Samizdata

It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in cases involving not very nice people.
-Felix Frankfurter

That government being instituted for the common benefit, the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
– Article I Section 2 of the Constitution of Tennessee

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
– Benjamin Franklin

Or: We must preserve our freedoms or the bad guys win.
– P.J. Connolly, InfoWorld Magazine

Being young in those times meant suppressing the sound of one’s own breathing.
-Akira Kurosawa, describing pre-WWII Japan

The Moving Finger blogs; and, having blogged,
Moves on: fortunately my Piety and Wit
Can lure it back to cancel half a Line,
and all my Tears wash out a Word of it
Thank goodness for delete functions
-The Rubaiyat of Samizdata Illuminatus

It is impossible to save souls by coercing bodies. There is no such thing as a forced conversion. Men can behave morally only when they have the option of behaving immorally.
-Marc Glendening (one of the speakers at the Liberty Conference, see below, in his contribution to The New Right Enlightenment, Economic and Literary Books, 1985)