Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2005-05-11 May 11, 2005Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.~ John Kenneth GalbraithViolent resistance against the power of the state is the last resort of the minority in its effort to break loose from the oppression of the majority. ... The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state.~ Ludwig von MisesI'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it.~ Alexander Woollcott May 10, 2005Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.~ Alexis de TocquevilleDemocracy, then, in the centralizing, pattern-making, absolutist shape which we have given to it is, it is clear, the time of tyranny's incubation.~ Bertrand de JouvenelWherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents.~ James Madison May 9, 2005The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.~ Lord ActonTo include freedom in the very definition of democracy is to define a process not by its actual characteristics as a process but by its hoped for results. This is not only intellectually invalid, it is, in practical terms, blinding oneself in advance to some of the unwanted consequences of the process.~ Thomas SowellAnd what sort of philosophical doctrine is this -- that numbers confer unlimited rights, that they take from some persons all rights over themselves, and vest these rights in others. ... How, then, can the rights of three men exceed the rights of two men? In what possible way can the rights of three men absorb the rights of two men, and make them as if they had never existed. ... It is not possible to suppose, without absurdity, that a man should have no rights over his own body and mind, and yet have a 1/10,000,000th share in unlimited rights over all other bodies and minds?~ Auberon Herbert May 7, 2005The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.~ John AdamsThe highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.~ Saint Thomas AquinasA man must first govern himself ere he is fit to govern a family; and his family ere he be fit to bear the government of the commonwealth.~ Sir Walter Raleigh May 6, 2005It used to be the boast of free men that, so long as they kept within the bounds of the known law, there was no need to ask anybody's permission or to obey anybody's orders. It is doubtful whether any of us can make this claim today.~ Friedrich August von HayekFree societies…are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom’s existence.~ Salman RushdieLiberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.~ Thomas Jefferson May 5, 2005Jim Creechan, a University of Alberta sociologist, said some of the love of guns may have its roots in Alberta's pervasive free-enterprise model of behaviour. 'It's the whole idea that the individual is more important than the collective.'~ Alanna MitchellIt is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.~ Samuel AdamsI think that every true reformer, every real friend of liberty, will agree with me in saying that if we must erect safeguards, they should be rather for the security of the individual than of the mass, and that our chiefest care must be to train the majority to respect the rights of the minority, to prevent the claims of the few from being trampled under foot by the caprice or passion of the many.~ Sir Richard John Cartwright Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print