Inspirational Quotes Part 3

Freedom

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” — George Washington

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” — Albert Einstein

“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities.” — Ayn Rand

“A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.” — Ayn Rand

“They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.” — Benjamin Franklin

“In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.” — Charles de Gaulle

“Democracy: In which you say what you like and do what you’re told.” — Dave Barry

“A fool is very dangerous when in power.” — Denis Fonvizin

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” — Edward Abbey

“Only the educated are free.” — Epictetus

“Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something.” — Excerpt from the notebooks of Lazarus Long, from Robert Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love

“It’s dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” — Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.” — Winston Churchill

“Thinking men cannot be ruled.” — Ayn Rand

“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities and the smallest minority on earth is the individual.” — Ayn Rand

“It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.” — Ayn Rand

“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” — Ayn Rand

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” — Ayn Rand

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” — Ayn Rand

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” — Thomas Jefferson

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Experience hath shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” — Thomas Jefferson

“I predict future happiness for Americans [and the world] if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” — Thomas Jefferson

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.” — Thomas Jefferson

“In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Liberty 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

“Nations of eternal war [waste] all their energies in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” — Thomas Jefferson

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson

“The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.” — Thomas Jefferson

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” — Benjamin Franklin

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” — Edward Abbey

“Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.” — John Adams

“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.” — Samuel Adams