Favorite quotes

"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge of it is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced it to the stage of science."

— Sir William Thompson (Lord Kelvin)

"If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion."

— Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.

— Winston Churchill

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”

— Ron Paul, The Revolution: A Manifesto

"There is no problem sufficiently small that there exists a governmental solution."

— Greg Raven

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

— Thomas Jefferson

"I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

— Winston Churchill

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

— George Bernard Shaw

"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money."

— G. Gordon Liddy

"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."

— James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

"Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries."

— Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

— P.J. O'Rourke

"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

— Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

— Ronald Reagan

"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."

— Will Rogers

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!"

— P.J. O'Rourke

"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other."

— Voltaire (1764)

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!"

— Pericles (430 B.C.)

"No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session."

— Mark Twain (1866)

"Talk is cheap … except when Congress does it."

— Unknown

"The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other."

— Ronald Reagan

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."

— Winston Churchill

"The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin."

— Mark Twain

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."

— Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

"There is no distinctly Native American criminal class … save Congress."

— Mark Twain

"What this country needs are more unemployed politicians."

— Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have."

— Thomas Jefferson

"If the majority distributes among itself the things of a minority, it is evident that it will destroy the city."

— Aristotle

"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

— Ronald Reagan

"The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data.'"

— Unknown

"There's a big difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats want to ruin the country right away. Republicans think we shouldn't ruin the country until next week."

— Greg Raven

"Whenever someone gets something for nothing, someone else gets nothing for something."

— Anonymous

"If a private enterprise is a failure, it is closed down - unless it can get a government subsidy to keep it going; if a government enterprise is a failure, it is expanded. I challenge you to find exceptions."

— Milton Friedman, Why Government is the Problem, Wriston Lecture (1991)

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

— Milton Friedman, The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, Ch 1,  pg 15 (2002)

"If an idea or business has merit, under free-market capitalism someone will undertake to make it successful. The only ideas or businesses that languish are those that have no merit. Therefore, when the government backs an idea or a business, it is by definition backing a loser, for only a loser would need government backing."

— Greg Raven