Voluntary Quotes
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The militia is a voluntary force not associated or under the control of the States except when called out; a permanent or long standing force would be entirely different in make-up and call.
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More Voluntary Quotes
Collectivists would have you believe that individualism is merely another word for selfishness, because individualists oppose welfare and other forms of coercive redistribution of wealth, but just the opposite is true. Individualists advocate true charity, which is the voluntary giving of their own money, while collectivists advocate the coercive giving of other people's money; which, of course, is why it is so popular.
g. edward griffon— The Chasm: The Future Is Calling (Part One) (2003–2009)
The idea of freedom can never be disassociated from real Prussia. The real Prussian spirit means a synthesis between restraint and freedom, between voluntary subordination and conscientious leadership, between pride in oneself and consideration for others, between rigor and compassion. Unless a balance is kept between these qualities, the Prussian spirit is in danger of degenerating into soulless routine and narrow-minded dogmatism.
henning von tresckow— 1943, at his sons' confirmation at Potsdam Garrison Church. Michael Balfour, Withstanding Hitler, 1988, p130
Proudhon was a voluntary hermit in the political world of the nineteenth century. He sought no followers, indignantly rebuffed suggestions that he had created as system of any kind, and almost certainly rejoiced in the fact that he accepted the title anarchist in virtual isolation.
George Woodcock— Prologue (Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962))
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.
— Mahatma Gandhi, "An Autobiography OR The story of my experiments with truth", Chapter 27, Recruiting Campaign, from a leaflet urging Indians to serve with the British Army in World War II. [5]
It is hardest of all to give up the last slivers and shreds of objectivity, but only by doing so can faith finally free itself from all that is outworn and become as fully voluntary, creative and courageous as it isrequired to be today.
Rev Don Cupitt— 1984 The Sea of Faith.
He shouldered high his voluntary Cross, Wrestled his hardships into forms of beauty, And taught his gorgon destinies to sing.
(Ignatius) Roy Dunnachie Campbell— 'Luis de Camões' (1943)
Work is the best and worst of all things; the best of it is voluntary, the worst of it is servile.
Émile chartier— Happy Farmers
Learning is not compulsory; it's voluntary. Improvement is not compulsory; it's voluntary. But to survive, we must learn.
w. edwards deming— Deming: The Way We Knew Him (1995)
— Note: This quote is often cited as “Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival.”
So long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service, we have sustained our forward progress, and we have made our labor movement something to be respected and accorded a place in the councils of the Republic. Where we have blundered into trying to force a policy or decision, even though wise and right, we have impeded if not interrupted the realization of our own aims.
samuel gompers— AF of L Convention Proceedings. American Federation of Labor. 1924. pp. 5–6.
"While there is a reasonable possibility that a peacetime armed force could be entirely voluntary, I am certain that an armed force involved in a major conflict could not be voluntary”
crawford greenewalt— in a letter to Thomas Gates in 1969 as a member of the President's Commission on the All Volunteer Force.
In a free system any large, popular, revolutionary movement should be able to bring about its ends by such a voluntary process. As more and more people see how it works more and more will wish to participate in or support it. And so it will grow, without being necessary to force everyone or a majority or anyone into the pattern.
Robert Nozick— Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; Utopian Means and Ends, p. 327
Devotion to GOD is still a voluntary thing; hence the differences of attainment among Christians.”
james hudson taylor— (J. Hudson Taylor. Separation and Service: Or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. London: Morgan & Scott, n.d., 13.)
A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.
william wordsworth— Preface (Lyrical Ballads (1798-1800))
A confession is wholly and incontestably voluntary only if a guilty person gives himself up to the law and becomes his own accuser.
robert h. jackson— Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U.S. 143, 161 (1944).
A familiar question for Australians is how much we are a product of our circumstances, and how much we are what we have made ourselves to be. In truth, by the act of migration the country was made: by that voluntary act and by the emigrants' ambitions it was built.
paul keating— Address to the Dáil Éireann, the lower house of parliament of the Republic of Ireland, 20 September, 1993.
No Bolshevik, no Communist, no intelligent socialist has ever entertained the idea of violence against the middle peasants. All socialists have always spoken of agreement with them and of their gradual and voluntary transition to socialism.
— "Reply to a Peasant’s Question" (15 February 1919); Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 501
From dwarf tossing to drug taking: The legislator has no place in voluntary exchanges between consenting adults, as dodgy and as dangerous as these might be.
ilana mercer— “In Defense of Jacko’s Doctor,” WorldNetDaily.com, November 11, 2011.
If an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.
Milton Friedman— Milton Friedman, Free to Choose (1980), Chapter 1
A confession is wholly and incontestably voluntary only if a guilty person gives himself up to the law and becomes his own accuser.
— Robert H. Jackson, Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U.S. 143, 161 (1944).
In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions and interests dictate.
— Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan (1967) Capitalism: the unknown ideal. p. 19
Under the contract, the natural mother is irrevocably committed before she knows the strength of her bond with her child. She never makes a totally voluntary, informed decision, for quite clearly any decision prior to the baby's birth is, in the most important sense, uninformed, and any decision after that, compelled by a pre-existing contractual commitment....
— Robert Wilentz, Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, Baby M, 1988.
One difference between libertarianism and socialism is that a socialist society can't tolerate groups of people practicing freedom, but a libertarian society can comfortably allow people to choose voluntary socialism. If a group of people even a very large group wanted to purchase land and own it in common, they would be free to do so. The libertarian legal order would require only that no one be coerced into joining or giving up his property.
— David D. Boaz, in "The Coming Libertarian Age" in Cato Policy Report (January/February 1997)
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
— Richard Stallman, 'Dutch paedophiles form political party', 5 June, 2006.
Addiction may be something to which some of us are predisposed, like diabetes, rather than a voluntary behavior but it’s also reversible. A "disease model" of alcoholism and other addictions in no way diminishes our personal accountability once we know the facts. It simply suggests how hard recovery will be, and how much help we need.
— John Leonard, "Can't Get Enough," New York Magazine (1998-05-23).
Anarchism means voluntary co-operation instead of forced participation. It means harmony and order in place of interference and disorder.
— Alexander Berkman, in "Is Anarchy Possible?" in ABC of Anarchism (1929)
