“It is important that we should never lose sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments.”

Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable. It has of itself no rights; they are altogether duties.

Men should not petition for rights, but take them.

What is it the Bible teaches us? – raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? – to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.

No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power; and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people.

It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.

I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.

It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.

It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt.

The Deist needs none of those tricks and shows called miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle than the creation itself, and his own existence?

These are the times that try men’s souls.

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.

Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.

Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

Anything that government can do, private enterprise can do for half the cost.

I don’t know people who don’t say ‘boy, the government is working better now.’

The most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when, after a long spell of oppression, he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.

People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?

Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations.