Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing read more

Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong.

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; read more

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.

Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as read more

Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.

We hold that the reckless disregard for human life implicit in knowingly engaging in criminal activity known to carry a read more

We hold that the reckless disregard for human life implicit in knowingly engaging in criminal activity known to carry a grave risk of death represents a highly culpable mental state that may be taken into account in making a capital sentencing judgment not inevitable, lethal result.

It is a dangerous and idle dream to think that the state can become rule by philosophers turned kings or read more

It is a dangerous and idle dream to think that the state can become rule by philosophers turned kings or scientists turned commissars. For if philosophers become kings or scientists commissars, they become politicians, and the powers given to the state are powers given to men who are rulers of states, men subject to all the limitations and temptations of their dangerous craft. Unless this is borne in mind, there will be a dangerous optimistic tendency to sweep aside doubts and fears as irrelevant, since, in the state that the projectors have in mind, power will be exercised by men of a wisdom and degree of moral virtue that we have not yet seen. It won't. It will be exercised by men who will be men first and rulers next and scientists and saints long after.

We should...be able to see that our interest would be best served not by asking the state to promulgate our read more

We should...be able to see that our interest would be best served not by asking the state to promulgate our values but by forbidding the state to promulgate any values at all. If the state can espouse some value that we love, it can, with equal justice, espouse others we do not love.

For every prohibition you create you also create an underground.

For every prohibition you create you also create an underground.

Don't one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes."N.B.: A lesser-known version of this quotation was read more

Don't one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes."N.B.: A lesser-known version of this quotation was supposedly said by Frederick the Great at Prague in 1757: "By push of bayonets, no firing till you see the whites of their eyes. - Battle of Bunker Hill, 1775.

There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the read more

There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means.