Category: Thought

We all know what the problems are: it’s tax and spend. One party will tax and spend, the other party won’t tax but will spend. It’s both of them together.

Oratory prevailed over science and experience.

The decline in the purchasing power of paper money was in obedience to the simplest laws in economics, but France had now gone beyond her thoughtful statesmen and taken refuge in unwavering optimism, giving any explanation of the new difficulties rather than the right one.

I consider it an incontrovertible truth, that whatever by the constitution government even may do, if it relates to the abuse of power by acts tyrannical and oppressive, it some time or other will do. Such is the ambition of man, and his lust for domination, that no power less than that which fixed its bounds to the ocean can say to them, “Thus far shall ye go and no farther.” Ascertain the limits of the may with ever so much precision, and let them be as extensive as you please, government will speedily reach their utmost verge; nor will it stop there, but soon will overleap those boundaries, and roam at large into the regions of the may not.

Those who would wish to excite and keep awake your jealousy and distrust are your truest friends; while they who speak peace to you when there is no peace — who would lull you into security, and wish you to repose blind confidence in your future governors — are your most dangerous enemies; jealousy and distrust are the guardian angels who watch over liberty — security and confidence are the forerunners of slavery.

We have no right to expect that our rulers will be more wise, more virtuous, or more perfect than those of other nations have been.…

When the tempest rages, when the thunders roar, and the lightnings blaze around us it is then that the truly brave man stands firm at his post.

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity.