*********************************************** QUOTES *********************************************
Quotes are easy, fast, and fun to read. Therefore, they are great for education. Just breeze through this page to learn bit by bit about social freedom, intelligence, and education.
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Freedom
All the fiery rhetoric of the Founders was directed at a "tyrant" who taxed his subjects at a rate of about three percent. Today, we in "the land of the free" are taxed at about 50 percent when you add federal, state, and local taxes. What kind of government would do this? A dictatorship would. – Doug Newman
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. – Thomas B. Reed (1886)
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. – George Washington
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. – Thomas Jefferson (1801)
[On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon
There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws. – Ayn Rand
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. – Samuel Adams
It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. – Charles A. Beard
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. – Edward R. Murrow
Can our form of government, our system of justice, survive if one can be denied a freedom because he might abuse it? – Harlon Carter
No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights. – Edmund A. Opitz
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws. – Montesquieu
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. – James Taggart (1992)
If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. – Winston Churchill
These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. – UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 29(3).
If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist. – Joseph Sobran (1995)
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. – Barry Goldwater (1964)
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. – Thomas Jefferson
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. – James Madison
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? – Thomas Jefferson (1801)
We 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 (1903)
The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills. – Thomas Jefferson
America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. – Ayn Rand
Virtually all reasonable laws are obeyed, not because they are the law, but because reasonable people would do that anyway. If you obey a law simply because it is the law, that's a pretty likely sign that it shouldn't be a law. – Unknown
The welfare state reduces a citizen to a client, subordinates them to a bureaucrat, and subjects them to rules that are anti-work, anti-family, anti-opportunity and anti-property … Humans forced to suffer under such anti-human rules naturally develop pathologies. The evening news is the natural result of the welfare state. – Unknown
Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. – Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist
If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread. – Thomas Jefferson
Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Seizing the results of someone's labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities. – Robert Nozick, Harvard philosopher
The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, "See if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk". – Harry Browne
To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors. – John Stuart Mill
No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: "But what would you replace it with?" When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with? – Thomas Sowell
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place. – Mohandas Gandhi
When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty. – George Mason
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. – Edmund Burke
Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging than the drug itself. – Jimmy Carter
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery! Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! – Patrick Henry
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising. – Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Japanese Shogun, August 29, 1558
You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have. – P.J. O'Rourke
When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic. – Dresden James
Public works are not accomplished by the miraculous power of a magic wand. They are paid for by funds taken away from the citizens. – Ludwig von Mises
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. – Plato circa 400 B.C.
By the year 2012, projected outlays for entitlements and interest on the national debt will consume all tax revenues collected by the federal government … There will not be one cent left over for education, children's programs, highways, national defense, or any other discretionary program. – Bipartisan U.S. Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform
I fear for our nation. Nearly half of our people receive some kind of government subsidy. We have grown weak from too much affluence and too little adversity. I fear that soon we will not be able to defend our country from our sure and certain enemies. We have debased our currency to the point that even the most loyal citizen no longer trusts it. – A Roman Senator in A.D. 63
It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses. – Winston Churchill
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. – Mark Twain
Politicians can't give us anything without depriving us of something else. Government is not a god. Every dime they spend must first be taken from someone else. – Gary Asmus
If I deny the authority of the State when it presents my tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard, this makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects. – Henry David Thoreau
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. – Thomas Jefferson
A great many laws in a country, like many physicians, is a sign of malady. – Voltaire
Governments need armies to protect them from their enslaved and oppressed subjects. – Tolstoy
I say one evil empire down … one to go. – Michael Moore, The Big One
For 134 years the American people have been led to believe that the right of secession had been overturned by a "verdict of arms," but that isn't true … It is true the shot fired at Fort Sumter was a mistake since it provided the pretext for the Southland to be invaded by foreign troops, but the right of secession realized through the ballot box remains an essential part of our constitutional order. – George Kalas, Chairman Emeritus, The Southern Party
If you would not confront your neighbor and demand his money at the point of a gun to solve every new problem that may appear in your life, you should not allow the government to do it for you. – William E. Simon
- A few pithy slogans on guns:
- An armed person is a citizen. An unarmed person is a subject.
- A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
- Six-shooter: The original point and click interface.
- Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
- If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
- If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
- If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
- Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
- If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
- Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
- The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved.
- What part of "shall not be infringed" don't you understand?
- The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others.
- 64,999,987 firearm owners killed no one yesterday.
- Guns only have two enemies: Rust and Politicians.
- Know guns, Know peace and safety. No guns, no peace nor safety.
- You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
- 911 – government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
- Assault is a behavior, not a device.
- Criminals love gun control – it makes their jobs safer.
- Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
- You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.
- We don't enforce unconstitutional laws; we REPEAL them.
- When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.
- The American Revolution would never have happened with "gun control."
The difference between death and taxes is, death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets. – Will Rogers
The Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals. It does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government. It is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizens' protection against the government. – Ayn Rand
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. – Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791. ME 8:276
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand. – Milton Friedman
Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots. –John Adams 1793
The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it. – Harry Browne
Government seems to operate on the principle that if even one individual is incapable of using his freedom competently, no one can be allowed to be free. – Harry Browne
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
The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. – John F. Kennedy
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. – Plato (427-347 B.C.)
The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best. – Thomas Sowell
Contrary to popular opinion, the Constitution was not – and is not – a grant of rights to the citizenry. Instead, the Constitution is a "barbed-wire entanglement" designed to interfere with, restrict, and impede government officials in the exercise of political power. – Jacob Hornberger, 11/01
Americans have the mistaken viewpoint that Lady Liberty is only a peacetime luxury who is ill-equipped to fight the nasties. Therefore, they reason, we need an equally nasty Big Brother. Americans have forgotten that Lady Liberty is one ferocious mother when protecting her children. – Mary Ruwart
Try to halt violence by restricting gun ownership and you won't halt violence. But you will create entire classes of new criminals – people who make paperwork errors, violate technical specification of the law, or rebel against the new restrictions. And you'll create new bureaus, new enforcement arms, new prisons to punish them. You'll make hordes of lawyers and bureaucrats very happy. Organized criminals will be grateful to the naive moral crusaders ("useful idiots") as they profit by selling an illegal product. And ordinary street criminals will bless fools, legislators, and "leaders" for making their job so much safer. – JPFO's "Bill of RIghts Sentinel", Fall 2001.
The prospect of a government that treats all its citizens as criminal suspects is more terrifying than any terrorist. And even more frightening is a citizenry that can accept the surrender of its freedoms as the price of "freedom". – Joe Sobran
If politicians were serious about day care for children, instead of just sloganizing about it, nothing they could do would improve the quality of child care more than by lifting the heavy burden of taxation that forces so many families to have both parents working. – Thomas Sowell
Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own. – Henry Grady Weaver, author of a classic book on freedom, The Mainspring of Human Progress
The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others – with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means. – Henry Grady Weaver, author of a classic book on freedom, The Mainspring of Human Progress
Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing. – George Bernard Shaw
Liberals love to say things like, "We're just asking everyone to pay their fair share." But government is not about asking. It is about telling. The difference is fundamental. It is the difference between making love and being raped, between working for a living and being a slave. The Internal Revenue service is not asking anybody to do anything. It confiscates your assets and puts you behind bars if you don't pay. – Thomas Sowell, Forbes, July 1994
Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will perform them. – Lysander Spooner
According to the Tax Foundation, taxes now consume more than 38% of the average family's budget. That is more than is spent on food, clothing, housing, and transportation combined. Compare this to the plight of medieval serfs. They only had to give the lord of the manor one-third of their output -- and they were considered slaves. So what does that make us? – Daniel Mitchell, The Washington Times, 3/9/99
"For your own good" is a persuasive argument that will eventually make a man agree to his own destruction. – Janet Frame, Faces In The Water, 1982
Laws are like cobwebs which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. – Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Gullivers Travels, 1726
Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it. – Milton Friedman, Nobel prize-winning economist
The War on Drugs is a price support system for terrorists and drug pushers. It turns ordinary, cheap plants like marijuana and poppies into fantastically lucrative black market products. Without the War on Drugs, the financial engine that fuels terrorist organizations would sputter to a halt. – Ron Crickenberger, Libertarian Party Political Director 2/4/02
Those who beat their swords into plough shares shall plough for those who don't. – Anonymous
State-mandated compassion produces, not love for ones fellow man, but hatred and resentment. – Lizard
The average American family head will be forced to do twenty years' labor to pay taxes in his or her lifetime. – James Bovard, Lost Rights
If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. – Thomas Jefferson
You [should] not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered – Lyndon Johnson, former President of the U.S.
America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards. – Claire Wolfe
The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves. – John Locke, "A Treatise Concerning Civil Government"
Since there is no such entity as "the public," since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that "the public interest" supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others. – Ayn Rand
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, "Make us your slaves, but feed us." – Dosteovsky's Grand Inquisitor
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms, disarm only those who are neither inclined, nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. They serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. – Thomas Jefferson, 1764
There are many paths to libertarianism. Many reasons for becoming a libertarian. Ethical: Embracing the "Non-Aggression Principle". Opposition to the use of force. Pragmatic: Freedom works. Freedom is practical and effective and efficient. Utilitarian: Freedom provides the greatest good for the greatest number. Egoistic: Freedom benefits you. Freedom is in your self-interest. Altruistic: Freedom benefits others. Freedom is in their interest. Outcome: Freedom produces results that you want. It maximizes individual choice. Freedom promotes and rewards personal responsibility. Freedom creates prosperity. – Michael Cloud
It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights – the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery – hay and a barn for human cattle. – Alexis De Tocquiville
If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized. – Lysander Spooner
The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one's property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage. – Walter Williams
Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women? – Martin Luther
There are three things which I do not want the government choosing for me: my doctor, my school, and my God. – Doug Newman
A personal note to the Founding Fathers: We're sorry. We blew it. You made it possible for us to live free and we blew it. We've given up nearly every personal liberty in the name of a false sense of security sold to the masses by the same type of maniacal government about which you warned us and against which you fought so bravely. We now have to ask permission to take a leak on an airline flight. We never deserved you. – Phil Murphy 7/4/02
The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people. – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President
You can't say you love your country and hate your government. – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President
If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees. – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President
I can spend your money better than you can. – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President
Any president that lies to the American people should have to resign. – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President
Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you. – Benjamin Franklin
Self-interest is not myopic selfishness. It is whatever it is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue. The scientist seeking to advance the frontiers of his discipline, the missionary seeking to convert infidels to the true faith, the philanthropist seeking to bring comfort to the needy – all are pursuing their interests, as they see them, as they judge them by their own values. – Milton Friedman
Suppose the Second amendment said "A well-educated electorate being necessary for self-governance in a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed." Is there anyone who would suggest that means only registered voters have a right to read? – Robert Levy, Georgetown University professor
The majority of Americans get their news and information about what is going on with their government from entities that are licensed by and subject to punishment at the hands of that very government. – Neal Boortz
Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they? – George Carlin
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. – Stanislaw J. Lec
If voting made a difference, they would make it illegal. – Donal Scannell, at the Conference on World Affairs, Boulder CO, 4/6/04
I'd rather live free with some peril than be a protected slave of government. – Dave Duffy
A hallmark of democracy is pressure-group warfare, as each group seeks to claim the status of a majority and exploit all the rest. – Robert Garmong
It makes no difference, in principle, if this "collective will" is divined by the edicts of a dictator or by majority vote – so long as the rights of the individual may still be sacrificed. – Robert Garmong
When a majority rules, a minority is ruled. – Robert Klassen, 10/3/02
It is commonly believed that the rights of the American people come from the Constitution. Nothing could be further from the truth. – Jacob G. Hornberger [Our rights are inalieanable; they exist independently of government, not because of government.]
We get to go to the polls every couple of years and choose between two flavors of the same gruel. The inmates get to elect the guards. Then, having exercised our rights as free citizens of a great social democracy, we go back to obeying orders. – Hal O'Boyle
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a refund from the IRS, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with. – Unknown
The next time some academics tell you how important "diversity" is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department. – Thomas Sowell
The chances of your being harmed by terrorists are mathematically minute. The chance of your being robbed by your own government? That’s easy: 100 per cent. – Joseph Sobran, 1/1/04
A country that goes out of its way to imprison the innocent has no business preaching democracy to the world. – Paul Craig Roberts
A democracy is rule by the majority; a republic is the rule of law. This is a very critical distinction. – Steven LaTulippe
As the state grows, one’s sense of self-ownership is destroyed, liberty is traded for "security," the human spirit diminishes, and the citizenry increasingly thinks and behaves like dependent children. – Eric Englund in Income Taxes, Obesity, and Other Maladies of Nanny Statism 2/28/05.
To shackle future generations, with such monstrous debt and liabilities [$50 trillion+ of unfunded federal liabilities], is tantamount to selling them into tax slavery. – Eric Englund in Income Taxes, Obesity, and Other Maladies of Nanny Statism 2/28/05.
People do not walk barefoot because there are no government shoe factories. – Anonymous
What difference is it to me if a decision is forced upon me by a dictator or by half of my neighbors? Either way my right to free, peaceful action has been nullified. – Stephen H. Foerster
Public School
First, God created idiots. That was just for practice. Then He created school boards. – Mark Twain
Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control. – Jack Hugh
The price of a "free" public education is freedom. – Capitalism.org
Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery. – Benjamin Disraeli, 1874
Public schools are government-established, politician- and bureaucrat-controlled, fully politicized, taxpayer-supported, authoritarian socialist institutions. In fact, the public-school system is one of the purest examples of socialism existing in America. – Thomas L. Johnson
In 1940, teachers were asked what they regarded as the three major problems in American schools. They identified the three major problems as: Littering, noise, and chewing gum. Teachers last year were asked what the three major problems in American schools were, and they defined them as: Rape, assault, and suicide. – William Bennett (1993)
Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed. –Joseph Stalin
Public Schools too often fail because they are shielded from the very force that improves performance and sparks innovation in nearly every other human enterprise – competition. – Robert Lutz/Clark Durant
Education – compulsory schooling, compulsory learning – is a tyranny and a crime against the human mind and spirit. Let all those escape it who can, any way they can. – John Holt
The public school system: "Usually a twelve year sentence of mind control. Crushing creativity, smashing individualism, encouraging collectivism and compromise, destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting it instead into meek subservience to authority." – Walter Karp, Editor Harper's Magazine
I don't want my children fed or clothed by the state, but I would prefer that to their being educated by the state. – Max Victor Belz, Grain dealer, Grundy County, Iowa
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. – Abraham Lincoln
Publics schools are institutions of coercion. Students are coerced to attend them. Parents are coerced to pay for them. – Gary Reed
We've been thoroughly trained in government institutions where every day for twelve of our most impressionable years we took a loyalty oath before starting our work. Hal O'Boyle
If it’s wrong—and it is—for the government to intrude into the churches of our nation, to reshape and affect their basic doctrine and teaching, then it is just as wrong for that same government to be the sponsor of the worldview and values of 90 percent of all our nation’s children. - Joel Belz, World Magazine, October 9, 2004
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer. - lacon: Reflections, No. 322, C. C. Colton, English writer (1780-1832)
A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state. – Isabel Paterson (1886-1961), American Author
Charter schools are just public schools on a slightly longer leash. A dog on a long leash is still a dog on a leash. - Marshall Fritz
For more than 220 years - from the 1620s to the 1840s - most American schooling was independent of government control, subsidy, and influence. From this educational freedom the American Republic was born. - Marshall Fritz
The shocking possibility that dumb people don't exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn't real. - John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education
Who besides a degraded rabble would voluntarily present itself to be graded and classified like meat? No wonder school is compulsory. - John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education
School is the first impression children get of organized society. Like most first impressions it is the lasting one. Life is dull and stupid, only Coke provides relief. And other products, too, of course. - John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education
We must create out of the younger generation a generation of Communists. We must turn children, who can be shaped like wax, into real, good Communists.... We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families. We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them. From the first days of their lives they will be under the healthy influence of Communist children's nurseries and schools. There they will grow up to be real Communists. (1918)- Communist Party Education Workers Congress (1918)
Two centuries ago the United States led the world in a movement to disestablish the monopoly of a single church. Now we need the constitutional disestablishment of the monopoly of the school. - Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, p. 16
It is out of character for a country that prides itself on intellectual freedom to put the education of its young in the hands of the state. - David Kelley, philosopher, author, "Learning the Hard Way," p. 17, Barron's, February 17, 1986
Don't send an eight-year-old out to take on a forty-year-old humanist. ... I have never seen any more unhappy people than fathers or mothers who have come to me and said, "Where did we go wrong? We gave him everything, and now he's turned his back completely on everything we believe." Yes, you gave him everything but a Christian education. - Dr. D. James Kennedy, founder of Coral Ridge Ministries (1930-2007)Training Your Children
The children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone would be interdependent. - John Dewey
A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body. – John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to keep the American people thoughtless enough to go on supporting the system. – Richard Mitchell, founder and publisher of The Underground Grammarian (1929-2002)The Underground Grammarian, The Underground Grammarian
Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role. - William T. Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education 1889-1906 (1835-1909)
Where once a tyrant had to wish that his subjects had but one common neck that he might strangle them all at once, all he has to do now is to 'educate the people' so that they will have but one common mind to delude. – Richard Mitchell, founder and publisher of The Underground Grammarian (1929-2002)The Underground Grammarian
Far too many people in America, both in and out of education, look upon the elementary school as a place to learn reading, writing and arithmetic.- Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, NationalEducation Association Yearbook, 1947
If it would be wrong for the government to adopt an official religion, then, for the same reasons, it would be wrong for the government to adopt official education policies.The moral case for freedom of religion stands or falls with that for freedom of education. A society that champions freedom of religion but at the same time countenances state regulation of education has a great deal of explaining to do. – James R. Otteson, author, professor of philosophy and economics, Freedom of Religion and Public Schooling
"The public policy interest in conducting surveys to gather information to help students outweighs any privacy right to not disclose personal matters." -National School Boards Association
Schools will become clinics whose purpose is to provideindividualized, psycho-social treatment for the student, and teachers must become psycho-social therapists. - "Education for the '70s," Today's Education, January 1969
I'm sure the reason such young nitwits are produced in our schools is because they have no contact with anything of any use in everyday life. - Petronius(d. circa 66 CE), The Satyricon
Logic and reason have largely been supplanted by appeals to emotion. In place of rigorous analytical processes, students are asked to tell how they feel about a particular issue. The “self-esteem” craze that has swept public education essentially produces students by the boatload who don’t really know much, don’t know that they don’t know, but feel real good about their ignorance. - Lawrence W. Reed, president for the Foundation for Economic Education, "The High Cost of Government Schooling," Centre for Individual and Economic Liberty, posted March 29, 2010.
Education for international understanding involves the use of education as a force for conditioning the will of the people. - National Education Association, Education for International Understanding in American Schools, page 33 (1948)
We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause. - Horace Mann, American educator, First Secretary of Education in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, "Father" of public schooling (1796-1859) [Separating School & State, p. 48].
In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from their minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. - John D. Rockefeller, founder of the General Education Board (1839-1937), The Underground History of American Education, p. 45
We shall not try to make these people or any of their chldren into philosophers or men of learning or men of science... The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way... - John D. Rockefeller, founder of the General Education Board (1839-1937), The Underground History of American Education, p. 45
Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself,but that he is public property. Let him be taught to love his family, but let him be taught at the same time that he must forsake and even forget them when the welfare of his country requires it. - Dr. Benjamin Rush, Signer of Declaration of Independence and early reformer (1746-1813), from Separating School & State, How to Liberate America's Families by Sheldon Richman, p. 37
Quite the opposite of feeding inquiry, the true purpose of state schooling, easily established by reading the words of its founders, was always control. The common school removed from discussion many aspects previously universally inseparable from the project of acquiring an education. Compulsion government schooling was never a mechanism of defending freedom but one of truncating it. - Alan Schaeffer, president, Alliance for the Separation of School & State
Homogeneity does not serve people, but rather those who wish to control people. - Alan Schaeffer, president, Alliance for the Separation of School & State
America's great social, political and innovative strength is in decentralization. But that strength, the American spirit, is shackled, to disastrous effect, in the field of education, where the key tenets of socialism, central planning and state monopoly prevail. - Tom Shuford, teacher, journalist (1945-2008), Wall Street Journal, August 2, 1996
Education... has become in most countries at the present day a national concern. The state receives, and often takes, the child from the arms of the mother to hand it over to official agents; the state undertakes to train the heart and to instruct the mind of each generation. Uniformity prevails in the courses of public instruction as in everything else; diversity as well as freedom is disappearing day by day. - Alexis de Tocqueville, French author of Democracy in America (1805-1859), Democracy in America, Volume 2, Fourth Book
Does your school have high academic standards (Percent saying "yes")?
71% of principals
60% of teachers
38% of students
- Report in the January 2002 issue of School Reform News
It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance, and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy. - Albert Shanker, late president, American Federation of Teachers (1928-1997), "Reding, Wrighting & Erithmatic," New York Times, Where We Stand, July 23, 1989