Winning an argument is of no value. What you want is to win a convert. And people who lose arguments are more likely to beef up their current convictions instead of converting to your way of thinking.
Harry Browne Liberty A to Z.
Patronage is the sword and cannon by which war may be made on the liberty of the human race.
John Tyler, speech in Congress (February 24, 1834) against the policies of Andrew Jackson.
Government seems to operate on the principle that if even one individual is incapable of using his freedom competently, no one can be allowed to be free.
Harry Browne remains famous for his 1970s classic, How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.
Our national economy is sick and has been for some time. It requires increasing doses of money to make it function in a manner satisfying to the public. Surely, it is time for the public to face up to the consequences of its expectations. Do we want to end up addicted to paper money to such an extent that productivity ceases and everyone ends up speculating on what few goods and services are left?
Tonie Nathan, “Inflation and Addiction,” Willamette Valley Observer (1977), in On Libertarianism: Historical Notes & Articles (1981).
The truth is that no gun-control law works because ‘bad’ people who want guns can always get them. Either they’ll buy them in the underworld or they’ll simply steal them from good folks like you and me.
Harry Browne, “The Limits of Gun Ownership” (October 23, 2003).
Crime is not nearly the problem that injustice is. Rebellion (lawlessness) is a symptom of the . . . legal contradictions that are now constantly confronting the average citizen.
Tonie Nathan, “Individualism, Rebellion, and Crime,” Eugene Register-Guard, February 1977, in On Libertarianism: Historical Notes & Articles (1981).
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, was the only American politician to have voted against America’s involvement in both World War I and World War II.
Each man has the sole right to dispose of his own life. The recognition that the rights of each individual have priority over the demands of the state is an honored and traditional American concept.
Tonie Nathan, from her proposed preamble for the first Libertarian Party platform (On Libertarianism: Historical Notes & Articles, 1981).
Men and women are like right and left hands; it doesn’t make sense not to use both.
Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, was the only American politician to have voted against America’s involvement in both World War I and World War II.
I am a contributing creator of American civilization; it does not create me. I control the stem of this civilization that is within my reach; it does not control me. It can not even make me read Spengler, if I’d rather read a pulp magazine.
Rose Wilder Lane, The Discovery of Freedom (1943).