Most collections of greed quotes are soundly against the concept of greed. Why, then, are we presenting quotes in favor of one of the seven deadly sins? It’s not because we get off on controversy. Greed, whether you like it or not, is one of our inextricable impulses which makes us all human. Whether we would become better or worse off without greed is moot. You could no sooner rid people of greed than you could rid them of vertebrae or blood cells.

Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of Guy Montag, a “fireman” whose job is to do the flambéing. Nearly everyone in Montag’s world is a vapid twit, and would no sooner pick up a book than they would a dead rat. Some thinkers persist, however, and they are dealt with harshly. Montag begins to question his purpose in life when an old woman, who owns a contraband library that he was dispatched to destroy, chooses to roast alongside her books rather than live without them.

In all seriousness, you are in fact highly qualified to judge whatever you read. Tear apart every idea you encounter, sort the wheat from the excrement (the latter of which ironically suffers from no shortage during the “information age”), and carefully choose which truths you’ll hold dear. This isn’t just your right as a rational creature. It is your duty.

Listing the best civil disobedience quotes is easy. Anyone can do it. I just did it. But it takes a great deal of tact to endorse its practice.  On the one hand, I do believe civil disobedience is a moral response to an immoral state of affairs; on the other, I hardly need some boneheaded misanthropes with a pile of bricks and a lust for shop windows to go blaming this article for their poor life choices.

Is democracy the best form of government? Maybe. Your own opinion of it largely hinges on which McPoliticalParty™ you prefer, and how well it did in the previous Free & Fair Election™. Ultimately, the only ideal form of government is dictatorship, and in that case, it’s only ideal for the dictator. But because too few of us are charismatic enough to ever become dictators, democracy will just have to do for now.

People who feel obligated to defend the largest and most powerful organization on the face of the planet ought to consider that an abusive father can still make his kids macaroni and cheese for dinner after he has spent the past half hour throwing empty liquor bottles at them. But they’re probably more concerned about getting the taste of boot polish out of their mouths.

Thomas Paine quotes reflect many of the ideas which the Founding Fathers presented in the Declaration of Independence. And while they acknowledged that a country’s government should not be changed will nilly, the Founding Fathers never treated the English monarchy as something deserving of reverence.

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) is the kind of guy you wish you could become whenever you’re confronted by a vociferous pinhead. Few wits as crystal as his are bestowed among men. More abrasive dispositions are even scarcer. But no worries – just memorize a few H.L. Mencken quotes to pass off as your own, and you’ll be able to trounce ninnies with the best of them.

Listen: A blog post isn’t going to change anyone’s mind about free speech. Freedom of speech quotes, however expertly they may have been curated, are not poised to make some pink-haired, nose-pierced, garishly-tattooed liberal arts student put down their hashtag pitchfork and reconsider whether they’re actually doing good by demanding the public crucifixion of anyone whose point of view falls right of Mao Zedong’s.

Broken windows aside, Bastiat is best known for writing The Law. In it Bastiat states that man’s right to “defend his person, his liberty, and his property” comes not from the state, but from God. He continues to argue that the law becomes perverted whenever it violates this natural right, which essentially amounts to plundering by the government.