Let religious morality then, if it can, touch the heart of the Tartuffes, the Caesars, the conquerors of Algeria, the sinecurists, the monopolists, etc. The mission of political economy is to enlighten their dupes. Of these two processes, which is the more efficient aid to social progress? I believe it is the second. I believe humanity cannot escape the necessity of first learning a defensive morality. I have read, observed, and made diligent inquiry, and have been unable to find any abuse, practiced to any considerable extent, that has perished by voluntary renunciation on the part of those who profited by it. On the contrary, I have seen many that have yielded to the manly resistence of those who suffered by them. To describe the consequences of abuses, is the most efficient way of destroying the abuses themselves.

[T]he governed are...governed at the caprice and mercy of their rules, until the people see that it is better to leave the greatest possible number of services in the category of those which the parties interested exchange after a fair discussion of the price.

It is harder, Montesquieu has written, to release a nation from servitude than to enslave a free nation. This truth is proven by the annals of all times, which reveal that most free nations have been put under the yoke, but very few enslaved nations have recovered their liberty.

No amount of politicking and policy-wonkery can save us from a government left unconstrained by a people who are indifferent toward their liberties.

In all history the only bright rays cutting the gloom of oppression have come from men who would rather get hurt than give in.

The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.

There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust.

In the 1960's, [Milton] Friedman recommended tax cuts and budget deficits as the best way to reduce the role of government, or at least to prevent its increase. In his memoirs, he says he would prefer total federal spending of $1 trillion and a deficit of $500 billion to total federal spending of $2 trillion and a balanced federal budget. The target of Friedman’s opposition is government spending, not whether the federal government runs a budget deficit. He does not think the latter of much consequence, but believe the former is pernicious.

EBENSTEIN, ALAN, His Mark on the World, Liberty (August 2005)

The battle for freedom must be won over and over again.

FRIEDMAN, MILTON, Introduction to Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of The Road to Serfdom by F.A. HAYEK

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom.

With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but with tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will be certainly be lost.

[T]he era of resisting big government is never over.

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Our acts of liberty are our strongest propaganda.

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.

There is no such thing as an achieved liberty; like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out.

If you strike the shackles off a person who fears freedom, he or she will scramble to find new shackles, the familiar old comfort of an iron collar being so much more reassuring than the burden of responsibility for one's own fate. This is why wars fought with bullets so often do nothing more than replace one tyrant with another, at a great cost of bloodshed. This is why winning the war of ideas must be the highest priority; both to try to avoid a war of bullets, and to make sure that if it ever comes to force, that blood be not spilled in vain.

JAMES, LOUIS, Your Choice: War of Ideas, or War of Bullets

Considering the general tendency to multiply offices and dependencies, and to increase expense to the ultimate term of burden which the citizen can bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which presents itself for taking off the surcharge.

The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and claws after he shall have entered.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions 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.

[F]reedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Exterminate the sage [the ruler] and discard the wisdom [of rule], and the people will benefit a hundredfold.

[W]e learn what those who love liberty ought to prize, by observing what those who hate freedom suppress or war against.

LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter XXIII

Liberty may be planted where despotism has reigned, but it can be done only by much undoing, and breaking down - by a great deal of rough ploughing. You cannot prepare for liberty by centralized despotism, any more than you can prepare for light by darkness and destroying the means of light or vision.

LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter XXVII

[T]he guarantee of liberty cannot be sought for in mere opposition to government, or in a mere negation of power, it is only necessary to reflect that in such a state of things one of three things must necessarily happen. Either the people are united, and succeed in enfeebling or destroying the government,-in which case, again, the new government has the whole sweeping power...thus substituting absolutism for absolutism; or the people are not united, do not succeed, and leave the government more powerful and despotic than before; or a state of things is brought about in which all power is destroyed...a state of political disintegration, leading necessarily to general ruin, and preparing the way for a new, generally a foreign, power.

LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter XXXI

In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.

This is a clash of ideals, a profound and terrible clash of ideals. It is a fight between right and wrong. Relativism has no place in this confrontation. We're not defending an idea that every human being should eat corn flakes, play baseball or watch MTV. We're not insisting that all societies be governed by a bicameral legislature and a term-limited chief executive. We are insisting that all people have a right to be free, and that right is not subject to the whims and interests and authority of another person, government or culture. Relativism, in this contest, is most certainly not a sign of our humility or ecumenism; it is a mask for arrogance and selfishness. It is, and I mean this sincerely and with all humility, not worthy of us. We are a better people than that.

MCCAIN, JOHN, Senator, Commencement Address at New School, New York, May 22, 2006

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Those who expect to reap the benefits of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

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 to himself.

PAINE, THOMAS, Dissertation on First Principles of Government

[I]n a constitutional republic the people are never asked to sacrifice their liberties to make the job of government officials a little bit easier.

Unjust laws have to be fought ideologically; they cannot be fought or corrected by means of mere disobedience and futile martyrdom.

Liberty is not a cruise ship full of pampered passengers. Liberty is a man-of-war, and we are all crew.

ROYCE, KENNETH W., Boston's Gun Bible

[I]t is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones, if it were possible to be secure of the one without possessing the other.

[I]n democracies the members of the legal profession, and the magistrates, constitute the only aristocratic body which can check the irregularities of the people. This aristocracy is invested with no physical power; but it exercises its conservative influence upon the minds of men; and the most abundant source of its authority is the institution of the civil jury.

TOCQUEVILLE, ALEXIS DE, Democracy in America, Chapter XVI

God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.

The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation.