In our own society
we could do much more than we do now
to encourage self development.
We could, for example,
drop the increasingly silly fiction
that education is for youngsters
and devise many more arrangements
for lifelong learning.
Robert H Rimmer
The Harrad Experiment, 1966
"Nothing clears up a case
so much as stating it
to another person."
Sherlock Holmes
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
in "Silver Blaze," 1892
Individuals are kind and decent . . .
as individuals and to other individuals.
Eve is in no danger from her neighbors and friends,
and I am in no danger from mine.
But she is in danger from my neighbors and frineds--
and I from hers.
Robert A Heinlein
Methuselah's Children, 1958.
"You were a tramp, weren't you . . . ?"
"Not a tramp," Thomas corrected gently, "a hobo."
"Sorry--what's the distinction?"
"A tramp is a bum, a parasite, a man that won't work.
A hobo is an itenerant laborer
who prefers casual freedom
to security.
He works for his living,
but won't be tied down to one environment."
Robert A. Heinlein
Sixth Column, 1949
The more a man knows,
the more willing he is to learn--
the less a man knows,
the more positive he is
that he knows everything.
Robert Ingersoll
"On Learning and Genius," in
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Dresden Edition, Volume Twelve. 1900.
[K]eep your bow.
We must trust these people,
though not to the point of foolishness.
Christopher Paolini
Eragon, 2002
Here we subscribe to the ethos
that it is not enough
to have the courage of your convictions,
but you must also have
the courage to have your convictions challenged.
Christopher Phillips
Socrates Cafe, 2001
The either-or fallacy
is the false assumption that there are only two positions, A and B,
so if A is wrong then B must be right.
The fallacy is that discrediting A does not demonstrate B.
Both A and B could be wrong
and a third alternative could be correct.
Michael Shermer
Why Darwin Matters, 2006
The impetus for this book is Libertarianism.
The basic premise of this philosophy is that
it is illegitimate to engage in aggression against non-aggressors.
What is meant by agression is not assertiveness, argumentativeness,
competitiveness, adventurousness, quarrelsomeness, or antagonism.
What is meant by aggression is the use of violence,
such as that which takes place in murder, rape, robbery or kidnapping.
Libertarianism does not imply pacifism;
it does not forbid the use of violence in defense
or even in retaliation against violence.
Libertarian philosophy condemns only the initiation of violence--
the use of violence against a non-violent person or his property.
Walter Block
Defending the Undefendable, 1976
It is a curious anomaly.
State power has an unbroken record
of inability to do anything
efficiently, economically, disinterestedly or honestly;
yet when the slightest dissatisfaction arises
over any exercise of social power,
the aid of the agent least qualified to give aid
is immediately called for.
Albert Jay Nock
Our Enemy, the State, 1935
I had us moved into a corner
where I could put my back against a wall.
Wild Bill Hickok had once, just once,
made the mistake of sitting with his back to the door.
I'd hate to make him feel,
wherever he is,
that he'd died in vain.
Donald Hamilton
The Demolishers 1987
It is time that we squarely face the fact
that institutional schoolteaching
is destructive to children.
John Taylor Gatto
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, 1992
The weary yeare his race now hauing run,
The new begins his compast course anew;
with shew of morning mylde he hath begun,
betokening peace and plenty to ensew.
So let vs, which this chaunge of weather vew,
chaunge eeke our mynds and former liues amend,
the old yeares sinnes forepast let vs eschew
and fly the faults with which we did offend.
Then shall the new yeares ioy forth freshly send
into the glooming world his gladsome ray:
and all these stormes which now his beauty blend,
shall turne to caulmes and tymely cleare away.
So likewise loue cheare you your heauy spright,
and chaunge old yeares annoy to new delight.
Edmund Spenser
Amoretti, Sonnet 62, 1595
Raise your glass.
Repeat after me:
We drink to a great moral truth:
Good Friends! Good Wine! Good Bread!
Joy unsurpassed unto the end!
Angelo M. Pellegrini
Wine and the Good Life, 1965
There is a name for a society where only the police have guns.
It is called a police state.
John Ross
Unintended Consequences, 1996
The current near-hysterical preoccupation with safety
is at best a waste of resources
and a crimp on the human spirit,
and at worst an invitation
to totalitarianism.
Michael Crichton
State of Fear, 2004
If we had no other means to judge the Nazi doctrines,
the single fact that they seek shelter behind the Gestapo
would be sufficient evidence against them.
Doctrines which can stand the trial of logic and reason
can do so without persecuting skeptics.
Ludwig von Mises
Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War, 1944
Government is a dirty business.
Robert A. Heinlein
Friday, 1982
There is an old saying among the Oaxacanos:
The most bitter remorse
is for the sins one did not commit.
John D. MacDonald
Dress Her in Indigo, 1969
[B]uzzards have a pact
with death.
Louis L'Amour
The Broken Gun 1966
I want it to be understood at the core of the society
that the right to weapons is a fundamental right.
As long as you have a relatively law-abiding society,
weapons in general ownership and use
prevent tyranny from taking hold.
Nothing else in history has ever managed it.
John Ringo
There Will Be Dragons, 2003
Censorship is an ancient evil,
and liberation from it
is the fuel of progress.
A.C. Grayling
"Information," from, The Heart of Things: Applying Philosophy to the 21st Century, 2005
Oh, "tanstaafl.' Means "There ain't no such thing
as a free lunch."
Robert A Heinlein
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, 1966
Men are whipped oftenest
who are whipped easiest.
Frederick Douglass
Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, 1881
"Are you trying to get me drunk?"
"Never," Peter smiled.
"I dislike women who don't know what they're doing.
Let's say I'm trying to make you amenable."
Robert H. Rimmer
Proposition 31, 1968
Conservatism, though a necessary element in any stable society,
is not a social program;
in its paternalistic, nationalistic, and power-adoring tendencies
it is often closer to socialism than true liberalism;
and with its traditionalistic, anti-intellectual, and often mystical propensities
it will never, except in short periods of disillusionment,
appeal to the young and all those others
who believe that some changes are desirable
if this world is to become a better place.
Friedrich A. Hayek
The Road to Serfdom, 1944
A good heart will help you
to a bonny face . . . ."
Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights, 1847
Ira furor brevis est.
Anger is a short madness.
Horace, 65 to 8 B.C.E.
But it is not the capital employed
that creates profits and losses.
Capital does not "beget profit" as Marx thought.
The capital goods as such are dead things that in themselves
do not accomplish anything.
If they are utilized according to a good idea, profit results.
If they are utilized according to a mistaken idea,
no profit or losses result.
It is the entrepreneurial decision
that creates either profit or loss.
It is mental acts, the mind of the entrepreneur,
from which profits ultimately originate.
Profit is a product of the mind,
of success in anticipating the future state of the market.
It is a spiritual and intellectual phenomenon.
Ludwig von Mises
Planning for Freedom, 1952
School is a twelve-year jail sentence
where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned.
John Taylor Gatto
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, 1992
I thundered hot water into the big tub,
setting up McGee's Handy Home Treatment for Melancholy.
A deep hot bath,
and a strong cold drink,
and a book on the tub rack.
John D. MacDonald
A Deadly Shade of Gold, 1965
It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance
are weapons more deadly to tyranny
than any others
that I uphold them. . . .
[B]rute force stengthens tyranny. . . .
War and authority are companions;
peace and liberty are companions.
Benjamin Tucker
"The Philosophical Anarchists," Liberty, July 31, 1886
as quoted in The Debates of Liberty, by Wendy McElroy, 2003
Why is our government
so often dimwitted, slow and wasteful?
Because the Founders planned it that way,
thank heavens.
Richard J. Maybury
Whatever Happened to Justice?, 1993
The more one's vocabulary
and writing (and reading)
ability increases . . .
the more one will use the dictionary!
Walter H. Head
A Born-Again View of Religion Versus A Philosophy of Thinking in Principles, 2001
In wine-drinking cultures,
children used to be given a few drops
of wine in their water to accustom them to the taste.
People grow up with wine at the dinner table;
it's part of the family meal.
Since children aren't prohibited from touching the stuff,
it doesn't become "forbidden fruit" like beer and wine do in our culture.
As a result, kids don't bend over backward
to get their hands on it when the adults aren't around,
and then proceed to get drunk.
Leslie Brenner
Fear of Wine: An Introductory Guide to the Grape, 1995
A cucumber should be well sliced,
and dressed with pepper and vinegar,
and then thrown out,
as good for nothing.
Samuel Johnson
Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, October 5, 1773
Certain people never learn
that if they push enough folks around long enough,
sooner or later they'll start shoving somebody who won't take it.
He'll blow right up in their faces
and demolish them and the surrounding landscape;
and they--those who are left--
will scream about how misunderstood and abused they are,
and why didn't somebody tell them
the guy was dangerous so they could be nice to him?
It never seems to occur to them
that there's a very simple answer:
just be nice to everybody.
Donald Hamilton
The Demolishers 1987
Nothing is so useless
as a general maxim.
Lord Macaulay
Machiavelli, 1827
The Libertarian Creed rests upon one central axiom:
that no man or group of men may aggress
against the person or property of anyone else.
This may be called the "nonaggression axiom."
Murray N. Rothbard
For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, 1973
Let no one put off studying philosophy when he is young,
nor when old grow weary of its study.
For no one is too young or too far past his prime
to achieve the health of his soul.
The man who alleges that he is not yet ready for philosophy
or that the time for it has passed him by,
is like the man who says
that he is either too young or too old
for happiness.
Epicurus
Letter to Menoeceus, Fragment 122. Circa 300 BCE.
Quoted in The Essential Epicurus, translated by Eugene O'Connor
Government's a disease
masquerading as its own cure.
L. Neil Smith
The Proability Broach, 1980
The alternative is not
plan or no plan.
The question is: whose planning?
Should each member of society plan for himself
or should the paternal government alone plan for all? . . .
Laissez faire does not mean:
let souless mechanical forces operate.
It means: let individuals choose
how they want to cooperate in the social division of labor
and let them determine what the entrepreneurs should produce.
Planning means:
let the government alone choose and enforce its rulings
by the apparatus of coercion and compulsion.
Ludwig von Mises
Planning for Freedom, 1952
But the other vitality is still there,
that rancorous, sardonic, wonderful insistence
on the right to dissent, to question, to object,
to raise holy hell and,
in direst extremity,
to laugh the self-appointed squad leaders
off the face of the earth with great whoops
of dirty, disdainful glee.
Suppress friction and a machine runs fine.
Suppress friction, and a society runs down.
John D. MacDonald
A Deadly Shade of Gold, 1965
"I like you, young man.
You show considerable skill at making me feel
like a woman instead of an old lady."
"Let's say that I like ladies,
young and old,
with a dash of vinegar."
Robert H. Rimmer
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt, 1964
Fuzzy language causes
fuzzy thinking.
Richard J. Maybury
Whatever Happened to Penny Candy, 2000
While I'm a great believer in karate, judo, and other variations
on the theme of unarmed combat,
nothing is quite as effective
in discouraging the unfriendlies of the world
as a blue steel sidearm.
A.E. Maxwell
Just Another Day in Paradise, 1985
It is a curious fact
that as the government's revenues increase
so do its needs.
Frank Chodorov
The Income Tax: Root of All Evil, 1954
Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution,
as not adequately supported by facts,
seem quite to forget
that their own theory is supported
by no facts at all.
Herbert Spencer
Essays Scientific, Political and Speculative, 1891
A half hour with Thomas Jefferson
is more enlightening
than a week with anyone else I know,
except maybe James Madison or Patrick Henry.
Richard J. Maybury
Whatever Happened to Justice?, 1993
A government is as strong as its income.
Contrariwise, the independence of the people
is in direct proportion to the amount
of their wealth they can enjoy.
We cannot restore traditional American freedom
unless we limit the government's power
to tax.
Frank Chodorov
The Income Tax: Root of All Evil, 1954
At eighteen months he weighed over a hundred pounds,
with enormous feet and a head like a bear.
His greeting was overwhelming,
like being mauled by a grizzly;
but I didn't mind.
I mean, it showed that he remembered me and, dammit,
love is where you find it.
There aren't that many humans around
eager to hug and kiss me.
Donald Hamilton
The Demolishers 1987
No politician has yet gained votes
by advocating the amendment
of the multiplication table,
but many a seat in parliament
has been won on an implied promise--
equally fantastic--
to repeal the law of supply and demand.
Sir Ernest Benn
The State the Enemy, 1953
E pur si muove.
Italian for, "And yet it does move."
Attributed to Galileo Galilei
Parting remarks supposed to have been spoken under Galleleo's breath
after his public recantation of his heliocentric ideas,
upon his conviction by the Inquisition
for believing that the Earth was not the center of the Universe, 1633.
It is quite a three-pipe problem.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Red-Headed League," in
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892
"You just don't get it, do you?" Kenner said.
"You think civilization is some horrible, polluting human invention
that separates us from the state of nature.
But civilization doesn't separate us from nature, Ted.
Civilization protects us from nature."
Michael Crichton
State of Fear, 2004
"Remember the engineer's creed."
"When the results don't agree with the theory,
believe the results
and come up with a new theory."
John Ross
Unintended Consequences, 1996
The right of a person to the product of his own labor
is the foundation of economic liberty.
The requirements of liberty in the economic realm
can be met in no other way.
The question at issue is how to distinguish
between what is mine and what is thine. . . .
There are three ways to handle this problem:
1. Each person may have whatever he can grab.
2. Some person other than the one who produces the goods and services
may decide who shall have the right of possession or use.
3. Each person may be allowed to have whatever he produces.
These three methods cover all the possibilities;
there are no others.
F.A."Squatty" Harper
Liberty: A Path to Its Recovery, 1949
By preventing a free market in education,
a handful of social engineers,
backed by the industries that profit from compulsory schooling--
teacher colleges, textbook publishers, materials suppliers, and others--
has ensured that most of our children
will not have an education,
even though they may be thoroughly schooled.
John Taylor Gatto
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, 1992
The affinities of all the beings of the same class
have sometimes been represented by a great tree.
I believe this simile largely speaks the truth.
As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds,
and these, if vigorous,
branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch,
so by generation I believe it has been
with the great Tree of Life,
which fills with its dead and broken branches
the crust of the earth,
and covers the surface
with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications.
Charles Darwin
On the Origin of Species, 1859
A lasting order
cannot be established
by bayonets.
Ludwig von Mises
Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War,
I don't argue with lasers;
you can neither bribe them
nor sweet-talk them.
Robert A. Heinlein
Friday, 1982
That's why they can never make it.
They kill off the good ones.
They gut their dreamers.
Their drab stone discipline is a celebration of mediocrity.
If we can restrain ourselves
from killing off our own rebels,
our doubters and dreamers,
all in the name of making ourselves strong,
then we can prevail.
But if we use their methods,
then any victory will be but victory
of one iron symbol over another,
and mankind will have lost the battle
whichever way it goes.
John D. MacDonald
A Deadly Shade of Gold, 1965
If one has a book, Mr. Boone,
one is never alone.
They will talk to you when you want to listen,
and when you tire of what they are saying,
you just close the book.
It will be waiting for you
when you come back to it.
Louis L'Amour
The Cherokee Trail 1982
You aren't compelled to loan your car
to anyone who wants it,
but you are compelled to surrender you school-age child to strangers
who process children for a livelihood . . . .
Your great-great grandmother didn't have to surrender her children.
What happened?
John Taylor Gatto
The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher's Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling, 2000
Some people would advise us
that there may be realities so frightening,
or so discouraging and demoralizing,
that we would be better off not knowing anything about them.
In my judgment, however,
it is nearly always more advantageous
to face the facts with which we must deal
than to remain ignorant of them.
After all, hiding our eyes from reality
will not cause any reduction of its dangers and threats . . . ."
Harry G. Frankfurt
On Truth, 2006
It is not written in the stars
that I will always understand what is going on--
a truism that I often find damnably annoying.
Robert A. Heinlein
Friday, 1982
A man with a rage
is always going to be a victim, never a victor.
He loses perspective.
He can't act, except emotionally.
Robert H. Rimmer
The Premar Experiments, 1975
I do not trust fervor.
Every time it has burst out somewhere,
it has brought fire, famine, misery. . . .
And contempt for man.
Fervor is the weapon of choice for the impotent.
Frantz Fanon
Black Skins White Masks, 1988
More than any group we can think of,
Harleys and their owners
constitute the world's largest
and most active
mutual admiration society.
Paul Garson
Born to Be Wild: A History of the American Biker and Bikes, 1947 - 2002, 2003
It would seem, then,
that the claim of one renowned person who said:
"Only well-fed people can be free,"
could more accurately be stated in reverse:
"Only free people can be well-fed."
F.A. "Squatty" Harper
Liberty: A Path to Its Recovery, 1949
The process of science
is fueled by what I call Darwin's Dictum,
defined by Darwin himself in his letter to Fawcett:
"all observation must be for or against some view
if it is to be of any service."
Michael Shermer
Why Darwin Matters, 2006
Stop worring about whether she loves you.
One thing is fundamental;
if you give love instead of asking for it,
if you love openly,
defenselessly discarding forever the proposition,
"I'll love you if you'll love me,"
which most people live by,
then you will discover
a wonderful serenity in your life.
Robert H. Rimmer
The Harrad Experiment, 1966
Detailed instructions
are the death
of initiative.
Robert A. Heinlein
Sixth Column, 1949
Dream good dreams.
John D. MacDonald
Nightmare in Pink, 1964
I read a great deal.
It's the only way we have
to lead more lives than one.
John D. MacDonald
Nightmare in Pink, 1964
[I]t isn't foolish or wicked
to enjoy.
Wickedness
is hurting people
on purpose.
John D. MacDonald
Nightmare in Pink, 1964
And say not thou "My country right or wrong."
Nor shead thy blood for an unhallowed cause.
John Quincy Adams
"Congress, Slavery, and an Unjust War," 1847
A chief event of life
is the day in which we have encountered
a mind
that startled us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays: Second Series, 1844
How many unjust
and wicked things
are done
from habit.
Terence
Heauton Timoroumenos, circa 150 BC
In the kingdom of the blind
the one-eyed man
is king.
Desiderius Erasmus
Adagia, 1500
A belief is not true
because it is useful.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Amiel's Journal, November 15, 1876
'Mid pleasures and palaces
though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble,
there's no place like home.
John Howard Payne
"Home Sweet Home," from Clari, the Maid of Milan, 1823
If you put a chain
around the neck of a slave,
the other end fastens itself
around your own.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays: First Series, 1841
There is no worse heresy
than that the office
sanctifies the holder of it.
Lord Acton
Letter to Mandell Creighton, April 3, 1887
It is better that ten guilty escape
than that one innocent suffer.
Sir William Blackstone
Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765
The sorrow for the dead
is the only sorrow
from which we refuse
to be divorced.
Washington Irving
"Rural Funerals," from, The Sketch-Book, 1819-1820
During war we imprison
the rights of man.
Jean Giraudoux
Tiger at the Gates, 1935
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away,
for expedients,
and by parts.
Edmund Burke
Letter to Sherriffs of Bristol, April 3, 1777
It is the characteristic
of the most stringent censorships
that they give credibility
to the opinions they attack.
Voltaire
Preface to "Poeme sur le desastre de Lisbonne," 1758
There is no greater fallacy than the belief
that aims and purposes are one thing,
while methods and tactics are another.
Emma Goldman
My Disillusionment in Russia, 1923
[W]e never listen
when we are eager to speak.
La Rochefoucauld
Maxims, 1665
The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course
of larceny, murder, rapine, and barbarism.
We are always moving forward with high mission,
a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims
while incidentally capturing their markets,
to civilize savage and senile and paranoid peoples
while blundering accidentally
into their oil wells and metal mines.
John T. Flynn
As We Go Marching, 1944
Man is a plant which bears thoughts,
just as a rose-tree bears roses
and an apple-tree bears apples.
Antoine Fabre d'Olivet
L'Histoire philosophique du genre humain, 1824
Governments have ever been careful
How many a man
You shall have joy
Human felicity is produced
Of all the enemies to public liberty
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong
Morality cannot exist one minute without freedom. . . .
A man should never be ashamed
Far from establishing liberty throughout the world,
Passion, joined with power,
The century is advanced,
We thought, because we had power,
The wicked are always surprised
Every central government
We find it easy to believe
How is the world ruled
Women deprived of the company of men pine,
Anger always thinks it has power
And I cannot see,
It is one thing
Kings are naturally lovers
When once the itch of literature
The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries,
The best way to suppose what may come,
When a government takes over a people's economic life
The number of those
When all the fine phrases are stripped away,
Every great advance
The object of the state
Happiness is never as welcome
Fear is the foundation
The test of a vocation
There can be no freedom
Truth often suffers more
To preserve liberty,
He that would know what shall be,
Most all the time,
Every strengthening of the State machine
I cannot live without books.
We call our schools free
Power
What I like in a good author
Power is not happiness.
The office of government is not to confer happiness,
The first sign of corruption
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation
Experience is the name everyone gives
Politicians are the same all over.
Mankind are greater gainers
Watch out for the fellow
The project of a national education
My toast would be,
It will be of little avail to the people,
So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons,
The nearest approach
The king presupposes subjects;
No government can be long secure
On my arrival in the United States,
Experience keeps a dear school,
I speak truth,
When we are planning for posterity,
[F]orce, the vital principle
The shortest way to ruin a country
The appalling thing about war
Experience has always shown us hitherto
All good people agree,
No man can think clearly
Whenever government assumes to deliver us
Truth no more relies for success
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions,
History has taught me
Power gradually extirpates from the mind
The theory of free speech,
Governments are suspicious of literature
The true civilization is where every man
If all mankind minus one
The true university of these days
Among the calamities of war
Of all the passions,
Hatred is a feeling which leads
The defect of equality
The first thing naturally
A man's liberties are none the less aggressed upon
An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty.
Many can argue,
Among the natural rights of the colonists are these:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I am long on ideas, but short on time.
People seem not to see
Rather let the crime of the guilty
Power is so apt to be insolent
It is familiarity with life
The less government we have, the better--
The Bill of Rights is a born rebel.
There is in all of us a strong disposition
If we would only become
It's better to profit by a horrible example
Curiosity is,
To be feared is to fear;
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake
A horse never runs so fast
To think justly
Wherever they burn books
You will always find those
The most certain test by which we judge
Luck never made a man wise.
Those who realize their folly
The despotism of custom is everywhere
In great affairs men show themselves
To the man who is afraid
To turn events into ideas
The Golden Age
I went to the store the other day
Thomas Jefferson still survives.
If a little knowledge is dangerous,
The main part of intellectual education
Virtue is the roughest way,
A man surprised
A teacher affects eternity;
A thief believes
Every man has his own vocation.
That which costs little
More people are flattered into virtue
The unknown always passes
It is easier to know (and understand)
Laws are silent
April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded
'Tis better to suffer wrong
No one lies as much
The contest,
Half-heartedness
How much easier it is
to be critical
If a nation expects
Did you ever
There are scarcely any men more sour
The virtue of books
Attack another's rights
The man with a new idea is a Crank
The boisterous sea of liberty
Books are the quietest and most constant
A door is what a dog
The Press, my Lords,
The limits of tyrants
Let us dare
Philosophy is the best medicine
Of all the tyrannies on human kind
Goodness does not more certainly
Whatever sentence will bear
A man begins to die,
It is unfortunate,
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation,
An evil life
Folks never understand
to hold a high hand
over the education of the people.
They know, better than anyone else,
that their power is based almost entirely
on the school.
Hence, they monopolize it more and more.
Francisco Ferrer
has dated a new era in his life
from the reading of a book.
Henry David Thoreau
Walden, "Reading," 1854
or you shall have power,
said God;
you shall not have both.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals, October, 1842
not so much by great pieces of good fortune
that seldom happen,
as by little advantages
that occur every day.
Benjamin Franklin
Autobiography, 1731
war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded
because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes.
And armies, and debts, and taxes
are the known instruments
for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
James Madison
Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Volume IV, page 491, "Political Obseervations," April 20, 1795
gives it a superficial appearance of being right,
and raises at first
a formidable outcry in defense of custom.
Thomas Paine
Common Sense, 1776
Only a free man can possibly be moral.
Unless a good deed is voluntary,
it has no moral significance.
Everett Dean Martin
Liberty, 1930
to own he has been in the wrong,
which is but saying
that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
Alexander Pope
Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1706
war has actually encouraged and built up the development of dictatorships
and has only restored liberty in limited areas at the cost of untold hardship,
of human suffering, of death and destruction
beyond the conception of our fathers.
Robert A. Taft
A Foreign Policy for Americans, 1951
produceth thunder and ruin.
Thomas Fuller
Gnomologia, 1732
but every individual begins afresh.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)
Maxims and Reflections, collection.
we had wisdom.
Stephen Vincent Benet
Litany for Dictatorships, 1935
to find that the good
can be clever.
Marquis de Vauvenargues
Reflexions et maximes, 1746
worships uniformity;
uniformity relieves it from inquiry
into an infinity of details,
which must be attended to
if rules have to be adapted to different men,
instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men
to the same rule.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America, 1835
that praise is sincere:
why should anyone lie
in telling us the truth?
Jean Rostand
De la Vanite, 1925
and how do wars start?
Diplomats tell lies to journalists
and then believe what they read.
Karl Kraus
Aphorisms and More Aphorisms, 1909
men deprived of the company of women
become stupid.
Anton Chekhov
Notebooks, 1892-1904
beyond its power.
Publilius Syrus
Sententiae, circa 1st century, BC
why arms should be denied to any man
who is not a slave,
since they are the only
true badges of liberty.
Andrew Fletcher
A Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias, 1737
to praise discipline,
and another to submit to it.
Miguel de Cervantes
The Dialogue of the Dogs, 1613
of low company.
Edmund Burke
Speech on the Economical Reform, 1780
comes over a man,
nothing can cure it
but the scratching of a pen.
Samuel Lover
Handy Andy, 1842
and, owing to this,
what is called crime is very often not a crime at all,
for it contains no element of violence or harm.
P.D. Ouspensky
A New Model of the Universe, 1931
is to remember what is past.
George Savile
Miscellaneous,
it becomes absolute,
and when it has become absolute it destroys
the arts, the minds, the liberties and the meaning
of the people it governs.
Maxwell Anderson
The Guaranteed Life, 1938
who undergo the fatigue
of judging for themselves
is very small indeed.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Critic, 1799
it appears that the state is only a group of men
with human interests, passions and desires
or worse yet . . .
an obscure clerk hidden in some corner
of a government bureau.
In either case
the assumption of superhuman wisdom and virtue
is proved false.
William Graham Sumner
Commercial Crises, 1879
in natural knowledge
has involved the absolute rejection
of authority.
T.H. Huxley
Lay Sermons, 1870
is always the same:
to limit the individual,
to tame him, to subordinate him, to subjugate him.
Max Stirner
The Ego and His Own, 1845
as changlessness.
Graham Greene
The Heart of the Matter, 1948
of most governments.
John Adams
Thoughts on Government, 1776
is the love
of the drudgery
it involves.
Logan Pearsall Smith
Afterthoughts, 1931
where there is no safety to property or personal rights.
Whenever legislation . . . breaks in upon personal liberty
or compels a surrender of personal privileges,
upon any pretext, plausible or otherwise,
it matters little whether it be
the act of the many or the few,
of the solitary despot
or the assembled multitude;
it is still in its essence
tyranny.
Joseph Story
A Discourse Pronounced Upon the Inauguration of the Author as Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University on the Twenty-Fifth Day of August, 1829, 1829.
by the heat of its defenders
than from the arguments
of its opponents.
William Penn
Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693.
it is essential that the whole body of the people
always possess arms,
and be taught alike,
especially when young,
how to use them. . . ."
Richard Henry Lee
Letters from the Federalist Farmer, 1787
must consider
what hath been.
H.G. Bohn
Handbook of Proverbs, 1855
the whole year round,
there ain't no flies on me,
But jest 'fore Christmas
I'm as good as I kin be!
Eugene Field
"Jest 'fore Christmas," in Love-Songs of Childhood, 1894
means a weakening of the individual,
but every improvement in the individual
means a strengthening of the nation.
Sir Ernest Benn
The State The Enemy, 1953
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to John Adams, June 10, 1815
because we are not free
to stay away from them
until we are sixteen.
Robert Frost
Introduction to Collected Poems, 1939
when yielded by abnormal energy
is the most serious of facts.
Henry Adams
The Education of Henry Adams, 1907
is not what he says,
but what he whispers.
Logan Pearsall Smith
Afterthoughts, 1931
William Godwin
An Enquiry concerning Political Justice, 1793
but to give men opportunity
to work out happiness for themselves.
William Ellery Channing
Christian Examiner, Sept/Oct, 1827
in a society that is still alive
is that the end justifies the means.
Georges Bernanos
Why Freedom, 1955
can be trusted to act humanely
or to act sanely
under the influence of a great fear.
Bertrand Russell
"An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, " in Unpopular Essays, 1950
to their mistakes.
Oscar Wilde
Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892
They promise to build a bridge
even where there is no river.
Nikita Khrushchev
Comments to press, October, 1960
by suffering each other to live
as seems good to themselves,
than by compelling each to live
as seems good to the rest.
John Stuart Mill
On Liberty, 1859
who talks about putting things in order!
Putting things in order always means
getting other people under your control.
Denis Diderot
Supplement to Bougainville's "Voyage," 1796
ought uniformly to be discouraged,
on account of its obvious alliance
with national government.
This is an alliance of a more formidable nature
than the old and much contested alliance
of church and state.
William Godwin
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, 1793
may our country be always successful,
but whether successful or otherwise,
always right.
John Quincy Adams
Letter to John Adams, August 1, 1816
that the laws are made
by men of their own choice,
if the laws be so voluminous
that they cannot be read,
or so incoherent
that they cannot be understood.
James Truslow Adams
The Adams Family, 1930
Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise
and make them miserable.
Aldous Huxley
Ends and Means, 1937
to immortality on earth
is a government bureau.
James F. Byrnes
Speaking Frankly, 1947
the leaders, followers.
Ignazio Silone
The School for Dictatorships, 1939
without formidable opposition.
Benjamin Disraeli
Coningsby, 1844
I was struck by the degree of ability
among the governed
and the lack of it
among the governing.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America, 1835
yet Fools will learn in no other.
Benjamin Franklin
Poor Richard's Almanac, 1743
not so much as I would,
but as much as I dare;
and I dare a little more
as I grow older.
Montaigne
Essays, III
we ought to remember that virtue
is not hereditary.
Thomas Paine
Common Sense, 1776
and immediate parent
of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
is to give power
to demagogues.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Antiquities of Rome, circa 20 B.C.
is that it kills
all love of truth.
Georg Brandes
Letters to Georges Clemenceau, March, 1915
that revolutionaires plead "reasons of state"
as soon as they get into power,
that they employ police methods
and look upon justice
as a weapon
which they many use unfairly
against their enemies.
George Sorel
Reflections on Violence, 1906
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They.
Rudyard Kipling
"We and They," 1926
when his fists are clenched.
George Jean Nathan
"Indignation," in The World in Falseface, 1923
from the trouble of thinking for ourselves,
the only consequences it produces
are those of torpor and imbecility.
William Godwin
An Enquiry concerning Political Justice, 1793
on ballot boxes
than it does on cartridge boxes.
Political action is not moral action.
William Lloyd Garrison
The Liberator, March 13, 1846
that I wish it to be always kept alive.
It will often be exercised when wrong
but better so than not to be exercised at all.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Abigail Adams, February 22, 1787
that rulers are much the same
in all ages, and under all forms of government;
that they are as bad as they dare to be.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Letter, 1798
every humane and gentle virtue.
Edmund Burke
A Vindication of Natural Society, 1756
that truth is so much larger and stranger
and more many-sided than we know of,
that it is very much better at all costs
to hear every one's account of it,
is a theory which has been justified on the whole
by experiment, but which remains
a very daring and even a very surprising theory.
It is really one of the great discoveries
of modern time.
G. K. Chesterton
Robert Browning, 1914
because it is a force that eludes them.
Emile Zola
Le Roman Experimental, 1880
gives to every other
every right that he claims
for himself.
Robert G. Ingersoll
Interview in The Washington Post, November 14, 1880
were of one opinion,
and only one person were of the contrary opinion,
mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person,
than he, if he has the power,
would be justified in silencing mankind.
John Stuart Mill
On Liberty, 1859
is a collection of books.
Thomas Carlyle
"The Hero as Man of Letters," in On Heroes and Hero Worship, 1841
may be justly numbered
the diminution of the love of truth
by the falsehoods which interest dictates
and credulity encourages.
Samuel Johnson
The Idler, November 11, 1758
fear weakens judgment most.
Cardinal de Retz
Memoires, 1718
to the extinction of values.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Mediations on Quixote, 1914
is that we only desire it
with our superiors.
Henry-Francois Becque
Querelles Litteraires, 1890
when one enters a scholar's study or library,
is to look at his books.
One gets a notion very speedily
of his tastes and the range of his pursuits
by a glance round his bookshelves.
Oliver Wendel Holmes
The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, 1872
because those who coerce him do so in the belief
that he will be benefitted.
Herbert Spencer
Social Statics, 1850
It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply
even the best of laws.
He that would make his own liberty secure
must guard even his enemy from oppression:
for if he violates his duty
he establishes a precedent
that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine
Dissertation of First Principles of Government, July 7, 1795
not many converse.
A. Bronson Alcott
Concord Days, 1872
first, a right to life;
second, to liberty;
thirdly, to property;
together with the right to support and defend them
in the best manner they can.
Samuel Adams,
"The Rights of the Colonists," August, 1776
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
"The Road Not Taken, " in Mountain Interval, 1916
I expect to live to be only about a hundred.
Thomas Alva Edison
quoted in Golden Book magazine, April, 1931
(Note: Edison lived to age 84.)
that their opinion of the world
is also a confession of character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Conduct of Life, 1860
go unpunished
than condemn the innocent.
Justinian I
Law Code, 535 A. D.
and Liberty to be saucy,
that they are very seldom
upon good Terms.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections, 1750
that makes time speed quickly.
When every day is a step in the unknown,
as for children,
the days are long with the gathering of experience.
George Gissing
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 1903
the fewer laws, and the less confided power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, 1844
It reeks with sedition.
In every clause it shakes its fist in the face of constituted authority.
Frank I. Cobb
LaFollette's Magazine, January, 1920
to believe that anything lawful
is also legitimate.
This belief is so widespread that many persons
have erroneously held
that things are "just" because law makes them so.
Claude-Frederic Bastiat
The Law, 1850
when well,
the men we promised to become
when we were sick.
Pliny the Younger
Letters, circa 100 A.D.
than to be one.
Plautus
Persa, 540, circa 184 B.C.
in great and generous minds,
the first passion
and the last.
Samuel Johnson
The Rambler, 1751
no one has been able to strike terror into others
and at the same time enjoy
peace of mind himself.
Seneca
Epistles, circa 1st Century
of dreaming that I am persecuted
whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals, 1838
as when he has other horses
to catch up and outpace.
Ovid
The Art of Love, circa 8 A.D.
we must understand what others mean;
to know the value of our thoughts,
we must try their effect on other minds.
William Hazlitt
The Plain Speaker, 1826
they will also, in the end,
burn human beings.
Heinrich Heine
Almansor, 1823
who think they know what your duty is
better than you know it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Self Reliance," Essays: First Series, 1841
whether a country is really free
is the amount of security
enjoyed by minorities.
Lord Acton,
The History of Freedom in Antiquity, 1877
Seneca
Letters to Lucilius, circa, 63-65 A.D.
are not true fools.
Chuang Tse
Works, Fourth century, B.C.
the standing hindrance
to human advancement.
John Stuart Mill
On Liberty, 1859
as they wish to be seen,
in small things they show themselves
as they are.
Chamfort
Maximes et pensees, 1805
everything rustles.
Sophocles
Fragment 58, Acrisius, 5th Century, B.C.
is the function of literature.
George Santayana
Little Essays, 1920
never was the present Age.
Benjamin Franklin
Poor Richard's Almanac, 1750
to buy a bolt for our front door,
for, as I told the storekeeper,
the Governor was coming here.
"Aye," said he, "and the Legislature too."
"Then I will take two bolts," said I.
Henry David Thoreau
Journal, September 8, 1859
John Adams
On his deathbed, July 4, 1826
where is the man who has so much
as to be out of danger?
T.H. Huxley
"On Elemental Instruction in Physiology," 1877
is not the acquisition of facts
but learning how to make facts live.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Speech, Harvard Law School Association, November 5, 1886
But proves at night
a bed of down.
Sir Henry Wotton
"Upon the Sudden Restraint of the Earl of Somerset," in Poems, 1842
is half beaten.
Thomas Fuller
Gnomologia, 1732
he can never tell where
his influence stops.
Henry Adams
The Education of Henry Adams, 1907
everybody steals.
Edgar Watson Howe
Country Town Sayings, 1911
The talent is the call.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays: First Series, 1841
is less valued.
Miguel de Cervantes
Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1605-1615
than bullied out of vice.
Robert Smith SurteesD
The Analysis of the Hunting Field, 1846
for the marvellous.
Tacitus
Agricola, circa 98 A.D.
men in general
than one man in particular.
La Rochefoucauld
Maxims, 1665
in time of war.
Cicero
Pro Milone, 52 B.C.
of what we are
on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
Mark Twain
Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1984
than do it.
Thomas Fuller
Gnomologia, 1732
as the indignant do.
Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
for ages,
has been to rescue Liberty
from the grasp of executive power.
Daniel Webster
Speech in U.S. Senate, May 27, 1834
never won a battle.
William McKinley
Speech, January 27, 1898
than to be correct.
Benjamin Disraeli
Speech, January 24, 1860
to be ignorant and free,
in a state of civilization,
it expects what never was
and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Col. Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816
notice that when
a politician
does get an idea
he usually
gets it all wrong.
Don Marquis
Archy's Life of Mehitabel, 1933
than those who are forced to be nice
out of interest.
Marquis de Vauvenargues
Reflexions et maximes, 1746
is to be readable.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society and Solitude, 1870
and you destroy your own.
John Jay Chapman
Letter, 1897
until the idea succeeds.
Mark Twain
Following the Equator, 1897
is never without a wave.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Richard Rush, October 20, 1820
of friends . . .
and the most patient of teachers.
Charles W. Eliot
The Happy Life, 1896
is perpetually on the wrong side of.
Odgen Nash
The Private Dining Room, 1953
is one of our great out-sentries;
if we remove it, if we hoodwink it,
if we throw it in fetters,
the enemy may surprise us.
Thomas Erskine
Defense of Thomas Paine, December 20, 1792
are prescribed by the endurance
of those whom they suppress.
Frederick Douglass
Letter to Gerrit Smith, March 30, 1849
to read, think, speak and write.
John Adams
Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law, 1765
for the mind.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Tusculanes Disputationes 47-44 B.C.
The worst is that which persecutes the mind.
John Dryden
The Hind and the Panther 1687
make men happy
than happiness
makes them good.
Walter Savage Landor
Imaginary Conversations, 1824
to be read twice,
we may be sure
was thought twice.
Henry David Thoreau
Journal, 1842
that quits his desires.
George Herbert
Outlandish Proverbs, 1640.
considering that enthusiasm moves the world,
that so few enthusiasts
can be trusted
to speak the truth.
Arthur James Balfour
Letter to Mrs. Drew, May 19, 1891
it is that no official,
high or petty,
can prescribe what shall be orthodox
in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion
or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
If there are any circumstances which permit an exception,
they do not now occur to us.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943).
is a kind of death.
Ovid
Epistulae ex Ponto, III, circa 5 A.D.