Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2004-06-15 Jun 15, 2004Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people!~ Patrick HenryWhen a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state ... this violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people.~ P. J. O'RourkeWe must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure.~ Sir Karl Popper Jun 14, 2004Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself. ... [I] hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.~ Ronald ReaganMr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!~ Ronald ReaganThe federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution.~ Ronald Reagan Jun 11, 2004We do not move forward by curtailing people’s liberty because we are afraid of what they may do or say.~ Eleanor RooseveltA civilization in which there is not a continuous controversy about important issues…is on the way to totalitarianism and death.~ Robert M. HutchinsA society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.~ Bertrand de Jouvenel Jun 10, 2004There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions… It obviously endangers the freedom and the objectivity of our discussion if we attack a person instead of attacking an opinion or, more precisely, a theory.~ Sir Karl PopperThere is no inherent misdirection in holding unorthodox views. Indeed, the autonomous individual, free from compulsive conformance and unquestioned assumptions, is likely to be unorthodox... They stimulate the climate of controversy without which political democracy becomes an empty formalism.~ Snell PutneyI have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.~ Thomas Paine Jun 9, 2004When individuals and nations have once got in their heads the abstract concept of full-blown liberty, there is nothing like it in its uncontrollable strength.~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelA liberal society stands on the proposition that we should all take seriously the idea that we might be wrong. This means we must place no one, including ourselves, beyond the reach of criticism (no final say); it means that we must allow people to err, even where the error offends and upsets, as it often will.~ Jonathan Rauch Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print