Quotes from Harry Browne

You owe it to yourself to be the best person possible. Because if you are, others will want to be with you, want to provide you with the things you want in exchange for what you're giving to them.

It is well known that in war, the first casualty is truth - that during any war truth is forsaken for propaganda.

For most of our history, Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats.

Freedom and responsibility aren't interconnected things. They are the same thing.

World War II has always been of great interest to me. I've known for decades that it was just one more war the politicians suckered us into.

Security... it's simply the recognition that changes will take place and the knowledge that you're willing to deal with whatever happens.

You don't need an explanation for everything, Recognize that there are such things as miracles - events for which there are no ready explanations. Later knowledge may explain those events quite easily.

Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free.

The American way was for commerce, personal relationships, and religion to be voluntary. No one was forced to participate in something he didn't want.

Like many people, most Libertarians feel empathy and sympathy for less fortunate people. But they know you can't have perfection in a world of limited resources.

The communitarians may say you've been enjoying too much individual freedom, and that you must give up some of that for the benefit of the community. But they really mean that they want more power over your life - to force you to subsidize, obey and conform to their choices.

If younger people see older people who haven't planned ahead and have to rely on charity, the young will be more likely to provide for the future. Today when someone plans poorly, the only consequence people see is a demand for more government.

Each person is living for himself his own happiness is all he can ever personally feel.

The income tax is the biggest single intrusion suffered by the American people. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes billions of dollars. It penalizes savings and creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy. It is incompatible with a free society, and we aren't libertarians if we tolerate it.

The press is hostile to the idea of liberty. Most people in the press are for big government. Most people think that the solution to anything, whether it's health care problems, education, whatever it is -- it's got to be more government.

We should never define libertarian positions in terms coined by liberals and conservatives, nor as some variant of their positions. We are not fiscally conservative and socially liberal. We are libertarians, who believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility on all issues at all times.

Hitler couldn't have conquered Europe without the help provided by the governments of the occupied nations.

Obviously the answer to the threat of communism (or any other enemy) is not a stronger government to defend us but just the opposite. We'd be far safer if there were no government to conquer.

It is not how long you work at some task that determines what you'll receive for it in exchange. It is the value someone else places upon the product or service that determines what it is worth in exchange. Your "costs" are not important to the other person. He only cares about the value of the product to himself. What he'll pay to get your service is based solely on the value he places upon the object

As Frederic Bastiat put it, "The State is the great fictitious entity by which everyone expects to live at the expense of everyone else."[8]

The more directly individual rewards are tied to individual achievements, the greater incentive there is to increase one's individual effort. Joint Efforts

But the objective of freedom is quite realistic; only the methods have been wrong. Don't be awed by the government. Don't confront it directly. Don't organize.

So while the totalitarian state may include a TV camera in every room, I doubt that the camera will work.

You can't control the natures of other people, but you can control how you'll deal with them. And you can also control the extent and manner in which you'll be involved with them.