1. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

2. One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.

3. Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

4. If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.

5. I heartily accept the motto’ "That government is best which governs least".

6. The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates.

7. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed—and hence clamorous to be led to safety—by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

8. When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

9. A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

10. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

11. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.

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

13. More laws, less justice.

14. The true danger is when Liberty is nibbled away, for expedients.

15. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

16. 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.

17. The best government is the one that charges you the least blackmail for leaving you alone.

18. Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

19. Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

20. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself.   Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?

21. A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.   This is the sum of good government.

22. The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

23. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

24. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws.

25. Vice are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

26. Can our form of government, our system of justice, survive if one can be denied a freedom because he might abuse it?

27. It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself.

28. I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men’s rights.

29. It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

30. When important issues affecting the life of an individual are decided by somebody else, it makes no difference to the individual whether that somebody else is a king, a dictator, or society at large.

31. No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

32. Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

33. Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.

34. If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.