quotes

When a bureaucrat doesn't take a bribe, you know you're in real trouble.

Keep a government poor and weak and it's your servant; let it get rich and powerful and it's your master.

History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion--i.e., none to speak of.

He hated the idea of practicing law, instead of doing something useful, of making his profession the manipulation of rules passed by a bunch of legislators during brief breaks between being bribed and fucking their secretaries.

"No.

"I refuse. So long as consciousness remains, so long as cognizance holds sway, so long as I can function as a thinking being, I repudiate the notion of capitulation.

"However fruitless the effort may appear, we will continue to search for possibilities, my old friend. We will do this not because we must, or because we see avenues that may lead to success, but because it is what we do. Evolution has given us the ability to reason. If we choose to abjure it, we surrender the one thing that makes us worthy of continuance."

Yet all knowledge conceals within it danger to a greater or lesser degree. If it did not, governments would not be so anxious to regulate it.

The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.

Grown men do not need leaders.

Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

It is more beneficial that many guilty persons should escape unpunished than one innocent person should suffer, because it is of more importance that innocence should be protected than it is that guilt should be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world that all of them cannot be punished, and many times they happen in such a manner that it is not of much consequence to the public whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, the subject will exclaim, "it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security." And if such a sentiment as this should take place in the mind of a subject there would be an end to all security whatsoever.

Libertarian means individualism, property rights, free markets, and the right of sovereign human beings to do as they choose short of initiating force, intimidation, or fraud against others.

The ultimate defense of our liberties is in three boxes:

* the ballot box
* the jury box
* the ammo box.

When the first two failed them, the Founders had to reluctantly turn to the third. I hope we never have to resort to it again. But it is one of the reasons for the 2nd Amendment.

The nobler the language, the more nefarious the purpose of any legal instrument.