Mark Twain Quotes

Now what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffer, not the state.

The individual is greater than the state.

You have to ask yourself, 'Who owns me? Do I own myself or am I just another piece of government property?'

It is very little to me to have the right to vote, to own property, etc., if I may not keep my body, and its uses, in my absolute right

Self Control, Not State Control

Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is of right, absolute.

If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged.

Man should not be in the service of society, society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that's what is threatening the world at this minute.

I say that man is entitled to his own happiness and that he must achieve it himself. But that he cannot demand that others give up their lives to make him happy.

As if one could do what one wanted with one's own body!

Freedom is something you have to take for yourself.

For themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for themselves alone they have they have right to hold.

I'm a very individualistic person. That is why I don't belong to any political party or anything. I really believe in justice and freedom.

In England, your life is your life.

It's your body and your life and you have an absolute right to do with it as you choose.

Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.

That's what we do in this country. That's the American Dream. That's freedom, and I'll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners.

It's my life and my death.

I believe everybody is responsible for what they do themselves.

The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.

Who owns your body? You or the state?

The sovereignty of one's self over one's self is called Liberty.

Nobody's going to force me to do something against my will. What do I owe anybody that I should submit my will to them?

At what point is a person old enough to say, 'I own my body, and I get to do what I want with it'?