If you’re a Paladin customer, you probably at least lean toward political stances that favor individual liberties — the right to privacy, to keep and bear arms, to be unencumbered by intrusive government. It can be difficult to articulate the benefits of personal freedom (and the dangers of statist overreach) in an age when so many citizens buy into more expansive, more expensive government to solve their problems. Fortunately, you have centuries of eloquent commentators and forceful freethinkers to help you make your case.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute offers as a free download Liberty Quotes: A Collection of Historical, Legal, and Philosophical Quotations. Containing hundreds of helpful quotes from a broad range of authors and sources, it is an essential resource for anyone searching for just the right words to bolster an argument in an online forum, letter to the editor, or town hall meeting. From the classics (“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” — Lord Acton) to the lesser known (“One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence” — Charles Austin Beard) and even to damning statements from the “other” perspective (“[The United States] can’t be so fixed on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Amer)cans” — President William J. Clinton), it’s all here, all documented, and all verifiable.
Here’s just a sampling of what you’ll find:
“Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State lives at the expense of everyone.”
— Claude Frederic Bastiat, French economist and statesman (1801–1850)
“Since police started keeping statistics, we now know that assault weapons are/were used in an underwhelming .026 of 1 percent of crimes in New Jersey. This means that my officers are more likely to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an assault rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets.”
— Joseph Constance, deputy chief of police, Trenton, NJ
“[I]f all the Chinese citizens kept arms, their rulers would hardly have dared to massacre the [Tiananmen Square] demonstrators . . .”
— Sanford Levinson, University of Texas law professor, The Embarrassing Second Amendment
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
— H.L. Mencken, U.S. author and editor (1880–1956)
“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things bought and sold are legislators.”
— P.J. O’Rourke, author and humorist
“Some lawyers and judges may have forgotten it, but the purpose of the court system is to produce justice, not slavish obedience to the law.”
— Charlie Reese, nationally syndicated columnist
“A government which will turn its tanks upon its people, for any reason, is a government with a taste of blood and a thirst for power and must either be smartly rebuked, or blindly obeyed in deadly fear.”
— John Salter
“No one spends someone else‘s money as carefully as he spends his own.”
— Mark Skousen, PhD, economist at Rollins College
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master.”
— George Washington, first president of the United States
Thanks to Dave Kopel at the Volokh Conspiracy for the pointer.