Famous Political Quotes

America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.
By Claire Wolfe on America

Anyone who is not at least a little bit cynical is either one of the bad guys or totally ignorant and/or stupid, which is just as bad.
By Kenneth Quinnell on Being Cynical

What pays under capitalism is satisfying the common man, the customer. The more people you satisfy, the better for you.
By Ludwig von Mises on Capitalism

Capitalism harnesses human self-interest; socialism exhausts itself trying to kill it.
By Linda Bowles on Capitalism

All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship. There is the whole case against censorship in a nutshell.
By George Bernard Shaw on Censorship

The truth is that economic competition is the very opposite of competition in the animal kingdom. It is not a competition in the grabbing off of scarce nature given supplies, as it is in the animal kingdom. Rather, it is a competition in the positive creation of new and additional wealth.
By George Reisman on Competition

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
By Mark Twain on Congress

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
By John Stuart Mill on Conservatives

The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
By Robert A. Heinlein on Control

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same in any country.
By Hermann Goering on Control

What good fortune for those in power, that people don't think!
By Adolf Hitler on Critical Thinking

Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the National Debt.
By Herbert Hoover on Debt

Democracy: Where any two idiots outvote a genius.
By Unknown on Democracy

Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.
By Robert Byrne on Democracy

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.
By George W. Bush on Dictatorship

Yes, we males are a sorry lot, sinners all, and neck deep in iniquity. The shame of it bores into my soul. Now you go stand in the middle of Dupont Circle at high noon, with a pair of seven-by-fifty binoculars, and look real carefully all around, and point to one thing, with a moving part, that was invented by a radical feminist.
By Fred Reed on Feminism

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
By Milton Friedman on Free Markets

Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men.
By Milton Friedman on Freedom

The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.
By Thomas Jefferson on Freedom

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
By Voltaire on Freedom of Speech

If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
By George Washington on Freedom of Speech

It is a mistake to assume that government must necessarily last forever. The institution marks a certain stage of civilization — is natural to a particular phase of human development. It is not essential, but incidental. As amongst the Bushmen we find a state antecedent to government, so may there be one in which it shall have become extinct.
By Herbert Spencer on Government

That government is best which governs least.
By Henry David Thoreau on Government

The most terrifying words in the English langauge are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
By Ronald Reagan on Government

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
By Thomas Jefferson on Guns

No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
By Thomas Jefferson on Guns

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
By Benjamin Franklin on Guns

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
By Ayn Rand on Happiness

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach go into higher education where they attempt to indoctrinate the young with their political views.
By Michael Lorenzen on Higher Education

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
By William H. Borah on History

Government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
By Ludwig von Mises on Laws

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it
By Malcolm X on Patriotism

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
By Robert Louis Stevenson on Politicians

The fraudulence of the left’s concern about poverty is exposed by their utter lack of interest in ways of increasing the nation’s wealth. Wealth is the only thing that can cure poverty. The reason there is less poverty today is not because the poor got a bigger slice of the pie but because the whole pie got a lot bigger — no thanks to the left.
By Thomas Sowell on Poverty

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
By James Madison on Power

Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon.
By Winston Churchill on Private Enterprise

Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.
By John Locke on Property

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
By Adam Smith on Self Interest

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.
By Winston Churchill on Socialism

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.
By Norman Mailer on Socialism

I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
By J.R.R. Tolkien on Swords

In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give it to the other.
By Voltaire on Taxation

Politicians never accuse you of greed for wanting to take other people’s money — only for wanting to keep your own money.
By Joseph Sobran on Taxation

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
By George Bernard Shaw on Taxation

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
By C.S. Lewis on Tyranny

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
By Benjamin Franklin on Voting

Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.
By Frank Dane on Voting

We'd all like to vote for the best man but he's never a candidate.
By Kin Hubbard on Voting

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.
By Abraham Lincoln on Wealth

We can have a democratic society or we can have great concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.
By Louis Brandeis on Wealth