Note 1: Quotes are quite effective at expressing the intuition behind a particular argument. Still, they are no substitute for the full argument. Injudicious use of these quotes in arguments may lead to your opponent thinking you are an unrealistic ideologue. Use as appropriate.
Note 2: Quite a few of these quotes have been copied from here.
Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.
- Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man"
The whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.
- Henry Hazlitt, "Economics in One Lesson"
Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it [..] gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want.
- Milton Friedman, "Capitalism and Freedom"
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
- Douglas Adams
When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will.
- Frederic Bastiat
The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.
- Frederic Bastiat
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them… We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
-Karl Popper
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle / the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.
- Karl Popper
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
-
Barry Goldwater
Now what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffers, not the state.
- Mark Twain
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
- Mark Twain
See, when the Government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of Taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs.
-Dave Barry
A saint said "Let the perfect city rise.
Here needs no long debate on subtleties,
Means, end,
Let us intend
That all be clothed and fed; while one remains
Hungry our quarreling but mocks his pains.
So all will labor to the good
In one phalanx of brotherhood."
A man cried out "I know the truth, I, I,
Perfect and whole. He who denies
My vision is a madman or a fool
Or seeks some base advantage in his lies.
All peoples are a tool that fits my hand
Cutting you each and all
Into my plan."
They were one man.
-David Friedman, "The Machinery of Freedom"
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you:
- Cassius, Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar"
(In plain English: "I'd rather not live at all than live in awe of man as ordinary as myself. I was born as free as Caesar; so were you")
Lord, enlighten thou our
enemies. Sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecu-
tiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers: we are in danger from their
folly, not from their wisdom; their weakness is what fills us with apprehension,
not their strength.
- J. S. Mill, "Essay on Coleridge"
There are wavelengths that people cannot see, there are sounds that people cannot hear, and maybe computers have thoughts that people cannot think.
- Richard Hamming
The mind cannot foresee its own advance.
- Friedrich Hayek
[...] the question "Can machines think?" is [...] just as relevant as the equally burning question "Can submarines swim?"
- Edgar Dijkstra
Son, don't marry for money; hang around rich girls and marry for love.
- Chip Morningstar, via Robin Hanson
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
- H.L. Mencken
The love of the intellectual Indian for the village community is of course infinite, if not pathetic. What is a village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow mindedness and communalism?
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.
- Bjarne Stroustrup
A good intuitive economist approaches a practical problem by asking "What is the relevant scarcity hindering a better outcome?" If we haven't posed this query, and assembled at least the beginnings of an answer, we may founder. For instance, we might make the mistake of throwing more money at a problem, when money is not what is needed. By identifying the relevant scarcity, we learn where to direct the incentives.
- Tyler Cowen
In 1969, the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy held a hearing at which the physicist Robert Wilson was called to testify. Wilson, who had served as the chief of experimental nuclear physics for the Manhattan Project, was at that point the head of CERN's main rival, Fermilab, and in charge of $250 million that Congress had recently allocated for the lab to build a new collider. Senator John Pastore, of Rhode Island, wanted to know the rationale behind a government expenditure of that size. Did the collider have anything to do with promoting "the security of the country"?
WILSON: No sir, I don't believe so.
PASTORE: Nothing at all?
WILSON: Nothing at all.
PASTORE: It has no value in that respect?
WILSON: It only has to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. . . . It has to do with are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate in our country and are patriotic about. . . . It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending.
- Taken from a New Yorker article on particle physics
Well, I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things: first, the streets weren't paved with gold; second, they weren't paved at all; and third, I was expected to pave them."
- unknown Italian immigrant to the U.S.
"It does not take a long time," said madame, "for an earthquake to swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare the earthquake?"
"A long time, I suppose," said Defarge.
"But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everything before it. In the meantime, it is always preparing, though it is not seen or heard."
- from Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities"
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
- John Lennon
"The fact that there is a problem does not automatically imply that there is also a solution."
- Megan McArdle (in the context of policy issues)