It is, then, the first business of the enslaver of men to blunt, deaden, and destroy the central principle of human responsibility.

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

He alone is great and happy who requires neither to command nor to obey in order to secure his being of some importance in the world.

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions.... Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

Individualism has a bad name today, and the term has come to be connected with egotism and selfishness. But the individualism of which we speak...are the respect for the individual man qua man, that is, the recognition of his own views and tastes as supreme in his own sphere, however narrowly that may be circumscribed, and the belief that it is desirable that men should develop their own individual gifts and bents.

The virtues which are less esteemed and practiced now – independence, self-reliance, and the willingness to bear risks, the readiness to back one’s conviction against a majority, and the willingness to voluntary cooperation with one’s neighbors – are essentially those on which the working of an individualist society rests. Collectivism has nothing to put in their place, and… has left a void filled by nothing but the demand for obedience and the compulsion of the individual to do what is collectively decided to be good.

[G]ive me liberty or give me death!

There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.

We both consider the people as our children, and love them with parental affection. But you love them as infants whom you are afraid to trust without nurses; and I as adults whom I freely leave to self-government.

Men by their constitution are naturally divided into two parties. I. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers form them into the hands of the higher classes. Secondly those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist...

[S]elf-reliance and self-respect - the real afflatus of liberty.

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

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

[I]n things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

No system of the social division of labor can do without a method that makes individuals responsible for their contribution to the joint productive effort. If this responsibility is not brought about by the price structure of the market and the inequality of wealth and income it begets, it must be enforced by the methods of direct compulsion as practiced by the police.

[G]overnment spending crowds out private philanthropy.

The patriots of France have discovered in good time, that rank and dignity in society must take a new ground. The old one has fallen through. It must now take the substantial ground of character.

For, are we not, as a nation, on the same reckless course that has brought about the fall of one civilization after another? Self-responsibility–amidst an abundance of know-how and a paucity of wisdom, understanding, conscience, ethics, insight–has given way to government responsibility for our security, welfare, and prosperity, reminiscent of the Roman Empire’s later days.

Liberty means responsibility; that is why most men dread it.

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.