C. S. Lewis Quotes

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or in other words a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read and say and eat and drink and wear.

Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself.

I don't think my position unusual for a woman. I'm following a perfectly natural urge to do what I like.

Simply because the nanny-state wants to hug you doesn't mean it's not tyrannical if you don't want to be hugged.

a little of the ready reliance on the expert comes from the desire to waive responsibillity, comes from the endless evasion of life instead of an honest facing of it. The expert is to many what the priest is, someone who knows absolutely and can tell us what to do. The king, the priest, the expert, have one after the other had our allegiance, but so far as we put any of them in the place of ourselves, we have not a sound society and neither individual nor general progress.

I let everyone follow his own bent, that I may be free to follow mine.

The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.

Government cannot be your parent.

Do what you do for the sheer joy of it, Do what you choose,not what someone else chooses for you.

I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress.

I go where I'm stimulated. If I'm stimulated, I show up. As Mick Jagger sings: It's my life and I'll do what I want.

We can't live other people's lives for them. Even if we love them.

I was very much influenced by a great book by the scholar Neil Richards called Intellectual Privacy, that [Louis] Brandeis changed his mind on the proper balance between dignity and free speech.

I'm not living my life under the spotlight for anybody.

I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today.

Self respect is impossible without liberty.

I think it's a scary thing for a lot of people to think of the government not being involved in their lives, particularly single women.

There’s a lot of things wrong with this country, but one of the few things still right with it is that a man can steer clear of the organized bullshit if he really wants to. It’s a goddamned luxury, and if I were you, I’d take advantage of it while you can.

You can't let nobody run your train.

Liberty is dangerous, as hard to get along with as it is exciting.

Any kind of dictatorship, I'm uneasy. I just don't like dictators. I don't like crowds. I don't like hordes, and I don't like other people telling me what to do. This is probably a reaction against people telling me what to do when I was a kid. I won't join any group, espouse a cause against some other people.

Liberty may be an uncomfortable blessing unless you know what to do with it. That is why so many freed slaves returned to their masters, why so many emancipated women are only too glad to give up the racket and settle down. For between announcing that you will live your own life, and the living of it lie the real difficulties of any awakening.

Big-government liberals don't like people with a sense of independence because independent people don't need big government.

Society demands conformity at the expense of individual liberty. Let us be for once a non conformist to be fully alive.

Human progress having reached a high level through respect for the liberty and dignity of men, it has become desirable to re-affirm these evident truths