That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves. — Kim Stanley Robinson
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
But I'm very libertarian in the sense that I believe in small government and, as a general rule, I don't believe in imposing values upon people. — Stephen Harper
I think very fundamentally to being Libertarian is not having a social agenda. I accept who you are and the life that you live as long as your life does not adversely affect mine. — Gary Johnson
Libertarians recognize the difference between adults and children, as well as differences between normal adults and adults who are insane or mentally hindered or retarded. — Tom G. Palmer
The individualist… recognizes the limitations of the powers of individual reason and consequently advocates freedom. — Friedrich August von Hayek
Government is best which governs least — Thomas Paine
If you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band, and all of the libertarian attitudes will logically fall into place. — Murray Rothbard
The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all. — H. L. Mencken
As for politics, I’m an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and fetters. Can’t stand caged animals. People must be free. — Charlie Chaplin
What libertarians assert is simply that differences among normal adults do not imply different fundamental rights. — Tom G. Palmer
Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. — Christina Rossetti
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees. — Aeschylus
The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself. — Hilaire Belloc
Libertarian Socialist Quotes
The essential notion of a capitalist society ... is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force. — Milton Friedman
The broad liberal objective is a balanced and flexible "mixed economy," thus seeking to occupy that middle ground between capitalism and socialism whose viability has so long been denied by both capitalists and socialists. — Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Peter Kropotkin described Anarchism as the extreme left wing of socialism - a view with which I completely agree. One of my deepest concerns today is that the libertarian socialist core will be eroded by fashionable, post- modernist, spiritualist, mystic individualism. — Murray Bookchin
Socialists make the mistake of confusing individual worth with success. They believe you cannot allow people to succeed in case those who fail feel worthless. — Kenneth Baker, Baron Baker of Dorking
Trying to be a socialist and a libertarian is obviously a very difficult balancing act, which nobody has pulled off too successfully in this century. — David Hare
I've been on the left of the Party since I joined it about 1934 and I haven't seen much reason for altering... I have always been a strong libertarian both inside the Labour Party and outside... what I want to seek to do over a period of course is to establish a Socialist society. — Michael Foot
The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community. — David Boaz
Never trust anyone who calls himself a libertarian socialist. They're bound to be deeply confused, at best. — Glenn Reynolds
Populism is the simple premise that markets need to be restrained by society and by a democratic political system. We are not socialists or communists, we are proponents of regulated capitalism and, I might add, people who have read American history. — Molly Ivins
Libertarian Party Quotes
All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party. — Mao Zedong
The government was set to protect man from criminals, and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government. — Ayn Rand
Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots. — John Adams
The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. — George Washington
[Our Constitution] is an instrument for the people to restrain the government. — Patrick Henry
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. — James Carriger Paine
Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence. — Tom C. Clark
Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt. — Mahatma Gandhi
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
Here's your enemy for this week, the government says. And some gullible Americans click their heels and salute - often without knowing who or even where the enemy of the week is. — Charley Reese
Great Libertarian Quotes
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. — Walter E. Williams
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
How ever sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, religion or all four. — Gloria Steinem
Foreign aid goes from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. — Rand Paul
Governments harangue about deficits to get more revenue so they can spend more. — Allan H. Meltzer
When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all. — William O. Douglas
The standard of living of the common man is higher in those countries which have the greatest number of wealthy entrepreneurs. — Ludwig von Mises
He who controls the past controls the future. — Lao Tzu
The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State. — Murray Rothbard
Individual Liberty Quotes
I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism; and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society. — Karl Popper
Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable. — Friedrich August von Hayek
'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded. — Friedrich August von Hayek
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Federalism isn’t about states’ rights. It’s about dividing power to better protect individual liberty. — Elizabeth Price Foley
Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual. — Walter E. Williams
Those (who) seek to establish systems of Government based on the regimentation of all Human Beings by a handful of individual rulers...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights. — Clarence Thomas
You don't protect any of your individual liberties by lying down and going to sleep. — John T. Scopes
Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty. — Calvin Coolidge
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas. — Joseph Stalin
Education is a weapon the effect of which is determined by the hands which wield it, by who is to be struck down. — Joseph Stalin
First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me. — Martin Niemoller
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. — Thomas Jefferson
I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. — Booker T. Washington
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? — Walter E. Williams
If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? — Frederic Bastiat
The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite. — Thomas Jefferson
To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying. — Richard Henry Lee
The media has created this environment that is okay to say almost anything about somebody who is, you know, right of Jane Fonda. You know, if you are slightly conservative or even libertarian points of view, especially if you are persuasive and charismatic and funny and effective, you will get called the most appalling things. — Milo Yiannopoulos
We libertarians are not the spokesmen for any ethnic or economic class; we are the spokesmen for all classes, for all of the public; we strive to see all of these groups united, hand-in-hand, in opposition to the plundering and privileged minority that constitutes the rulers of the State. — Murray Rothbard
Nations are not ruined by one act of violence, but gradually and in an almost imperceptible manner by the depreciation of their circulating currency, through its excessive quantity. — Nicolaus Copernicus
There is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well meaning, are better at solving problems than the people on the spot, who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right. — Elinor Ostrom
It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance. — Murray Rothbard
No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. — Mark Twain
Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else. — Hans-Hermann Hoppe
[E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics — Ludwig von Mises
To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms. — Richard Henry Lee
They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here? — Paul Harvey
I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money. — Thomas Sowell
The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians. — George Orwell
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. — Ludwig von Mises
In Conclusion
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