Top 100 Walter E. Williams Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place.”

— Walter E. Williams

2. “A caged canary is safe but not free.”

— Walter E. Williams

3. “Powerful government tends to draw into it people with bloated egos, people who think they know more than everyone else and have little hesitance in coercing their fellow man. Or as Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek said, “in government, the scum rises to the top”.”

— Walter E. Williams

4. “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

5. “Government income redistribution programs produce the same result as theft. In fact, that’s what a thief does; he redistributes income. The difference between government and thievery is mostly a matter of legality.”

— Walter E. Williams

6. “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

7. “The global warming scare has provided a field day for politicians and others who wish to control our lives. After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet.”

— Walter E. Williams

8. “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

— Walter E. Williams

9. “Government schools can go for decades delivering low-quality services, and what’s the result? The people who manage it earn higher pay. It’s nearly impossible to fire the incompetents. And, taxpayers, who support the service, are given higher tax bills.”

— Walter E. Williams

10. “Politicians exploit economic illiteracy.”

— Walter E. Williams

11. “The difference between a thief and a congressman: When a thief steals your money, he doesn’t expect you to thank him.”

— Walter E. Williams

12. “However, if we wish to be compassionate with our fellow man, we must learn to engage in dispassionate analysis. In other words, thinking with our hearts, rather than our brains, is a surefire method to hurt those whom we wish to help.”

— Walter E. Williams

13. “The Founders knew that a democracy would lead to some kind of tyranny. The term democracy appears in none of our Founding documents. Their vision for us was a Republic and limited government.”

— Walter E. Williams

14. “I prefer a thief to a Congressman. A thief will take your money and be on his way, but a Congressman will stand there and bore you with the reasons why he took it.”

— Walter E. Williams

15. “Democracy gives the aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be considered tyranny.”

— Walter E. Williams

16. “In keeping Americans ill-educated, ill-informed and constitutionally ignorant, the education establishment has been the politician’s major and most faithful partner. It is in this sense that American education can be deemed a success.”

— Walter E. Williams

17. “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

18. “But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you – and why?”

— Walter E. Williams

19. “Saying the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don’t have a Constitution.”

— Walter E. Williams

20. “Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.”

— Walter E. Williams

21. “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

22. “Socialism is just another form of tyranny.”

— Walter E. Williams

23. “The essence of government is force, and most often that force is used to accomplish evil ends.”

— Walter E. Williams

24. “I don’t know about you, but if you hear that Williams guns have been taken, you’ll know Williams is dead.”

— Walter E. Williams

25. “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

26. “As American education and intelligence becomes replaced by feelings and emotion, not seeing the forest for the trees has become a major problem.”

— Walter E. Williams

27. “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

28. “The true test of one’s commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn’t come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree.”

— Walter E. Williams

29. “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

30. “Preaching doom and gloom has been beneficial to the political class. They use it to gain more power and control.”

— Walter E. Williams

31. “Vote for me. I’ll use my office to take another American’s money and give it to you.”

— Walter E. Williams

32. “The only organized political party with a Christian vision of morality is the Libertarian Party.”

— Walter E. Williams

33. “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

34. “If grade inflation continues, a college bachelor’s degree will have just as much credibility as a high school diploma.”

— Walter E. Williams

35. “Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom.”

— Walter E. Williams

36. “Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.”

— Walter E. Williams

37. “I learned that you have to evaluate the effects of public policy as opposed to intentions.”

— Walter E. Williams

38. “In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.”

— Walter E. Williams

39. “The framers gave us the Second Amendment not so we could go deer or duck hunting but to give us a modicum of protection against congressional tyranny.”

— Walter E. Williams

40. “If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.”

— Walter E. Williams

41. “Minimum-wage laws are one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of racists.”

— Walter E. Williams

42. “Discrimination is simply the act of choice. Scarcity requires us to choose; scarcity is the cause of discrimination!”

— Walter E. Williams

43. “Having children is not an act of God. It’s not like you’re walking down the street and pregnancy strikes you; children are a result of a conscious decision. For the most part, female-headed households are the result of short-sighted, self-destructive behavior of one or two people.”

— Walter E. Williams

44. “Reduced employment opportunities is one effect of minimum wage legislation. The minimum wage law has imposed incalculable harm on the disadvantaged members of our society. The only moral thing to do is to repeal it.”

— Walter E. Williams

45. “If the States do not have the right to secede, then they have no rights at all.”

— Walter E. Williams

46. “There are people in need of help. Charity is one of the nobler human motivations. The act of reaching into one’s own pockets to help a fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else’s pocket is despicable and worthy of condemnation.”

— Walter E. Williams

47. “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

48. “Most Americans, who think Congress has a right to do anything for which they can get a majority vote, ignore the clearly written constitutional restraints on Congress.”

— Walter E. Williams

49. “The prospects are dim for a society that makes mascots out of the unproductive and condemns the productive.”

— Walter E. Williams

50. “It’s people seeking more for themselves that has produced a better life for all Americans.”

— Walter E. Williams