Twain was speaking against the government's attempt to regulate Osteopahy...the osteopaths/chiropractors had hoped he was a believer, but it turned out he thought bone-adjustment was a sham, yet defending people being free to choose for themselves.

Now what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffer, not the state.

– Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), address to the New York General Assembly (1901)

We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail

One important reason we have a Defense Department is that when we give it money, it spends it, which creates jobs, whereas if we left the money in the hands of civilians, we don`t know what they`d do with it.

Probably put it in open trenches and set it on fire.

— Dave Barry, The Ultimate Deterrent against Political Fallout

"They will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights"

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

~ James Madison, Property (1792)

Censorship, like all other oppression, is always imposed with the excuse that its victims are obviously wrong, bad, unhealthy, or foolish

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.

— Noam Chomsky, Guardian (UK), November 23, 1992

"I would like to think that if we had a freer society, it would take care of blacks and whites and everybody equally. But if we had equal justice under the law, it would be a big improvement"

Libertarians are incapable of being racists, because racism is a collectivist idea; you see people as groups. A civil libertarian like myself sees everyone as an individual.“It’s not the color of the skin that’s important” as Martin Luther King said, “it’s the character of the individual“.

You know what is really interesting, though, and might be behind [the racism claims]. Because I, as a Republican candidate, am getting the most black votes and black supporters, and now that has to be undermined.

~ Ron Paul, CNN interview at Myrtle Beach, CA (2008)

Why is it that any unseasonably warm weather is proof of global warming, but unseasonably cold weather isn't evidence of the past six years of global cooling?

Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods.

• From 1895 until the 1930’s the media peddled a coming ice age.
• From the late 1920’s until the 1960’s they warned of global warming.
• From the 1950’s until the 1970’s they warned us again of a coming ice age.
• This makes modern global warming the fourth estate’s fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years.

~Senator James Inhofe, Senate Floor speech (2006)

Click here for the entire timeline of Global Warming / Ice Age scares

The government that seems the most unwise, Oft goodness to the people best supplies; That which is meddling, touching everything, Will work but ill, and disappointment bring.

• When taxes are too high, people go hungry.
• When the government is too intrusive, people resist.
• When rulers take too much happiness, people gladly die.

Act for the people’s benefit. Trust them; leave them alone.

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (The Way to Power) (500 BC)

Click to view the actual quote, in President Jefferson's own handwriting.

Still one thing more, fellow-citizens–a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, 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, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

– Thomas Jefferson‘s First Inaugural Address (1801)

"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power." -- they trot out the terror bogeyman simply to increase their power over you, through fear

   

Those who would give up Essential Liberty

to purchase a little Temporary Safety,

deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

– Benjamin Franklin, motto for An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania

The federal government of the United States of America takes away between a fifth and a quarter of all our money every year. That is eight times the Islamic zakat, the almsgiving required of believers by the Koran; it is double the tithe of the medieval church and twice the royal tribute that the prophet Samuel warned the Israelites against when they wanted him to annount a ruler…

…remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody’s head.

Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don’t pay taxes, you’ll be fined. If you don’t pay the fine, you’ll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you’ll be shot.

Thus I:

• in my role as citizen and voter
• am going to shoot you
• in your role as taxpayer and ripe suck
• if you don’t pay your fair share of the national tab.

Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, “Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?”

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.

Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man?

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

– Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849)

"What world can afford this sort of thing for long? We are in an armaments race. Where will it lead us...At best, to robbing every people and nation on earth of the fruits of their own toil."

Every gun that is made,
every warship launched,
every rocket fired signifies,
in the final sense,
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers,
the genius of its scientists,
the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this:
a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.
Under the cloud of threatening war,
it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

— General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his speech The Chance for Peace (1953)

200 years later, they still haven't learned.

The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to be careful to prevent their growth in our own.

– President John Adams, First Annual Address (1797)

Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, inspiration for the move The Patriot, was the best tactician of the Revolution...and opposed to preemptive war

As to war, I am and always was a great enemy, at the same time a warrior the greater part of my life, and were I young again, should still be a warrior while ever this country should be invaded and I lived — a Defensive war I think a righteous war to Defend my life & property & that of my family, in my own opinion, is right & justifiable in the sight of God.

An offensive war, I believe to be wrong and would therefore have nothing to do with it, having no right to meddle with another man’s property, his ox or his ass, his man servant or his maid servant or anything this is his. Neither does he have a right to meddle with anything that is mine, if he does I have a right to defend it by force.

– Brigadier General Daniel Morgan of the American Revolutionary War, letter to Miles Etting (1798)

It doesn't matter which party is in control, or whether they are "authorities"; if they are wrong, it would be treason not to openly oppose them

The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal, he is a traitor.

That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him: it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.

– Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)

Government programs are driven by greed, not altruism.

It is the selfish who demand that politicians take money from others, and redistribute it to themselves.

– KAZ Vorpal, But Now You Know (2011)

Any time you see a talking head advocating "national interest" above what is right and good, remember this saying

The man of character cares about what is right,

the inferior man cares about his advantage.

— K’ung-fu-tzu, according to the Analects, 4.16 (225 BC)

Early to bed and early to rise is a bad rule for anyone who wishes to become acquainted with our most prominent and influential people.

— George Ade, True Bills (1904)

Each of the last five American presidents, treating the evil Egyptian dictator like a friend, thereby helping isolate America in the eyes of the world

It is not we non-interventionists who are isolationsists.

The real isolationists are those who impose sanctions and embargoes on countries and peoples across the globe because they disagree with the internal and foreign policies of their leaders.

The real isolationists are those who choose to use force overseas to promote democracy, rather than seek change through diplomacy, engagement, and by setting a positive example.

—Ron Paul, I advocate the same foreign policy the Founding Fathers would, Union Leader (2007)

There is a recent push to censor political speech like the above picture, ban guns, et cetera, to "protect politicians"...but crazed maniacs aside, their fear is healthy for liberty

Where the people fear the government you have tyranny.

Where the government fears the people you have liberty.

— John Basil Barnhill, Indictment of Socialism (#3), transcript of Barnhill-Tichenor Debate on Socialism (1914)

JEFFERSON NEVER SAID THIS. That’s right. We’re eventually going to come out with a list of false attributions we’ve discovered while trying to source them for our own use.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

— Philip K. Dick, How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later (1978)

Each little blurry light in this picture is a galaxy, full of billions of stars. This is just from one tiny square of the sky. It goes on endlessly, even if we don't know about it.

The Arizona shooting is just the latest in an endless series of efforts by corrupt political thugs to exploit crisis and tragedy

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

— Rahm Emanuel, Interview to the Wall Street Journal, (2008)

A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper.

He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police.

— Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism, the Limits of Government Activity

Fosdick is one of our favorite quote-makers.

Life consists not simply in what heredity and environment do to us but in what we make out of what they do to us.

— Harry Emerson Fosdick, On Being a Real Person (1943)

Makework "stimulus" jobs are welfare, not employment

A private job pays for itself and more, a form of wealth creation that is self-sustaining;

But a government job only sucks at taxes, burdening the economy, until the money runs out.

— Kaz Vorpal

The hundreds of billions wasted on foreign aid go straight into the pockets of the tyrants

That’s where all the foreign aid (which might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries) went as well.

The U.S. government still squanders about $20 billion a year this way, and European governments spend proportionally even more; it’s all gone straight down a giant rathole.

— Douglas Casey, Opportunity in Mozambique

If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. In our country — it is not the same in all countries: it was not so in republican France, and it is not so in the USA today — it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect

— George Orwell, Freedom of the Press (1948)

(This was to be the foreword of Animal Farm. It is perfect irony, that the publisher decided to censor it.)

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force!

Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

— Cited by Upton Sinclair, in The Cry for Justice (1915), as having been said by George Washington

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

— Ben Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, 1776

Defend your opponents' rights, or lose your own

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. 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.

— Thomas Paine, First Principles of Government (1795)

It is beyond belief that we know so little about how people get rich or poor, about how it is they come to dwell in comfort and health or die in penury and disease.

Financial markets are the machines in which much of human welfare is decided; yet we know more about how our car engines work than about how our global financial system functions. We lurch from crisis to crisis. In a networked world, mayhem in one market spreads instantaneously to all others—and we have only the vaguest of notions how this happens, or how to regulate it.

So limited is our knowledge that we resort, not to science, but to shamans. We place control of the world’s largest economy in the hands of a few elderly men, the central bankers.

— Benoît Mandelbrot, The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (2004)

Mandelbrot was also a brilliant mathematician, the father of Fractal Geometry

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants.

He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

— Theodore Roosevelt, “Sedition, Free Press, and Personal Rule“, Kansas City Star (05-07-1918)