Famous Quotes & Sayings

Milton Friedman

I think almost every economist would agree that government gets itself in trouble when it tries to interfere with voluntary behavior.

Milton Friedman

The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people.

Milton Friedman

The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.

Milton Friedman

I start ... from a belief in individual freedom and that derives fundamentally from a belief in the limitations of our knowledge, from a belief ... that nobody can be sure that what he believes is right, is really right ... I'm an imperfect human being who cannot be certain of anything, so what position ... involved the least intolerance on my part? ... The most attractive position ... is putting individual freedom first.

Milton Friedman

Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.

Milton Friedman

A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.

Milton Friedman

The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.

Milton Friedman

Economic freedom is ... an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.

Milton Friedman

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

Julian Bond

The civil rights movement didn't begin in Montgomery and it didn't end in the 1960s. It continues on to this very minute.

Julia Ward Howe

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.

Mark Twain

Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.

Ask the first man you meet what he means by defending freedom, and he'll tell you privately he means defending the standard of living.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.

Mary McCarthy

Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.

Mark Twain

The highest pleasure to be got out of freedom, and having nothing to do, is labor.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

God is not merely interestd in the freedom of brown men, yellow men, red men and black men.He is interested in the freedom of the whole human race.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

If the cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. Because the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned tho' we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

R. D. Laing

The brotherhood of man is evoked by particular men according to their circumstances. But it seldom extends to all men. In the name of our freedom and our brotherhood we are prepared to blow up the other half of mankind and to be blown up in our turn.

Joseph Smith, Jr.

The Constitution is not a law, but it empowers the people to make laws... The Constitution tells us what shall not be a lawful tender... The legislature has ceded up to us the privilege of enacting such laws as are not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States... The different states, and even Congress itself, have passed many laws diametrically contrary to the Constitution of the United States...

Joseph Stalin

If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.

Paul Robeson

Freedom is a hard-bought thing.

Paul Robeson

Freedom is a hard-bought thing and millions are in chains, but they strain toward the new day drawing near.

Paul Robeson

The artist must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery.

Paul Gauguin

All the joys - animal and human - of a free life are mine. I have escaped everything that is artificial, conventional, customary.

Patrick McGoohan

I am not a number, I am a free man!

Lillian Hellman

Freedom costs you a great deal.

Lester Maddox

That's part of American greatness, is discrimination. Yes, sir. Inequality, I think, breeds freedom and gives a man opportunity.

Leon Trotsky

The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.

Leon Trotsky

Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.