[On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. –Edward Gibbon
“Government is good at only one thing. It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, ‘See if it weren’t for the government, you couldn’t walk.’” – Harry Browne
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” – Cornelius Tacitus (55-117 A.D.)
“Written laws are like spiders’ webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful easily break through them.” – The Scythian Philosopher, Anacharsis (6th century BC)
“Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” — Otto von Bismarck, 1st Chancellor of the German Empire (1815-1898)
“One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation” -Thomas Bracket Reed
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. – John Adams (1814)
If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. – Jacob Hornberger (1995)
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. – George Washington
No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. – Mark Twain (1866)
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. – Robert Heinlein
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)
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. – Thomas Jefferson
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. – H.L. Mencken
The power to tax is the power to destroy. – John Marshall
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny 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. – C. S. Lewis
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. – Edward R. Murrow
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. – Herbert Hoover
