Conservative thinking throughout the ages

Every once in a while, I go through my files to “clean house” and usually that results in a couple reports that have been inspired by the process. This time I came across my bulging file of quotations and as soon as I started to read through some of the material, a report was born.
Our Form of Government
• The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered . . . deeply, . . . finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. –George Washington
• Here, sir, the people govern. –Alexander Hamilton
• The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. –Daniel Webster
• Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives. –Ronald Reagan
• The power to do good is also the power to do harm. –Milton Friedman
American Exceptionalism
• We are a nation that has a government – not the other way around . . . Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. –Ronald Reagan
• I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government; Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe. –John Adams
Individual Rights
• Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them . . . –Samuel Adams
• The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. –Milton Friedman
• In democratic society each citizen is habitually busy with the contemplation of a very petty object, which is himself. –Alexis de Tocqueville
Freedom and Liberty
• They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety –Benjamin Franklin
• Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. –Milton Friedman
• Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom. –Alexis de Tocqueville
Equality
• Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality. –Friedrich Hayek
• . . . notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. –Alexis de Tocqueville
• A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers. –Friedrich Hayek
The Free Market
• [Socialists] believe that our economic life . . . should substitute “economic planning” for the competitive system. –Friedrich Hayek
• The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit. –Milton Friedman
Tyranny
• If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people. . . must. . . take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution . . .  –Alexander Hamilton
• The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. –John Adams
Peace through Strength
• Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong. –Ronald Reagan
• Peace is not absence of conflict; it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. – Ronald Reagan
The Rule of Law
• . . . Rule of Law—Stripped of technicalities this means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand – rules that make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers . . . –Friedrich Hayek
• They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. –John Adams
• We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker . . . each individual is accountable . . . —Ronald Reagan