Paul Ryan Quotes

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

Individual liberty, the basic underpinning of American society, requires constant defense against the encroachment of the state.

I believe in the America people's ability to govern themselves. If government would just get out of the way and allow them to lead their lives as they choose, they will succeed.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

The liberty of the individual is a necessary postulate of human progress.

People should be free, people should be unencumbered by regulation as much as possible, that big government always goes corrupt and the truth shall always set you free.

I follow a set of principles, I follow the Constitution. And that's what I base my votes on. Limited government, economic freedom and individual liberty.

The liberal, emphasizing the civil and property rights of the individual, insists that the individual must remain so supreme as to make the state his servant.

[Guarantees of freedom] will be found to consist in the highest protection of the individual and of society, chiefly against public power, because it is necessarily from this power that the greatest danger threatens the citizen, or that the most serious infringement of untrammeled action is to be feared.

The early American knew that freedom was nothing more than the absence of external restraint on behavior; the government could not give you freedom, it could only take it away.

It appears first, that liberty is a natural, and government an adventitious right, because all men were originally free.

Because of my upbringing, I believe in things like limited government, fiscal responsibility and personal accountability. I believe in the wisdom of our founders and the sanctity of our Constitution.

The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.

Our Constitution was put together for a free people.

I want my candidacy for the presidency of the United States to stand for a moment when we the people, stand once again for the independence from a government that has gotten too big and spends too much and has taken away too much of our liberties.

The job of the government isn't to go around and try and make people sacrifice, it's to try and make people free. The reason why we have a national defense is to protect our freedoms.

I call myself a liberal - a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.

I mean to defend the rights of individuals in a liberal prospect.

While democracy must have its organization and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.

Just the concept of personal freedom within a democracy, for instance, is a relatively young idea - only about 300 years old in this country.

Americans chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them.

America stands for individual liberty, but that means an ordered liberty.

Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.

A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation.

The less government we have, the better—the fewer laws, and the less confided power.