Why should you give a fig about liberty quotes?
Have you ever spoken with someone who has just discovered a new television show, and they’re going absolutely bananas about how you need to watch it too? “Oh, I just know you’re going to love The Foolish Man and the German Shepherd Dog,” they’ll coo. “I know the title sounds a little weird, but it stars an actor I love, and there’s this one episode where the German Shepherd Dog gets jam on his necktie before a big job interview that will split you in half with laughter!” And you kind of have to smile and promise you’ll watch it, and ask them to please stop touching you.
Libertarians are the same way about liberty. “Don’t you love liberty?” they will ask you. “Well, how would you like more liberty? Imagine how much more liberty everyone could have if we only did X, Y and Z! I love liberty so much I’d squirt it on my waffles every morning if only it were viscous instead of an abstract concept!”
But in the libertarian’s defense, liberty really is that good.
Never accept limits to your liberty in consideration of greater protection. The people offering you that protection are by far the most dangerous thing you will ever encounter. And although liberty must be earned by the hardest of people making the greatest of sacrifices, it is as vulnerable as a Fabergé egg in a daycare for children with inner ear infections. Forfeit even the tiniest little piece of it, and the despots, the bureaucrats, and the sadists who infest government will inevitably clamor for the next. And the next. And the next.
Give a mouse a cookie and he will ask for a glass of milk. With that, here are some of our favorite quotes about liberty.
