“A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.”

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.

That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.

All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.

In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.

Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.

If you think health care is expensive now, just wait ’til it’s free.

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

I’m a free spirit.

It is true that classical libertarian thought is opposed to state intervention in social life, as a consequence of deeper assumptions about the human need for liberty, diversity, and free association.

Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

Searching for the one thing, that would set my sad soul free.

The unsaid rule for living in a trailer park is: ‘If the door’s shut, don’t come a-knockin.’ But if it’s open and you’re walkin’ by, feel free to say, ‘Hello.’