Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice. And . . . moderation in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue.
— Barry Goldwater
I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents “interests,” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
— Barry Goldwater
The Constitution is an instrument, above all, for limiting the functions of government… Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man’s liberty. Government represents power in the hands of some men to control and regulate the lives of other men.
— Barry Goldwater
What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.
— Thomas Sowell
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.
— Thomas Sowell
Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.
— Thomas Sowell
What is called ‘capitalism’ might more accurately be called consumerism. It is the consumers who call the tune, and the capitalists who want to remain capitalists have to learn to dance to it.
— Thomas Sowell
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
— Thomas Sowell
You can talk about “social justice” all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get reelected That is not social justice or any other kind of justice.
— Thomas Sowell
If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves. .
— Thomas Sowell
There is, in fact, only one solution: the state, the government, the laws must not in any way concern themselves with schooling or education. Public funds must not be used for such purposes. The rearing and instruction of youth must be left entirely to parents and to private associations and institutions.
— Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism
Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
— Winston Churchill
It is time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy. It’s a bureaucratic system where everybody’s role is spelled out in advance, and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It’s not a surprise when a school system doesn’t improve. It more resembles a Communist economy than our own market economy.
— Albert Shanker
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing. The rest is mere sheep-herding.
— Ezra Loomis Pound
What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch of a free meandering brook
— Henry David Thoreau
My grandmother wanted me to have an education so she kept me out of school.
— Margaret Mead
Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
It would be a mistake to assume that the present-day educational system is unchanging. On the contrary, it is undergoing rapid change. But much of this change is no more than an attempt to refine the existent machinery, making it ever more efficient in pursuit of obsolete goals.
— Alvin Toffler
What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know; it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.
— Yogi Berra
The problem is not that public schools do not work well, but rather that they do. The first goal and primary function of schools is not to educate good people, but good citizens. It is the function which we normally label state indoctrination.
— Wendy McElroy, Demystifying the State
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
— John Locke, 1693
There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.
— Robert G. Ingersoll
The highest result of education is tolerance.
— Helen Keller
Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
— Malcolm S. Forbes
