Best 728 quotes in «libertarian quotes» category

Theories of "natural law" and the "law of nations" are another excellent example of discussions destitute of all exactness. [...] "Natural law" is simply that law of which the person using the phrase approves[....]

The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest "functionaire" possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose desecration it depends whether and how I am allowed to live or to work.

The price of liberty is, in addition to eternal vigilance, eternal patience with the vacuous blather occasionally expressed from behind the shield of free speech.

The primary reason for a tariff is that it enables the exploitation of the domestic consumer by a process indistinguishable from sheer robbery.

The principle of laissez-faire may be safely trusted to in some things but in many more it is wholly inapplicable; and to appeal to it on all occasions savors more of the policy of a parrot than of a statesman or a philosopher.

The 'private sector' of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; and the 'public sector' is, in fact, the coercive sector.

The program of liberalism if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production.

The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.

The public firm can nowhere maintain itself in free competition with the private firm; it is possible today only where it has a monopoly that excludes competition. Even that alone is evidence of its lesser economic productivity.

The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.

There are libertarian values which say private property is the overarching value, the sanctity thereof, and there are egalitarians who say health care should be shared and so on. That's fair enough.

There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no libertarians in financial crises.

There are many farm handouts; but let's call them what they really are: a form of legalized theft. Essentially, a congressman tells his farm constituency, "Vote for me. I'll use my office to take another American's money and give it to you.

There can be no freedom without freedom to fail.

There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse.

There is no moral distinction between the act of a pickpocket and the progressive income tax.

There cannot be a good tax nor a just one; every tax rests its case on compulsion.

There is nothing new in state interventionism. It is as old and reactionary as societal organization itself. Always, when it permeates the body politic, it kills the nation.

There's a very comfortable techno-libertarian culture where you think you're doing the right thing.

There's always someone telling you not to do something. The main thing is just to ignore them.

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.

There's nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.

There's never been a good government.

There's no greater service to this country than the defense of its freedom.

The rights of the individual should be the primary object of all governments.

The same government that brought you urban renewal is likely to make an even worse mess of suburban renewal.

The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.

The state is essentially an apparatus of compulsion and coercion. The characteristic feature of its activities is to compel people through the application or the threat of force to behave otherwise than they would like to behave.

The society exists for the benefit of its members; not its members for the benefit of the society.

The state operates in a legal vacuum. There exists no contract between the state and its citizens.

The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society.

The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

The true remedy for most evils is none other than liberty, unlimited and complete liberty, liberty in every field of human endeavor.

They told me if I voted for Goldwater, he would get us into a war in Vietnam. Well, I voted for Goldwater and that's what happened.

They've been taught by too many that this war was necessary when it isn't.

The vigorous man industriously striving for the improvement of his condition acts neither more nor less than the lethargic man who sluggishly takes things as they come. For to do nothing and to be idle are also action, they too determine the course of events.

Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

Those who attack the rationale of the game, and not the players, are its most formidable adversaries.

To entrust the government with the power of determining the education which our children receive is entrusting our servant with the power to be our master.

Thou shall not steal, even by majority vote.

To be governed ... is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censured, checked, valued, enrolled - by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so.

To change masters is not to be free.

To demonize state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.

'Tis true that governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit everyone who enjoys a share of protection should pay out of his estate his proportion of the maintenance of it.

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves: such a prohibition ought to fill them with disdain.

War is the Health of the State.

Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true.