Pithy Quotes

by Jeffry R. Fisher

I thought of these myself:

"Like a toilet, the government should be flushed after each use."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2004
"Individual responsibility and individual liberty are two sides of one coin. If you drop one, then you will lose the other."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2003
"Private enterprise is the productive sector... and government is the seductive sector."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2002
"The foundation of homeland security is a well informed and well armed populace."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2003
"Tyrants say that if one is not guilty, then one should not fear their new police powers...
Free citizens say that if suspects are guilty, then the government should not fear due process."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2004
"Enemies of freedom are so far from understanding it that they can't distinguish liberty from license."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2004
"They are not civilized who would take by force what others have created by sweat."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2004
"Democrats want your guns and your cash; Republicans want your porn and your stash."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2004
"Government should be like the oil in an engine: A very thin lubricating layer narrowly separating freely moving parts so that they slide past one another smoothly without grinding. If the lubricant itself creates friction or begins to eat into any of the parts, then it has become corrosive and should be replaced."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2005
"The quality of a symbol comes not from its sound, shape or color, but from the character of those who own it."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2005
"The lesser of two evils is still evil."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2004
"As for the dilemma of two evils: Supporting the lesser drives other citizens into the waiting arms of the greater."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2004
"One must risk the election of the greater evil today so that we may someday elect the greater good."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2004
"The world has no hunger problem, only a hunger symptom of a tyranny problem. Solve the tyranny problem, and you end world hunger."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2005
"In a democratic society, a statute breached more than obeyed is not a law."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2005
"Compassion for the poor does not benefit from contact with the IRS."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2005
" "That's the way it's always been" is cause to start thinking, not stop."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2005
"If one is not free to exploit one's own labor, it means that someone else is."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2006
"The most local level of government is the individual citizen."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2006
"Those of us who voted for better deserve better, but we're not going to get it."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2009
"Individual liberty can only be built on a foundation of individual responsibility."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2009
"There's no disaster so bad that an overreacting government can't make it worse."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2011
"We may be pissing into the wind, but if we keep our enemies behind us and aim carefully, we can still rain on their parade."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2011
"Even the US Constitution has its limits... And "We the People" must hold the government to them!"
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2024
"If any foreign government ever did to America what the Democrats are proposing, we would consider it an act of war and bomb them."
-- Jeffry R. Fisher, 2024

Quotes from other clever people:

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
-- Plato
"When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility... Then, Athens ceased to be free."
-- Edward Gibbon
"The average university is a sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection after they have been hunted out of every other corner of the world."
-- Adam Smith, c. 1750
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness... whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it"
-- Declaration of Independence
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither..."
-- Benjamin Franklin
"The power to tax is the power to destroy."
-- John Marshal
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
-- Edmund Burke
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."
-- Bertrand Russell
"I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right say it."
-- Evelyn Beatrice Hall, 1906 (paraphrasing Voltair)
"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."
-- General George Patton
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
-- Sir Winston Churchill
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice... And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. "
-- Barry Goldwater, July 16, 1964 (in his nomination acceptance speech to the Republican convention)
"Men and nations behave wisely... once they have exhausted all the other alternatives."
-- Abba Eban
"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity."
-- Irving Kristol
"No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session."
-- Judge Gideon J. Tucker
"Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure."
-- Ross MacDonald
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
-- Evelyn Beatrice Hall (Voltaire's biographer)
"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't"
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Copyright 2002-2024 by Jeffry R. Fisher: Permission is granted to reproduce this article in whole, but only in combination with attribution, the original title, the original URL, and this copyright notice.
Jeffry R. Fisher is the founder and president of Propagate Ltd, which is liberating digital content as LiberateIP.com.