Category: Thought

The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill it.
(said to the Vice President, July 8, 1832)

There ought to be no laws to guarantee property against the folly of its possessors.

Every book is a monopoly, and copyrights, perhaps, better than anything else serve to illustrate the wide range through which monopoly may act. Volumes are written which scarcely anyone will buy. The owner of the copyright has an absolute monopoly, but, there being no demand, his monopoly is worthless — from which it appears that a man cannot oppress his fellows simply because “he has a monopoly.”

The men who start out with the notion that the world owes them a living generally find that the world pays its debt in the penitentiary or the poor house.

It is the supreme test of a system of government whether its machinery is adequate for repressing the selfish undertakings of cliques formed on special interests and saving the public from raids of plunderers.

If I want to be free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.

Liberty sets the mind free, fosters independence and unorthodox thinking and ideas. But it does not offer instant prosperity or happiness and wealth to everyone. This is something that politicians in particular must keep in mind.

You can build a throne with bayonets, but it’s difficult to sit on it.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.