This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Bertrand de Jouvenel, fully Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins
Ever increase of state authority must involve an immediate diminution of the liberty of each citizen.
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
The more law and orders are multiplied, the more theft and violence increase.
Law |
Persuasion that property and freedom are inseparably connected, and that economic leveling is not economic progress. Separate property from private possession, and liberty is erased.
Freedom | Liberty | Persuasion | Progress | Property |
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its justice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.
Conscience | Individual | Justice | Law | Reality | Respect | Respect |
The law of our life can be summed up in the axiom “be what you are.”
Nobody ought to be compelled in matters of religion either by law or force.
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
There is no other way of guarding one’s self against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect. A prudent prince must therefore take a third course, by choosing for his council wise men, and giving these alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else; but he must ask them about everything and hear their opinion, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way.
Flattery | Giving | Liberty | Men | Nothing | Opinion | Respect | Self | Truth | Will | Wise | Understand |
[McClaughry’s Law of Public Policy] Politicians who vote huge expenditures to alleviate problems get reelected; those who propose structural changes to prevent problems get early retirement.
Law | Policy | Problems | Public | Retirement |
Fourscore and seven years ago our father brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Charles De Montesquieu, formally Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.