Quote

Tyrants always condemn and seek to replace the market process with government coercion because tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrants think they should do.

Walter E. Williams

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Walter E. Williams
Age: 84 †
Born: 1936
Born: March 31
Died: 2020
Died: December 1
Columnist
Economist
Journalist
Radio Personality
University Teacher
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Walter Williams
Walter Edward Williams
People
Market
Seek
Trust
Voluntarily
Process
Behaving
Government
Coercion
Always
Condemn
Think
Replace
Thinking
Tyrants

More quotes by Walter E. Williams

Image
True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Charity is reaching into one's own pockets to assist his fellow man in need. Reaching into someone else's pocket to assist one's fellow man hardly qualifies as charity. When done privately, we deem it theft, and the individual risks jail time.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Students who are alien and hostile to the education process ought to be removed. You say, What will we do with them? I say that's a secondary issue. The first priority is to stop thugs from making education impossible for everyone else.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Trying to get government to be as efficient as business is as hopeless as trying to teach cats to bark and dogs to meow.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Many of the wonderful achievements of the 20th century were the result of the pursuit of profits. Unfortunately, demagoguery has led to profits becoming a dirty word. Nonprofit is seen as more righteous, particularly when people pompously stand before us and declare, 'We're a nonprofit organization.'
Walter E. Williams
Image
Universities have failed in their function of the pursuit of academic excellence by having dumbed down classes and granting degrees to students who are just barely literate and computationally incompetent.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good.
Walter E. Williams
Image
No matter how worthy the cause, it is robbery, theft, and injustice to confiscate the property of one person and give it to another to whom it does not belong.
Walter E. Williams
Image
If the States do not have the right to secede, then they have no rights at all.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Always be suspicious of those who pretend to know it all, claim their way is the best way and are willing to force their way on the rest of us.
Walter E. Williams
Image
You can bet the rent money that whatever politicians do will end up harming consumers. ... Economic ignorance is to politicians what idle hands are to the devil. Both provide the workshop for the creation of evil.
Walter E. Williams
Image
The greatest percentage of poverty is found in female-headed households. Over 70 percent of female-headed households are poor. A large percentage of poor people are children (17 percent) fully 85 percent of black children living in poverty reside in a female-headed household.
Walter E. Williams
Image
We should view our government the way we should a friendly, cuddly lion. Just because he's friendly and cuddly shouldn't blind us to the fact that he's still got teeth and claws.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Once Congress establishes that one person can live at the expense of another, it pays for everyone to try to do so.
Walter E. Williams
Image
The public good is promoted best by people pursuing their own private interests. This bothers some people because they're more concerned with motives than with results.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Tariff policy beneficiaries are always visible, but its victims are mostly invisible. Politicians love this. The reason is simple: The beneficiaries know for whom to cast their ballots, and the victims don't know whom to blame for their calamity.
Walter E. Williams
Image
Preaching doom and gloom has been beneficial to the political class. They use it to gain more power and control.
Walter E. Williams
Image
The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not now, the normal state of human affairs. The normal state for the ordinary person is tyranny, arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own government.
Walter E. Williams