Quotes · Skopia

233 quotes

1944

★ 0.9

Military force—especially when wielded by an outside power—just cannot bring order in a country that cannot govern itself.

Robert McNamara

1995

★ 1.0

Speech · Commencement address

It's worth remembering this: freedom of expression sustains all the other freedoms we enjoy.

Ian McEwan

2015

★ 1.0

Treatise · Legal writing

In all tyrannical governments, the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.

William Blackstone

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1769

★ 1.1

Upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends-the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions.

Andrew Carnegie

1889

★ 1.1

Economic literature

Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.

John Maynard Keynes

The Economic Consequences of the Peace · 1919

★ 1.1

Speech · Political speech

Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: "We the People." "We the People" tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us."We the People" are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the People" tell the government what it is allowed to do."We the People" are free.

Ronald Reagan

1989 Farewell Address · 1989

★ 1.1

Speech · Political speech

And I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.

Ronald Reagan

1989 Farewell Address · 1989

★ 1.1

Film · Animation (film) · Animation

Jessie's right! Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from threat of force!

Barbie

Toy Story 3 · 2010

★ 1.1

Essay · Political literature

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results.

James Madison

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 1.2

Essay · Political literature

Each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others.

James Madison

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 1.2

Interview · Newspaper

Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.

Benito Mussolini

The New York Times · 1928

★ 1.2

Essay · Political literature

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.

Henry David Thoreau

The Relation of the Individual to the State · 1848

★ 1.3

Political literature

That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

George Mason

Virginia Bill of Rights · 1776

★ 1.8

Feminist literature

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

1918

★ 1.8

Speech

The condition of our survival in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world.

Learned Hand

1931

★ 1.8

Legal opinion · Legal writing

Right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many this is, and will always be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all.

Learned Hand

United States v. Associated Press · 1943

★ 1.8

We believe, and I think properly, that when the men who met in 1787 to make a Constitution made the best political document ever made, they did so very largely because they were great compromisers.

Learned Hand

1951

★ 1.8

Speech · Political speech

Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation.

Robert F. Kennedy

1966

★ 1.8

Pamphlet · Political literature

I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say, that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.

Edmund Burke

1770

★ 1.9

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