A Quote by Ayn Rand

The government has created a nation of paper criminals. People can be put in jail and lose civil rights and liberties through bureaucratic procedures.The only thing that is keeping you out of jail is government goodwill.

Ayn Rand

Quote Topics

Bureaucratic Civil Civil Rights Created Criminals Goodwill Government Jail Keeping Liberties Lose Nation Only Out Paper People Procedures Put Rights The Only Thing Thing Through

Quote Author

Ayn Rand
Russian - Writer
February 2, 1905 - March 6, 1982

Civil liberties are a great heritage for Americans. They are not rights that the government gives to the people, they are the rights that the people carved out for themselves when they created the government.

Edward Bennett Williams

Now here's somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he's caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That's the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons.

Milton Friedman

But if you go over the line, you don't want to get stuck in a Nevada State court room. Honestly, because Nevada has been doing a good job of putting California criminals in jail. I mean, we couldn't put OJ in jail, but they did. We couldn't put Paris Hilton in jail, but they did.

James Belushi

When you go to jail, you are under the supervision of the state. You are housed with people who are criminals, so that becomes the expectation. People learn to become better criminals in jail and prison.

Carl Hart

On human rights, civil rights and environmental quality, I consider myself to be very liberal. On the management of government, on openness of government, on strengthening individual liberties and local levels of government, I consider myself a conservative. And I don't see that the two attitudes are incompatible.

Jimmy Carter

Churchill was a brilliant and inspiring rhetorician, but one of the first things he did as the head of the British nation was to put German Jews in jail. Tens of thousands of Jews - who had just been fortunate enough to get out from under Hitler only a few years before - spent the entire war in jail.

Nicholson Baker

Liberal Democrats in government will not follow the last Labour government by sounding the retreat on the protection of civil liberties in the United Kingdom. It continues to be essential that our civil liberties are safeguarded, and that the state is not given the powers to snoop on its citizens at will.

Nick Clegg

Government is not capable of caring. Government gets things done through coercion. They fine, they penalize, they tax, they confiscate, they jail, they bully to get what they want.

Rush Limbaugh

The first duty of government is to protect the citizen from assault. Unless it does this, all the civil rights and civil liberties in the world aren't worth a dime.

Richard Viguerie

People don't understand that you can actually lose your life going to jail. There's more violence in the jail-house than there is on the streets.

Snoop Dogg

You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. ... Government contains impure ingredients - as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you. ... government practices deceptive advertising. And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud. ... in a nutshell: government should be against the law. Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.

P. J. O'Rourke

God ordained and established civil government, but only to serve the common good. A civil government that oppresses its people and acts contrary to the people's interests deposes itself, ceases to be a legitimate government, and, therefore, citizens are no longer obligated by Scripture to obey it.

Daniel L Dreisbach

The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.

Ayn Rand

I have nothing to lose by standing up and following my beliefs. So I'll go to jail, so what? We have been in jail for years.

Muhammad Ali

I was whisked away by the Rajasthan police from Ahmedabad as soon as they realised I had applied for bail. They first put me in a filthy cell in the police station, then took me to jail where I was locked up with five hardcore criminals. It was a nightmare. We had to sleep on the cold floor. That's where one sleeps in jail.