All war is based on deception.
 — Sun Tzu, The Art of War [circa 500 B.C]

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of
the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary
prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the
refuge of political and economic opportunists." - Ernest Hemmingway

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is 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, debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few." -- James Madison, 1795"

"A governmental view:  If it moves, tax it.  If it keeps moving, regulate it.  If it stops moving, subsidize it."  -- Ronald Reagan

"Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in a rich countries to rich people in poor countries."      - Doug Casey

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money,
that will herald the end of the republic."   -- Benjamin Franklin

"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."
 -- Alexis de Tocqueville

"When plunder is organized by law for profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow  to enter - by peaceful or revolutionary means - into the making of laws."  -- Frederick Bastiat, The Law, 1850

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods. -- H.L. Mencken

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."  George Bernard Shaw

"No law can give power to private persons;
every law transfers power from private persons
to government." -- Isabel Paterson

"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it." -- H. L. Menchen

"The natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; second to liberty; third to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can." -- Samuel Adams, 1772

"For me, it has been a strange epiphany to realize that real forest stewardship is a private matter where individuals, not governments, serve the public good. No government can bond with the land. My international experiences have taught me that the best made forest laws are worthless without the hope of another generation of individuals being allowed to bond with the land. It seems contradictory, but there is no public good when individual ownership is thwarted."  -- Robin Rose, Associate Professor, Department of Forest Science, Oregon State University, 2001

"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which 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, 1801

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should
have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence
from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own
government. --George Washington

"Information is the currency of democracy." --  Thomas Jefferson

"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." --  Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal" 
 -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation, will become the philosophy of government in the next." 
-- Abraham Lincoln

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect." -- Mark Twain

Without a society in which life and property are to some extent secure, existence can continue only at the lowest levels -- you cannot have a good life for those you love, nor can you devote you energies to activity on the higher level. - Alfred N. Whitehead

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." --Thomas Jefferson

"That no government, so called, can reasonably be trusted, or reasonably be supposed to have honest purposes in view, any longer than it depends wholly upon voluntary support." --Lysander Spooner (1808-1887)

"In the rush to cure all the ills to which humans are heir, liberty is too often an innocent bystander -- and an accidental casualty." --Barry Goldwater, 1964

"Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist." --Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

"It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." --Samuel Adams

"Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational."
-- Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged [1957]

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effect of folly is to fill the world with fools."  - Herbert Spencer

"As I understand it, laws, commands, rules, and edicts are for those
who have not the light which makes plain the pathway."
-- Anne Hutchinson, 1591-1643

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -- Lord Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent ... the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." --Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead vs. United States, United States supreme Court, 1928

"The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave."  -Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged
"These are the two fundamental laws taught by all religions.
    (1) Do all you have agreed to do. This is the basis of contract law. 
    (2) Do not encroach on other persons or their property. This is the basis of tort law and some criminal law.  These laws are essential for an advanced society. The first gives rise to trade and specialization of labor. The second creates peace, security and goodwill."  --  Richard J. Maybury, Author/ Investment advisor

"...all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." -- DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 1776

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to
go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."   -- Charles
Austin Beard, historian

"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country
is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who
likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus
more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it
debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime;
he is a good citizen driven to despair."   -- H.L. Mencken

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.
-- Thomas Jefferson  Notes on the State of Virginia

"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,
The Nature of Government

"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable." --H. L. Mencken

"The precepts of the law are these: to live honorably, to injure no other man, to render every man his due." -- The Institutes of Justinian [533 A.D.]

"No one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction.  Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle.  Not can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result.  Where he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us."  -- Ludwig von Mises

"Liberty itself is the highest political end."  -- Lord Acton

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty,
the tranquility of servitude greater than
the animating contest for freedom,
go home from us in peace.
We seek not your counsel, nor your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you.
May your chains set lightly upon you,
and may posterity forget
that ye were our countrymen."
 -- Samuel Adams