Jim Burns — A Libertarian for President
Quotes of Interest
"Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it." —Alfred North Whitehead
Never doubt, that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." —Margaret Mead
"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." —Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)
"Never in the history of the world has there been a situation so bad that the government can't make it worse." —Unknown
"The right to vote is a *consequence*, not a primary cause, of a free social system — and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny." —Ayn Rand, US (Russian-born) novelist (1905 - 1982)
"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns — or dollars. Take your choice—there is no other." —Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
"A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides." —Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. Part2, III, 1957
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." —Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, 1943
"Morality is judgment to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, and integrity to stand by it at any price." —Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
"If men want to oppose war, it is "statism" that they must oppose." —Ayn Rand, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal p. 42
"The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave." —Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
"The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence." —Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, 1964
"Any alleged "right" of one man which necessitates the violation of rights of another is not, and cannot be, a right." —Ayn Rand, 1964
"If capitalism had never existed, any honest humanitarian should have been struggling to invent it. But when you see men struggling to evade its existence, to misrepresent its nature, and to destroy its last remnants - you maybe sure that whatever their motives, love of man is not one of them." —Ayn Rand
"Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force?" —Ayn Rand
"Guard with jealous attention to the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined." —Patrick Henry (1736 - 1799)
"Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" —Patrick Henry
"It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government." —Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809)
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated." —Thomas Paine
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression: for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself." —Thomas Paine
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." —Thomas Jefferson (1743 — July 4, 1826)
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." —Thomas Jefferson
"Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%." —Thomas Jefferson
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." —Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82
"To place before mankind the common sense of the subject in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent." —Thomas Jefferson, the reason given by Mr. Jefferson for writing The Declaration of Independence.
..."We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and such organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security..." —Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others." —Thomas Jefferson
"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." —Thomas Jefferson
"That government that governs least governs best." —Thomas Jefferson
"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth." —George Washington (1732 — 1799)
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence: It is force, and like fire, makes a dangerous servant and fearful master." —George Washington
"Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!" —George Washington
"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments." —George Washington
"God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: "This is my country." —Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790), letter to David Hartley, December 4, 1789
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" —Benjamin Franklin, 1759
"A penny saved is a penny earned." —Benjamin Franklin
"Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administered; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other." —Benjamin Franklin, his Final Speech at the Constitutional Convention.
"We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall hang separately." —Benjamin Franklin
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. Sell not liberty to purchase power." —Benjamin Franklin
"The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself." —Benjamin Franklin
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." —Benjamin Franklin
"We are men, no more, no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed." —Benjamin Franklin
"Jefferson still survives." —John Adams (1735 — July 4, 1826), last words after a lifetime competing with Thomas Jefferson who, unknown to Adams, died that same day.
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, 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 Adams
"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." —John Adams, Journal, 1772
"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace that two are called a law firm and that three or more become a congress" —John Adams
"Commitment, there are only two creatures of value on the face of this earth, those with a commitment and those who acquire the commitment of others." —John Adams
"Great necessities call forth great leaders. Great necessities call out great virtues." —Abigail Adams (1744 — 1818)
"We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them." —Abigail Adams
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." —Edmund Burke, (1729 — 1797)
"No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." —Edmund Burke
"Our patience will achieve more than our force." —Edmund Burke
"Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." —Edmund Burke, Speech to the electors of Bristol, 3 Nov. 1774
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." —Edmund Burke
"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe." —Edmund Burke
"The art of constructing governments has usually been to organize the State in such a manner, as that this operation could be carried on to the best advantage for the administrators; and ...the art of administering those governments has been so to vary the means of seizing upon private property, as to bring the greatest possible quantity into the public coffers, without exciting insurrections... Those governments which are called despotic, deal more in open plunder; those that call themselves free, and act under the cloak of what they teach the people to reverence as a constitution, are driven to the arts of stealing. These have succeeded better by theft than the others have by plunder; and this is the principal difference by which they can be distinguished... Under those constitutional governments the people are more industrious, and create property faster; because they are not sensible in what manner, and in what quantities, it is taken from them...The administrators, in this case, act by a compound operation; one is to induce the people to work, and the other to take from them their earnings..." —Joel Barlow ("Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe - Resulting from the Necessity and Propriety of a General Revolution in the Principle of Government," 1792 -1795)
Under the system of natural liberty ... "every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own way and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man or order of men." —Adam Smith
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their self-love" —Adam Smith
"Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die!" —Robert Burns (1759 — 1796)
"The best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry," —Robert Burns, To a Mouse (Poem, November, 1785)
"The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities." —Lord Acton
"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end." —Lord Acton, Lecture, February 26, 1877
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." —Lord Acton, Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1881
"It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason. —Lord Acton
"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." —Frederick Bastiat, (1801 Bayonne, France — 1850) "Government" published in 1848
"When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard all of these. They are defensive; they defend equally the rights of all." —Frederic Bastiat, "The Law"
"You say: There are persons who have no money, and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from a source outside the society. Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in. If every person draws from the treasury the amount that he has put in it, it is true that the law then plunders nobody. But this procedure does nothing for the persons who have no money. It does not promote equality of income. The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder." —Frederic Bastiat, "The Law"
"The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty." —Frederic Bastiat, "The Law"
"Where goods do not pass frontiers, armies will." —Frederic Bastiat
"Over one's mind and over one's body the individual is sovereign." —John Stuart Mill (1806 — 1873), On Liberty
"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers 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
"The authority to judge what are the powers of government, and what the liberties of the people, must necessarily be vested in one or the other of the parties themselves — the government, or the people; because there is no third party to whom it can be entrusted. If the authority be vested in the government, the government is absolute, and the people have no liberties except such as the government sees fit to indulge them with. If, on the other hand, that authority be vested in the people, then the people have all liberties (as against the government,) except such as substantially the whole people (through a jury) choose to disclaim; and the government can exercise no power except such as substantially the whole people (through a jury) consent that it may exercise." —Lysander Spooner, (1808 — 1887) Trial by Jury
"Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another. Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their person or property." —Lysander Spooner, (Vices Are Not Crimes, 1875)
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." —Daniel Webster
"God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it." —Daniel Webster
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." —Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
"Jefferson said that government that governs least governs best, I say that government governs best which governs not at all." —Henry David Thoreau
"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison." —Henry David Thoreau
"There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." —Henry David Thoreau
"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." —Herbert Spencer (1820 — 1903)
"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." —Fyodor Dostoevsky,(1821 — 1881)
"There is nothing easier than lopping off heads and nothing harder than developing ideas." —Fyodor Dostoevsky
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." —Carl Schurz (1829 - 1906)
"Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny." —Carl Schurz
"If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other." —Carl Schurz
"He who endeavors to control the mind by force is a tyrant, and he who submits is a slave." —Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 - 1899)
"Every man who expresses an honest thought is a soldier in the army of intellectual liberty." —Robert Green Ingersoll
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." —Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress." —Mark Twain
"No mans life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session" —Mark Twain
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself." —Mark Twain
"In proportion as you give the state power to do things for you, you give it power to do things to you." —Albert Jay Nock
"It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious." —Alfred North Whitehead (1861 — 1947)
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." —H. L. Mencken, (1880 - 1956)
"The state — or to make the matter more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods." —H. L. Mencken, 1936
"I believe any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave." —H.L. Mencken
"If you attempt to prevent men from folly, you fill the world with fools." —H.L. Mencken
A definition of Puritanism: "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." —H.L. Mencken, (A Book of Burlesques, 1916)
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it." —H.L. Mencken, (Minority Report, 1956)
"When man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom he destroys." —George Orwell (1903 - 1950)
"Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." —George Orwell
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." —George Orwell
"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for." —Will Rogers
"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." —Will Rogers, quoted in Saturday Review, Aug. 25, 1962
"...The only men on earth worth their time on earth are the men who would fight for other men... We have struggled through from darkness but man moves forward with each day and each hour to a better freer life. That desire to go forward, that willingness to fight for it, cannot be put in a man but when it is there..." —Betty Davis ("Watch on the Rhine" by Lillian Hellman (1905 - 1984)
"A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police." —Ludwig von Mises, (Liberalism, 1927)
"He who wants to reform his countrymen must take recourse to persuasion. This alone is the democratic way of bringing about changes. If a man fails in his endeavors to convince other people of the soundness of his ideas, he should not ask for a law, that is, for compulsion and coercion by the police." —Ludwig von Mises, (Bureaucracy, 1945)
"It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom." —Ludwig Von Mises
"When fascism comes, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross" —Sinclair Lewis
"You will know you have spoken the truth when you are angrily denounced; and you will know you have spoken both truly and well when you are visited by the police." —J B R Yant
"You live and learn. Or you don't live long." —Robert Heinlein (1907 — 1988) Excerpt from the notebooks of Lazarus Long, from (Time Enough for Love)
"What are the facts? Again and again and again - what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell", avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" - what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!" —Robert Heinlein (Time Enough for Love)
"Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win." —Robert A. Heinlein, (Time Enough for Love)
"Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed." —Robert A. Heinlein, (Time Enough for Love)
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." —Robert A. Heinlein, (Time Enough for Love)
"Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at a tax collector and miss." —Robert A. Heinlein, (Time Enough for Love)
"Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig." —Robert A. Heinlein (Time Enough for Love)
"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." —Robert A. Heinlein
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." —Barry Goldwater (1909 - 1998)
"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to cancel old ones... I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is needed before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And, if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents interest, I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can." —Barry Goldwater
"Politics [is] the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order." —Barry Goldwater
"Republic — I like the sound of the word. It means that people can live free, talk free, come or go, buy or sell, drunk or sober however they choose." —John Wayne as David Crockett ("The Alamo")
"We are going to need more men." —Billy Bob Thornton as David Crockett (the newer "The Alamo")
"The fundamental conflicts in human life are not between competing ideas one of which is true and the other false, but rather, between those that hold power and use it to oppress others, and those who are oppressed by power and seek to free themselves of it." —Thomas Szasz
"The individual can never escape the moral burden of his existence. He must choose between obedience to authority and responsibility to himself. Moral decisions are often hard and painful to make. The temptation to delegate this burden to others is therefore ever-present. Yet, as all history teaches us, those who would take from man his moral burdens be they priests or warlords, politicians or psychiatrists must also take from him his liberty and hence his very humanity." —Thomas Szasz
"Life as it is. I have lived for over forty years and I have seen life as it is: pain, misery, cruelty beyond belief. I have heard all the voices of Gods noblest creature: The moans from bundles of filth in the street. I've been a soldier and a slave. I've seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I've held them at the last moment: these were men who saw life as it is. But, they die despairing: no glory, no brave last words; only in their eyes, filled with confusion - questioning why. I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps, to be too practical is madness: to surrender dreams this may be madness, to seek treasure where there is only trash: too much sanity may be madness. But, maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be." —Man of La Mancha, Screenplay by Dale Wasserman: Peter O'Toole as Miguel Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes (1547 - 1616) Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1615
"Liberty, as well as honor, man ought to preserve at the hazard of his life, for without it life is insupportable." —Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: Spanish writer & dramatist, author of Don Quixote
"Envy the country that has heroes. I say, pity the country that needs them." —Reign of Fire, Screenplay by Gregg Chabot, Kevin Peterka, and Matt Greenberg: Spoken by Matthew McConaughey
"Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always even if it leads to your death. Safe-guard the helpless and do no wrong." —Kingdom of Heaven, Knights Oath, Screenplay by William Monahan
"...I remember once hearing a speech ... and the man who gave the speech talk about the struggle to control civilization and how we are always fighting the same fight. And, he used the dark ages as an example. And he talked about how on the one side you had the pragmatic king who was greedy and power hungry and basically took advantage of people whenever he could. And, on the other side the idealist church forcing everyone to follow the same rules, believe the same things and all that. Neither the king nor the church was completely right or wrong. Both sides ended up doing terrible things to get what they wanted: really terrible things. But, the point of the story was this: that this struggle from the dark ages has been going on forever. That the Church and the King might take on different forms and philosophies but that they would always fight each other. Pragmatist and Idealist: And most times you are better off staying on the side lines and let them duke it out. But, every once in a while, one side or the other decides it might be better just to blow up the whole world just to get its own way. And when that happens, you can't stand on the side lines anymore. You have to pick a team..." —The Closer: Serving the King, part 2, Written by James Duff & Mike Berchem: Spoken by Kyra Sedgwich
"and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" —John VII — XXXII
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." the serenity prayer —Alcoholics Anonymous
"Nothing endures but change." —Heraclitus (540 BC - 480 BC)
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." —Heraclitus, On the Universe
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." —Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
"To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage." —Confucius
"Tsze-Kung asked, saying, 'Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?" The Master said, "Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." —Confucius
"As long as a hundred of us remain alive we will never be subject to tyrannical dominion because it is not for glory or riches or honours that we fight, but for freedom alone which no worthy man loses except with his life." —The Declaration of Arbroath 1320
"This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." —William Shakespeare (1564 — 1616)
"Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. — William Pitt
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." —Albert Einstein US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)
"Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government." —Lenny Bruce (1923 - 1966)
"Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men." —Milton Friedman (1912 — 2006)
"A society that puts equality... ahead of freedom will end up with neither." —Milton Friedman: US Prof. Emeritus-Economics, Univ of Chicago, Nobel prize, Hoover Sr Res Fellow Stanford
"In a bureaucratic system, useless work drives out useful work." —Milton Friedman
"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." —Milton Friedman
"Avoid problems, and you'll never be the one who overcame them." —Richard Bach (1936 - )
"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours." —Richard Bach
"To bring anything into your life, imagine that it's already there." —Richard Bach
"Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose." —Richard Bach
"It is not the challenge that we face that determine who we are and what we are becoming but the way we meet the challenge." —Richard Bach
"What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long." —Thomas Sowell
"Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled." —Michael Crichton, Caltech Michelin Lecture, January 17, 2003 (1942 - )
"Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had." —Michael Crichton
"There are many reasons to shift away from fossil fuels, and we will do so in the next century without legislation, financial incentives, carbon-conservation programs, or the interminable yammering of fearmongers. So far as I know, nobody had to ban horse transport in the early twentieth century." —Michael Crichton, State of Fear
"When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power." —Alston Chase
"The first myth of management is that it exists." —Heller's Law
"The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop." —P. J. O'Rourke (1947 - )
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." —P.J. O'Rourke
"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." —P. J. O'Rourke
"Everything the government touches turns to crap."—Ringo Starr
| Nobelist Milton Friedman feels freedom |
| Charlie Rose interview, Dec. 27, 2005 |
| Legendary historian Zinn: Why governments must lie |
| Democracy NOW!, Nov. 24, 2006 |
| Noam Chomsky: Never proud of government |
| Manufacturing Consent |
©2008 Jim Burns for President
PO Box 1139 · Beatty, NV 89003
(541) 261-4163