Libertarian Quotes

If tyranny and oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

– James Madison
 

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

– James Madison
 

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

– John Adams
 

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

- John Quincy Adams
 

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.

– Thomas Jefferson
 

The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force. 

– Thomas Jefferson
 

It would take 500,000 men to do it, and even then it could not be done. 

- General Jacques Leclerc
(Commander of French forces sent to reconquer Vietnam in 1946.
Quoted by Barbara Tuchman in The March of Folly, p. 244.)
 

If soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army.

- Frederick the Great

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

- George Washington

Gun Control & the Militia

That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the
symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.

- George Orwell
 

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

- Thomas Jefferson, 1776
 

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed;
as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe.

- Noah Webster, 1787
 

The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.

- Samuel Adams, 1788
 

What is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.

- George Mason, 1788
 

To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.

- George Mason, 1788
 

The militia is our ultimate safety. We can have no security without it. The great object is that every man be armed.

- Patrick Henry

Questioning the President

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

- Theodore Roosevelt, in the Kansas City Star, 149 May 7, 1918

The Nature of Government

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

- George Washington
 

Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves.

- William Pitt, 1783 
 

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.

- Kee Hinckley
 

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he 
disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

- Thomas Jefferson
 

Communism is not love. It is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.

- Mao Tse-tung
 

The fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts individuals only insofar as their interests coincide with those of the State. Fascism is opposed to classical liberalism that denies the State in the name of the individual. Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual. The maxim that society exists only for the well-being and freedom of the individuals composing it does not seem to conform with nature's plans. If classical liberalism spells individualism, then fascism spells government.

- Benito Mussolini, Fascism: Doctrine & Institutions, 1935

Other

If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
 

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

- Napolean Bonaparte
 

Do Not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at the close of day,
Rage, Rage, against the dying of the light.

- Dylan Thomas