James Otis Quotes

One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle.

The house is a castle which the King cannot enter.

The house of every one is to him as his castle.

Our economic freedom is founded on individual property rights; government should never be permitted to take those away.

The absolute rights of individuals may be resolved into the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right to enjoy and acquire property

Make no mistake. Without individual property, none are free.

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands, and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this most sacred property.

We throw to the winds the old dogma that governments can give rights. Before governments were organized, no one denies that each individual possessed the right to protect his own life, liberty and property.

You see, what makes us different than the rest of the world fundamentally is our American respect and legal appreciation of individual rights and individual property. And, I emphasize - individual.

The protection of a man's person is more sacred than the protection of his property.

Private property is one of the best institutions which has ever evolved, to protect us from the bullying of others.

[A] republic . . . [is] a government, in which the property of the public, or people, and of every one of them was secure and protected by law . . . implies liberty; because property cannot be secured unless the man be at liberty to acquire, use or part with it, at his discretion, and unless he have his personal liberty of life and limb, motion and rest, for that purpose.

Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

This provision (the 4th Amendment) speaks for itself. Its plain object is to secure the perfect enjoyment of that great right of the common law, that a man's house shall be his own castle, privileged against all civil and military intrusion.

That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.

Right to privacy is really important. You pull that brick out and another and pretty soon the house falls.

It is admitted that all men have an equal right to the enjoyment of their life, property and personal security; and it is the duty as it is the object, of government to protect every man in this enjoyment.

How is property given? By restraining liberty; that is, by taking it away so far as necessary for the purpose. How is your house made yours? By debarring every one else from the liberty of entering it without your leave.

Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws.

For a man's house is his castle, et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium [and one's home is the safest refuge to everyone].

My whinstone house my castle is, I have my own four walls.

As the liberal sees it, the task of the state consists solely and exclusively in guaranteeing the protection of life, health, liberty, and private property against violent attacks. Everything that goes beyond this is an evil. A government that, instead of fulfilling its task, sought to go so far as actually to infringe on personal security of life and health, freedom, and property would, of course, be altogether bad.

The right to life is the source of all rights -- and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

Still less, let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own. The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.