"Freedom was not given to us by government... The American economic system could only work well, and at its best, when it was unhampered by government and was allowed to be controlled only by the marketplace.... Thus, the core of my economic philosophy is the free market system - when it is working as it should."
-Barry Goldwater

"Things will get better despite our [government's] efforts to improve them."
-Will Rogers

"For the left, the problem is never the existence of evil. They scoff at that unsophisticated notion. Rather, it is the existence of people who fight it. For war itself "is an enemy to all mankind":

"We have nothing to fear from anyone on this living planet.... We can change the universe by being who we are.... it really is just that simple."
-unknown high school commencement address

-Robert Godwin

"I always loved running...it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs."
-Jesse Owens

"Rational economic production is impossible under socialism: Denied the price signals that give social needs and preferences an implicit hand in every decision a capitalist entrepreneur makes, a state planner can never hope to predict demand and make informed choices."
-Ludwig von Mises

"There seems no plan because it is all plan."
-C.S.Lewis

"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument."
-William G. McAdoo

"[In the future] we will see our daily lives regulated to a rapidly increasing degree, and that things that today we cannot imagine government trying to regulate and control will be quite routine before I pass on before mid-century...When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free."
-Donald Sensing

"Finally, all too many people who talk about perfecting a society strive to do so through the vehicle of government. Personally, I do not believe the government can make people, institutions, or societies better—let alone perfect. After all, government is itself comprised of fallen men and women whose imperfections are precisely the reason good government is shackled with checks and balances. Unconstrained, government attempts to create a “Great Society” destroy communities, disintegrate the little platoons that inculcate virtue, atrophy both man’s ability and desire to control their own destiny, and limit choice.

Government is not a vehicle for perfecting humanity or human institutions, but rather a vehicle for ensuring that the baser elements of human nature are restrained. If government does that, it has done all that we can expect of it."

-Stephen Bainbridge

Life Isn't Fair

"Life sends the message, "I'd better not be poor. I'd better get rich. I'd better make more money than other people." Meanwhile, politics sends us the message, "Some people make more money than others. Some are rich while others are poor. We'd better close that 'income disparity gap.' It's not fair!

Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, "That's not fair." When she says this, I say, "Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you." What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap."
-P.J. O'Rourke

Commencement Speech

"I've never been invited to deliver a commencement address. And I probably should never be so invited, for I already know the title I would choose: "Don't Change the World." I would explain that it's okay -- indeed, admirable -- to change the world marginally, incrementally, by engaging in voluntary actions. But all the "change the world" talk that high-school and college graduates get presumes that change, any change, is desirable -- as if the world is such a decrepit place that nothing about is worth preserving (except, of course, "the environment"). And all this "change the world" talk also tends to presume that doing things politically is the best way to effect worthwhile change."
-Don Boudreaux

"Far better to be governed by a random four hundred names in the Boston telephone directory than by the faculty of Harvard."
-William F. Buckley