My Top 10 Ron Paul Quotes (and a Happy Birthday to Ron!)

August 20th, 2025 marks Dr. Ron Paul’s 90th birthday. Happy birthday Dr. Paul!

I had the distinct privilege of attending Ron Paul’s 90th Birthday Bash in Lake Jackson, Texas on August 10, a couple Saturdays back. The atmosphere was electric with excitement, with so many old friends reconnecting. It struck me how it was a kind of “family reunion” of liberty activists across the USA (but especially Texas) over the last 20 years of my life (and decades more for a few who have been around far longer than I have). We were all celebrating a man whose words and actions have inspired us to promote liberty, and what a great time it was.

So now, I want to honor Dr. Paul’s legacy by revisiting ten of my favorite Ron Paul quotes. Thank you Ron!

1. “Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”

This phrase captures Ron Paul’s prophetic edge. Speaking truth to power often comes at a cost, but Paul never flinched. Deception may be the common currency of politics, but he insists otherwise. To those who understand what Ron Paul stands for, fidelity to truth is an act of resistance.
Source: The Revolution: A Manifesto (2008), p. 167

2. “Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years.”

When Paul made this statement about blowback in the legendary 2007 debate, Rudy Giuliani demanded a retraction. Instead, Paul appropriately doubled down, calmly pointing out what foreign policy realists had long known. The truth was on Ron’s side, and it was a watershed moment—Ron Paul educating the nation on live television about the consequences of interventionism. When you hear people say “Ron Paul cured my apathy”, they often flipped a switch in that small moment.
Source: 2008 GOP Presidential Debate, South Carolina, May 15, 2007

3. “Life begins at conception. It is not a legal or political issue—it is a moral issue.”

As an OB-GYN who delivered over 4,000 babies, Paul’s pro-life stance was deeply informed by experience. His position was principled: defending life at its most vulnerable is consistent with defending liberty.
Source: Liberty Defined (2011), Ch. 45 – Abortion

4. “The only way racism can be overcome is through the philosophy of individualism, which I have promoted throughout my life. Our rights come to us not because be belong to some group, but our rights come to us as individuals. Racism is a particularly odious form of collectivism.”

The simple decency of Dr. Paul reminds us that treating each other as individuals is how we can break the negative cycles of race divisions.
Source: The Revolution: A Manifesto (2008)

5. “End the Fed.”

The rallying cry of a movement. With these three words, Paul helps us pierce the veil of central banking. He exposed the Federal Reserve as a source of inflation, debt, and endless war financing. It’s not just “reform monetary policy” or “get more efficient”, we need to start anew, and abolish that which impoverishes future generations. Few phrases have galvanized liberty activism quite like this one.
Source: An entire career of consistent truth-telling.

6. “Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple.”

Long before today’s debt crisis became undeniable, Ron Paul was warning us. Borrowing against the future is nothing more than deferred theft from the next generation.
Source: House Floor Speech, 1983 (and other speeches)

7. “Liberty comes from our Creator, not from government.”

Paul consistently rooted his defense of liberty in a theological truth: rights are God-given, not state-granted. This undergirds who Ron is, and Ron reminds us that the purpose of government, if it is to exist at all, is to protect God-given rights, not dispense them.
Source: Misc. speech excerpts and campaign addresses

8. “A system that steals from the poor and gives to the rich is not capitalism—it’s cronyism.”

Paul never confused genuine free markets with the corrupt alliances of big business and big government. By making this distinction clear, he preserved the moral integrity of capitalism while denouncing its counterfeits.
Source: Liberty Defined (2011)

9. “You don’t have a right to your neighbor’s stuff.”

Whether on the playground or in Congress, theft is wrong—even when dressed up as wealth redistribution. Ron has a knack for conveying timeless moral truths as common sense philosophy.
Source: Liberty Defined (2011)

10. “A message whose time has come cannot be stopped by bullets or force.”

This one is a new favorite, a line delivered in Ron’s speech at the 90th birthday bash. And this is the reality of the philosophy of individual liberty. We humans are stoppable, but ideas are bulletproof. This torch we carry on.
Source: 2012 GOP Presidential Debate, September 22, 2011.

Attending Dr. Paul’s 90th birthday celebration reminded me just how enduring his influence has been. He never sought power for his own sake, but rather sought to awaken people to the possibilities of liberty.

Happy 90th birthday, Dr. Paul. Thank you for your courage, your integrity, and your legacy.