Ron Paul Quotes

Prohibiting guns on campus made the Virginia Tech students less safe, not more.

As an O.B. doctor of thirty years, and having delivered 4,000 babies, I can assure you life begins at conception.

Well, I don't think we should go to the moon. I think we maybe should send some politicians up there.

If you can't protect life, then how can you protect liberty?

If you sacrifice liberty for security, you will lose both.

The people, who far outnumber the would-be dictators, can succeed in a worldwide revolution that fully deprives the dictators of their power. But, any revolt must not lead to just changing the name of the authoritarian system or the political parties in the system. Instead, the revolt must be based on rejecting the trust in government doing the things that only the people can and should do for themselves. This revolt will probably come in stages - in bits and pieces - and be different in the various countries of the world.

Having federal officials, whether judges, bureaucrats, or congressmen, impose a new definition of marriage on the people is an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty.

Do they think if we destroy our freedoms for the terrorists they will no longer have a reason to attack us?

In addition to Eisenhower identifying the military-industrial complex, we now have the police-industrial complex, the medical-industrial complex, the surveillance-industrial complex, and the media-industrial complex.

Peaceful civil disobedience to unjust laws, which I support with every fiber of my being, can sometimes be necessary at any level of government. It falls upon the people, in the last resort, to stand against injustice no matter where it occurs.

America was founded by men who understood that the threat of domestic tyranny is as great as any threat from abroad. If we want to be worthy of their legacy, we must resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society. Otherwise, our own government will become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist.

When we finally decide that drug prohibition has been no more successful than alcohol prohibition, the drug dealers will disappear.

Mr. Speaker, I once again find myself compelled to vote against the annual budget resolution for a very simple reason: it makes government bigger.

Once created, federal programs are nearly impossible to eliminate.

You don't have a right to a house, you don't have a right to a job, you don't have a right to medical care.

It's a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare system. It's a total fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: the military-industrial complex, the bankers, the foreign dictators, it's totally out of control.

The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas. We would not stand for it here, but we have had a globe-straddling empire and a very intrusive foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of hatred and resentment toward us.

The Federal Reserve and Congress have systematically taught the American people to trust the government and that caution in spending is harmful to the economy.

Spain has been massively diverting capital from the private sector into politically favored environmental projects for the better part of a decade ... every green job created, eliminated 2.2 real jobs and cost around $800,000 each!

Thanks to Edward Snowden and others, the great threat from the NSA surveillance is now more clearly understood. Current attacks on our liberties very greatly infringe the freedoms meant to be protected by the First and Fourth Amendments. If a whistle-blower reveals the truth about wrongful government actions, calls arise to charge him with treason for hating America. Allies become enemies when it becomes known that we spy on them as well, as it has now been revealed.

Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution says Congress has the ability to coin money and regulate the currency and doesn't say anything about gold or silver.

All branches of our government today are controlled by individuals who use their power to undermine liberty and enhance the welfare/warfare state-and frequently their own wealth and power,

The state cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man.

If you like small government you need to work hard at having a strong national defense that is not so militant. Personal liberty is the purpose of government, to protect liberty - not to run your personal life, not to run the economy, and not to pretend that we can tell the world how they ought to live.

Have you noticed the debt is exploding? And it's not all because of Medicare.

The theory of the IRS is rather repugnant to me because the assumption is made that I, the government, owns 100% of your income and I permit you to keep 5%, 10% or 20%. You're vulnerable, you've sold out. The government can take 80% if they want, which they did at one time.

The Congress should not be creating money out of thin air, which is what Lincoln did when he created greenbacks. But it is a congressional responsibility to maintain gold and silver as a legal tender.

The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence.

Why is it that some people, you know, think we should obey the Constitution sometimes and not other times.

I hope every person who reads or hears this will take the time to go back and read the Declaration of Independence. Only by recapturing the spirit of independence can we ensure our government never resembles the one from which the American States declared their separation.

For the same reason a disease cannot be cured by more of the germ that caused it, the inflation and debt accumulation of the Obama years will not inflate our way out of it.

If you care about your personal liberty, you'll be cautious when you feel comfortable, blame all the illegal immigrants for everything. What you need to do is attack their benefits: no free education, no free subsidies, no citizenship, no birthright citizenship.

You know, freedom is a very popular idea, and young people love it, and they're open to ideas. And they like principled answers to our problems.

Even if you don't like guns and don't want to own them, you benefit from those who do.

And the irony is that the war purchases are recorded as a positive for economic growth and the GDP. Though the war spending is an economic negative and provides no improvement in the people's standard of living, the government statisticians brag about an upward blip in the GDP. Besides, these bills are paid for by borrowing and printing money, thus increasing future debt obligations and causing higher prices for the next generation.

The most sinister of all taxes is the inflation tax and it is the most regressive. It hits the poor and the middle class. When you destroy a currency by creating money out of thin air to pay the bills, the value of the dollar goes down, and people get hit with a higher cost of living. It's the middle class that's being wiped out. It is most evil of all taxes.

I like Mitt Romney as a person. I think he's a dignified person. But I have no common ground on economics. He doesn't worry about the Federal Reserve. He doesn't worry about foreign policy. He doesn't talk about civil liberties, so I would have a hard time to expect him to ever invite me to campaign with him.

But propaganda, fear, and threats of being accused of being unpatriotic and treasonous are powerful means of controlling the young soldiers who are told their fighting is crucial for the country's survival. It's the young soldiers who must risk and even lose their lives. It's the typical politicians, who have been around for thousands of years, who have continued the carnage with their humanitarian lies and demands for wars.

Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed,

I would like to restore your right to drink raw milk anytime you like.

No wonder frustrated Americans have begun referring to our two parties as the Republicrats. And no wonder the news networks would rather focus on $400 haircuts than matters of substance. There are no matters of substance.

Our country's founders cherished liberty, not democracy.

My message is simple - freedom works a lot better than the authoritarian style of government.

History has shown that the masses have been quite receptive to the promises of authoritarians which are rarely if ever fulfilled.

Ideas are very important for the shaping of society. In fact, they are far more powerful than bombs or armies or guns. And this is because ideas are capable of spreading without limit. They are behind all the choices we make. They can transform the world in a way that governments and armies cannot. Fighting for liberty with ideas makes much more sense to me than fighting with guns or politics or political power. With ideas, we ca make real change that lasts.

Only in a free society do individuals have the best chance to seek virtue, strive for excellence, improve their economic well-being, and achieve personal happiness ... The worthy goals of civilization can only be achieved by freedom loving individuals. When government uses force, liberty is sacrificed and the goals are lost. It is freedom that is the source of all creative energy.

When it comes to the environment and global warming from emissions, it has to be dealt with in one of two ways - preemptive regulations, which I don't agree with, or with private property principles. Nobody has the right to pollute their neighbors' air or water or land.

After years spent in Washington, I have become more aware than ever of the government's ineptness and the likelihood of its making mistakes. I no longer trust the U.S. government to invoke and carry out a death sentence under any conditions.

The president and other government officials denounce school violence, yet still advocate for endless undeclared wars abroad and easy abortion at home. U.S. drone strikes kill thousands, but nobody in America holds vigils or devotes much news coverage to those victims, many of which are children, albeit, of a different color.

Right now, nobody legalized paper money. Where did that come from.

It is a dangerous notion that we need a government to protect us from ourselves.

If you're really serious about protecting people's incomes, you've got to consider how you're going to protect the dollar. If you don't have the dollar maintaining its value, no matter where you put the money you're not going to have any value.

Patriotism never demands obedience to the state but rather obedience to the principles of liberty.

If Iran invaded Israel, it's up to Congress to declare war.

Get rid of IRS; get rid of income tax; get rid of spending.

One thing is certain: those who worked and voted for less government, the very foot soldiers in the conservative revolution, have been deceived. Today, the ideal of limited government has been abandoned by the GOP, and real conservatives find their views no longer matter.

Close Dept. of Education, but don't dismantle public schools.

Nothing good can come from the Federal Reserve. It is the biggest taxer of them all. Diluting the value of the dollar by increasing its supply is a vicious, sinister tax on the poor and middle class.

Washington bureaucrats have classified the very air we exhale as a pollutant and have gone unchallenged in this incredible assertion. The logical consequence is that there will come a time when we will have to buy a government permit just to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from our own lungs!

If economy were good, there'd be no immigration problem.

War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures.

You don't quit because you happen to be behind. You want to see how you do. And who knows? Maybe somebody will stumble.

The cost in terms of liberties lost and the unnecessary exposure to terrorism are difficult to determine, but in time it will become apparent to all of us that foreign interventionism is of no benefit to American citizens, but is instead a threat to our liberties.

A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank.

During World War II, Joseph Stalin was once asked by an American writer, according to Professor Dean Russell, how he could justify conscripting all the property of all the people for use by the government to fight the war. Stalin answered by asking why they considered it more immoral and illogical to conscript lifeless property than to conscript life itself, as was being done in the United States and all other capitalistic countries. His American challenger had no answer, because there was no answer.

Expect the rapidly expanding homeschool movement to play a significant role in the revolutionary reforms needed to rebuild a free society with constitutional protections.

The freer the market is and the more respect you have for private property, the better the environment is protected.

We need to get the government out of the way. Inflation hits the middle class and the poor the most. Those are the people who are losing it. We don't have enough competition. There's a doctor monopoly out there. We need alternative health care freely available to the people. They ought to be able to make their own choices and not controlled by the FDA preventing them to use some of the medications.

Another term for preventive war is aggressive war - starting wars because someday somebody might do something to us. That is not part of the American tradition.

The catch-all phrase "the war on terrorism", in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against "criminal gangsterism". Terrorism is a tactic. You can't have a war against a tactic. It's deliberately vague and non-definable in order to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere and under any circumstance.

Rubio's sudden concern for the humanitarian situation in Venezuela smacks of hypocrisy, as he supported all US sanctions that have made life for Venezuelans miserable.

In a free society we're supposed to know the truth.. In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.. This is media, isn't it? I mean, why don't we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?

The Cap and Trade Bill HR 2454 was voted on last Friday. Proponents claim this bill will help the environment, but what it really does is put another nail in the economy's coffin.

I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights.

There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA.

No matter how many pro-freedom politicians we elect to office, the only way to guarantee constitutional government is through an educated and activist public devoted to the ideals of liberty.

We must remember, elections are short-term efforts. Revolutions are long-term projects.

I'm an imperfect messenger, but the message is perfect.

No one talks about the real ethics disaster in Washington. It's that many members of Congress will listen to any argument against a bill except for two: that it's not moral or that it's not Constitutional.

Aggression and forced redistribution of wealth has nothing to do with the teachings of the world's great religions.

Why does the U.S. care which flag will be hoisted on a small piece of land thousands of miles away?

I never would force the Justice Department to go to California and arrest people getting medical marijuana, when that's the law there.

In time it will become clear to everyone that support for the policies of pre-emptive war and interventionist nation-building will have much greater significance than the removal of Saddam Hussein itself.

We must educate ourselves and others about our precious civil liberties to ensure that we never accept demands that we give up our Constitution so that the government can pretend to protect us.

The Founding Fathers realized that "the power to tax is the power to destroy," which is why they did not give the Federal government the power to impose an income tax. Needless to say, the Founders would be horrified to know that Americans today give more than a third of their income to the Federal government.

We need to understand the more government spends, the more freedom is lost ... Instead of simply debating spending levels, we ought to be debating whether the departments, agencies, and programs funded by the budget should exist at all.

It's not part of our Constitution to assume that we are the world's policemen.

The law cannot make a wicked person virtuous ... God's grace alone can accomplish such a thing.

Everyone assumes America must play the leading role in crafting some settlement or compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Jefferson, Madison, and Washington explicitly warned against involving ourselves in foreign conflicts.

A majority that yields to the promises of security instead of seeking liberty and self-reliance is giving up something real and valuable in return for false promises. The fact that strong leaders are willing to demagogue, spin, deceive, and lie proves their goal is neither to care for the people nor to advance liberty. Instead, it's their perverted desire to rule over others that drives them. But, even authoritarian regimes don't last if there isn't general acceptance of their governance by the people.

I have come to one firm conviction after these many years of trying to figure out the plain truth of things. The best chance for achieving peace and prosperity, for the maximum number of people worldwide, is to pursue the cause of liberty. If you find this to be a worthwhile message, spread it throughout the land.

Young people are not raw material to be employed by the political class on behalf of whatever fashionable political, military, or social cause catches its fancy. In a free society, their lives are not the playthings of government.

The system that existed in Germany at that time tragically prevented the people from protecting themselves from tyrannical government. This is a system many people vehemently want to impose in America.

Today's events are reminiscent of the Old Testament story of how the Israelites demanded a king over God's objection. They believed that a king would give them peace and security. The results proved otherwise.

Immigrants can spread diseases for which we may have no immunity. There is also the question of crime and culture. Many immigrants come from countries with different legal structures and are not willing to behave in the way we expect American citizens to behave.

We have to restore confidence that the marketplace can deliver services as well as it can goods.

I'm worried that the government might kill Edward Snowden with a drone.
Ron Paul

Too many members of Congress believe they can solve all economic problems, cure all social ills, and bring about worldwide peace and prosperity simply by creating new federal programs.

The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union
complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether.

The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.