.' The better I serve my fellow man, and the higher the value he places on that service, the more certificates of performance he gives me. The more certificates I earn, the greater my claim on the goods my fellow man produces. That's the morality of the market. In order for one to have a claim on what his fellow man produces, he must first serve him. — Walter E. Williams

The bottom line is that if politicians weren't in the business of granting favors and exacting tribute, every single issue surrounding campaign finance reform would be irrelevant. After all, why would anyone spend money for influence, access, favors and tribute if the only thing that politicians do is to live up to their oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution? — Walter E. Williams

"Cap and trade" is just about the most effective tool for controlling most economic activity short of openly declaring ourselves a communist nation and it's a radical environmentalist's dream come true. — Walter E. Williams

School choice opponents are also dishonest when they speak of saving public schools. A Heritage Foundation survey found that 47 percent of House members and 51 percent of senators with school-age children enrolled them in private schools in 2001. Public school teachers enroll their children in private schools to a much greater extent than the general public, in some cities close to 50 percent. — Walter E. Williams

Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa’s apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, and Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal, but did that make them moral? — Walter E. Williams

It's people seeking more for themselves that has produced a better life for all Americans. — Walter E. Williams

The only way Congress can get one dollar to spend is to take that one dollar from Americans, borrow that one dollar from Americans, or inflate that one dollar from Americans. So, it's very much like the visual image of a swimming pool. A person notes there is a shallow end, so he takes the water out of the deep end and pours it in the shallow end, hoping to raise the height of the water in the pool - and you would call that person stupid. — Walter E. Williams

All we have to do now is to inform the public that the payment of social security taxes is voluntary and watch the mass exodus. — Walter E. Williams

Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom. — Walter E. Williams

Thou shalt not steal unless thou hast a majority vote in Congress.... I'm healthy; subsidized prescription drugs won't do me much good. I'd be willing to forego my prescription drugs if Congress would force some young American to mow my lawn. — Walter E. Williams

When the Founders thought of democracy, they saw democracy in the political sphere - a sphere strictly limited by the Constitution's well-defined and enumerated powers given the federal government. Substituting democratic decision making for what should be private decision making is nothing less than tyranny dressed up. — Walter E. Williams

Politicians have always coveted the liberties we hold. — Walter E. Williams

Elect me to office. I will protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Because there's no constitutional authority for Congress spending on the objects of benevolence, don't expect for me to vote for prescription drugs for the elderly, handouts to farmers and food stamps for the poor. Instead, I'll fight these and other unconstitutional congressional expenditures”? I'll tell you how many votes he'll get: It will be Williams' vote, and that's it. — Walter E. Williams

Three-fifths to two-thirds of the federal budget consists of taking property from one American and giving it to another. Were a private person to do the same thing, we'd call it theft. When government does it, we euphemistically call it income redistribution, but that's exactly what thieves do - redistribute income. Income redistribution not only betrays the founders' vision, it's a sin in the eyes of God. — Walter E. Williams

Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good. — Walter E. Williams

Democracy gives the aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be considered tyranny. — Walter E. Williams

Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place. — Walter E. Williams

Government is necessary, but the only rights we can delegate to government are the ones we possess. For example, we all have a natural right to defend ourselves against predators. Since we possess that right, we can delegate authority to government to defend us. By contrast, we don't have a natural right to take the property of one person to give to another; therefore, we cannot legitimately delegate such authority to government. — Walter E. Williams

How you make it in this world, for the most part, depends more on what you do as opposed to whether people like or dislike you. In order to produce a successful life, one must find ways to please his fellow man. That is, find out what goods and services his fellow man values, and is willing to pay for, and then acquire the necessary skills and education to provide it. — Walter E. Williams

Many politicians and pundits claim that the credit crunch and high mortgage foreclosure rate is an example of market failure and want government to step in to bail out creditors and borrowers at the expense of taxpayers who prudently managed their affairs. These financial problems are not market failures but government failure. ... The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy. — Walter E. Williams

So what's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence of the difference when he said, 'You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.' Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights. — Walter E. Williams

It is not wise for us to permit a few people on the Federal Reserve Board to have life and death power over our economy. My recommendation for reducing some of that power is to repeal legal tender laws and eliminate all taxes on gold, silver and platinum transactions. That way there would be money substitutes and the government money monopoly would be reduced and hence the ability to tax - some people would say steal from - us through inflation. — Walter E. Williams

According to the Institute for International Economics, trade barriers cost American consumers $80 billion a year or more than $1,200 per family. — Walter E. Williams

Life Lessons by Walter E. Williams

1. Walter E. Williams taught us the importance of economic freedom and the dangers of government intervention in the economy. He argued that individuals should be able to make their own economic decisions without interference from the government.
2. Williams also stressed the importance of personal responsibility and the need for individuals to take responsibility for their own actions. He argued that government programs should be designed to encourage people to make responsible decisions.
3. Finally, Williams advocated for free markets and the importance of competition in driving economic growth and prosperity. He argued that free markets are the best way to ensure economic growth and prosperity for all.