Walter E. Williams Quotes

I believe in small government and people taking care of themselves.

Self Control, Not State Control

The more reason, the less government.

I eat and breathe small government and freedom.

Anyone who wants to see a very free world does not want government. I also don't like being extorted or being aggressed against by others.

We are free today because we are the stronger; we will be slaves again when the government becomes the stronger.

The denial of the right of ownership to a man is a denial of his basic freedom: freedom without property is always incomplete. To be "secured" - but with no accompanying responsibility - is to be the slave of whatever group provides the security.

Voluntary exchange is more moral than forced redistribution.

That is the crux of modern conservatism - government taking strong measures to foster the attitudes and aptitudes necessary for increased individual independence.

[Freedom] is the greatest of political goods. I do not say freedom is the greatest of all goods: the best things come from within they are such things as creative art, and love, and thought. Such things can be helped or hindered by political conditions, but not actually produced by them; and freedom is, both in itself and in its relation to these other goods the best thing that political and economic conditions can secure.

He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means "I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve". It's easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.

There are many things the government cant do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people. It cannot convert the people.

We [entrepreneurs] required that you leave us free to function -- free to think and work as we choose ... -- free to earn our own profits and make our own fortunes ... Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high.

It is unjust to exact that men shall do out of deference to our advice what they have no desire to do for themselves.

The function of State coercion is to override individual coercion, and, of course, coercion exercised by any association of individuals within the State. It is by this means that it maintains liberty of expression, security of person and property, genuine freedom of contract, the rights of public meeting and association, and finally its own power to carry out common objects undefeated by the recalcitrance of individual members.

In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.

Do Libertarians care about the poor? Well, we're not ladening them down with debt, we're not sending them off to God damned wars, we're not creating a permanent underclass, we're not trapping them in shitty schools where they graduate unable to read, WE DO CARE ABOUT THE POOR, and that's why we want the State out of their way!!

The greatness of America is in the American people. And what we need to do is get the government the hell out of the way and let the American people win once again.

The State in organising security should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility, in establishing a national minimum it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than the minimum for himself and his family.

Keeping your commitment to your purpose does not depend on other people keeping theirs.

People are going to do stupid things, but you don't take away the freedom because somebody makes a stupid decision.

I think that you're just as close to Jesus if you use the equipment he gave you other than to call on him to do for you what you can do for yourself.

He only has freedom who ideally loves freedom himself and is glad to extend it to others. He who cares to have slaves must chain himself to them. He who builds walls to create exclusion for others builds walls across his own freedom. He who distrusts freedom in others loses his moral right to it.

No government on earth can make men, who have realized freedom in their hearts, salute against their will.

If the Conservative is less anxious than his Liberal brethren to increase Social Security ‘benefits,’ it is because he is more anxious than his Liberal brethren that people be free throughout their lives to spend their earnings when and as they see fit