Every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to addÖ artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers -- who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government
Andrew Jackson
What our country deserves from everyone who enjoys its fruits and freedoms is a little more gratitude -- and a lot less greed
Michelle Malkin
The worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it
John Stuart Mill
What is the task of higher education? To make a man into a machine. What are the means employed? He is taught how to suffer being bored
Friedrich Nietzsche
When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves
George Pataki
I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity, ... [it] would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.
Franklin Pierce
The first destroyer of the liberties of a people is he who first gave them bounties and largess
Plutarch
The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits
Plutarch
Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel
Ayn Rand
I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end
Albert Schweitzer
Socialism means equality of income or nothing... under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well
George Bernard Shaw
One of the sad signs of our times is that we have diminished those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain
Thomas Sowell
Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them
Baruch Spinoza
The real freedom of any individual can always be measured by the amount of responsibility which he must assume for his own welfare and security
Robert Welch
Liberty and happiness have a powerful enemy on each hand; on the one hand tyranny, on the other licentiousness [anarchy]. To guard against the latter, it is necessary to give the proper powers to government; and to guard against the former, it is necessary that those powers should be properly distributed
James Wilson