Libertarian Government Quotes & Sayings

If you require force to promote your ideal, there is something wrong with your ideal. — J.S.B. Morse

Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible 'anarchy', why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person? — Murray N. Rothbard

Private property and free trade stand on exactly the same footing, both being essential and indivisible parts of liberty, both depending upon rights, which no body of men, whether called governments or anything else, can justly take from the individual. — Auberon Herbert

Can social progress be made without government?
It's like saying 'can happiness be achieved without the initiation of violence? Can romance be achieved without rape? Can profitability be achieved without theft? Can economic growth be achieved without the mass indebted enslavement and counterfeiting of the federal reserve?'. — Stefan Molyneux

Politicians need human misery ... Government's a disease masquerading as its own cure. — L. Neil Smith

According to an original reading of the Constitution and Declaration, the intrusiveness that is an inevitable part of big government is an offense against its people. — A.E. Samaan

Legalize the right to choose wrong.
Legalize individual liberty. — A.E. Samaan

But that's kind of an easy stance to be if you're a humor columnist, because you're tending to make fun of the government and the powerful. I'm sort of a soft-core libertarian in that my compass is generally pointing away from 'Let's let the government do this' Does it matter to me that it's Democrats who think we need more elaborate programs that involve shifting money from one group to another group or it's Republicans saying we need to take a harder look at what kinds of things people are watching on cable TV? Neither one of those things strikes me as a good idea. — Dave Barry

The opposite of Nazi is neither Republican nor Democrat, conservative or liberal. Totalitarianism's diametric opposite of is Libertarianism. — A.E. Samaan

The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion. — Ludwig Von Mises

Don't give over all of your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those people may appear to be. Beneath the hero's facade you will find a human being who makes human mistakes. Enormous problems arise when human mistakes are made on the grand scale available to a superhero. And sometimes you run into another problem. It is demonstrable that power structures tend to attract people who want power for the sake of power and that a significant proportion of such people are imbalanced - in a word, insane. — Frank Herbert

The desire to avoid short-term hardships leads to major dislocations in [housing] markets. — Richard A. Epstein

The law is an opinion with a gun. — Stefan Molyneux

The man who is not permitted to own is owned. — George Santayana

Christians can disagree about public policy in good faith, and a libertarian and a social democrat can both claim to be living out the gospel. But the Christian libertarian has a particular obligation to recognize those places where libertarianism's emphasis on freedom can shade into an un-Christian worship of the individual. Likewise the Christian liberal: even as he supports government interventions to assist the poor and dispossessed, he should be constantly on guard against the tendency to deify Leviathan and wary of the ways that government power can easily be turned to inhuman and immoral ends.
In the contemporary United States, a host of factors - from the salience of issues like abortion to the anti-Christian biases of our largely left-wing intelligentsia - ensure that many orthodox Christians feel more comfortable affiliating with the Republican Party than with the Democrats. But this comfort should not blind Christians to the GOP's flaws. — Ross Douthat

In my view, as a country we need to rediscover some of that skepticism about government and revisit that libertarian agenda. — Charles Kennedy

Every totalitarian Communist considered themselves as a Socialist first and foremost. — A.E. Samaan

To try to cure unemployment by inflation rather than by adjustment of specific wage-rates is like trying to adjust the piano to the stool rather than the stool to the piano. — Henry Hazlitt

The fact throughout history is that whenever government dominates the economic affairs of its citizenry, a free society is eroded, then destroyed, and a minority government ensues. Personal liberty without economic liberty is an absolute contradiction; the one cannot exist without the other. — William E. Simon

You either limit the government, or you limit the scope of your life. Why is the government that precious to you in the first place? — A.E. Samaan

Every unnecessary law helps fashion the noose we will ultimately be hung by. — A.E. Samaan

There is a lot of talk about "rigged games" as of late. Big government is the most insipid of all "rigged games". There is no choice available to the public allowing it to avoid a big over-arching government. You can always chose not do business with a big corporation. Corporations that are distasteful can be avoided. A big, powerful, government bent on intrusion cannot be avoided. — A.E. Samaan

If you personally advocate that I be caged if I don't pay for whatever "government" things YOU want, please don't pretend to be tolerant, or non-violent, or enlightened, or compassionate. Don't pretend you believe in "live and let live," and don't pretend you want peace, freedom or harmony. It's a simple truism that the only people in the world who are willing to "live and let live" are voluntaryists. So you can either PRETEND to care about and respect your fellow man while continuing to advocate widespread authoritarian violence, or you can embrace the concepts of self-ownership and peaceful coexistence, and become an anarchist. — Larken Rose

Funny, I don't particularly care for either "laws" or "order". Liberty is messy. Freedom yields imperfect results. — A.E. Samaan

I am running for president because it is obvious that no Democrat or Republican is ever going to stop the relentless growth of the federal government. only a Libertarian is going to set you free. — Harry Browne

Capitalists desire purchasing power. Socialists lust for the power to plan society. Which is worse? — A.E. Samaan

We Libertarians believe in "Limited Government" precisely because we believe in unlimited liberty. Reduce one, and you decrease the other. — A.E. Samaan

The Libertarian position on the freedom of speech is a strong support of freedom of speech, and we oppose government intervention in controlling what is or is not moral. — Michael Badnarik

Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid. — Penn Jillette

No man can rightfully be required to join, or support, an association whose protection he does not desire. — Lysander Spooner

Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. — Thomas Jefferson

The sense that just about anything goes with the collection of public revenues and the making of public expenditure has contributed mightily to the current malaise. — Richard A. Epstein

Statism is an unnatural disaster. — Stefan Molyneux

It is easier to seize wealth than to produce it, and as long as the State makes the seizure of wealth a matter of legalized privilege, so long will the squabble for that privilege go on. — Albert Jay Nock

It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part. — Benjamin Franklin

Mrs. Bonneville never buckled her seat belt, even though it was required by state law; an ardent libertarian, she opposed government meddling in all matters of personal choice. — Carl Hiaasen

The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it. — Harry Browne

Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State's inhabitants, or subjects. — Murray N. Rothbard

It is dissent from government policies which defines the true Patriot — Ron Paul

Everything is temporary. Well, except government programs. — Brooke Bida

Why don't we have libertarian anarchy? Why does government exist? The answer implicit in previous chapters is that government as a whole exists because most people believe it is necessary. — David D. Friedman

When poverty declines, the need for government declines, which is why expecting government to solve poverty is like expecting a tobacco company to mount an aggressive anti-smoking campaign. — Stefan Molyneux

It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle. — Alexis De Tocqueville

As regards the social apparatus of repression and coercion, the government, there cannot be any question of freedom. Government is essentially the negation of liberty. It is the recourse to violence or threat of violence in order to make all people obey the orders of the government, whether they like it or not. As far as the government's jurisdiction extends, there is coercion, not freedom. Government is a necessary institution, the means to make the social system of cooperation work smoothly without being disturbed by violent acts on the part of gangsters whether of domestic or of foreign origin. Government is not, as some people like to say, a necessary evil; it is not an evil, but a means, the only means available to make peaceful human coexistence possible. But it is the opposite of liberty. It is beating, imprisoning, hanging. Whatever a government does it is ultimately supported by the actions of armed constables. — Ludwig Von Mises

Justice requires that you should not place the burdens of one man on the shoulders of another man, even though he is better able to bear them. In plainer words, that you should not make one set of men pay for what is used by another set of men. — Auberon Herbert

Small government is beautiful — Carla Howell

Statism ends with an eye roll. — Stefan Molyneux

No people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want. — Ludwig Von Mises

The Constitution poses no threat to our current form of government. — Joseph Sobran

There are two principles between which there can be no compromise - liberty and coercion. — Frederic Bastiat

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren — Ayn Rand

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. — H.L. Mencken

And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract - the Constitution - made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three generations of men, consisting of many millions, and which (it is claimed) will be binding upon all the millions that are to come; but which nobody ever signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed, or acknowledged; and which few persons, compared with the whole number that are claimed to be bound by it, have ever read, or even seen, or ever will read, or see. — Lysander Spooner

There's never been a good government. — Emma Goldman

Making universal prosperity a right is the surest way to universal poverty. — J.S.B. Morse

Capitalism is not a form of government. Capitalism is a symptom of freedom. It is the result of individual rights, which include property rights. — A.E. Samaan

I think that the Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government. — Milton Friedman

The proposal to quit voting is basically revolutionary; it amounts to a shifting of power from one group to another, which is the essence of revolution. As soon as the nonvoting movement got up steam, the politicians would most assuredly start a counterrevolution. Measures to enforce voting would be instituted; fines would be imposed for violations, and prison sentences would be meted out to repeaters. — Frank Chodorov

Rights are something made up by governments to make you feel like you're buying something with your taxes. — Stefan Molyneux

No state, no government exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men. — Rose Wilder Lane

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798) — Thomas Jefferson

There is a common perception that there are two alternative libertarian positions on immigration: government-controlled borders and open borders. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is only one libertarian position on immigration, and that position is open immigration or open borders. — Jacob G. Hornberger

The law is guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish. — Frederic Bastiat

The best government is the least government. In some areas, I'm libertarian. I don't subscribe to any one party; they are all bad. — Wayne Rogers

The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this
that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot. — Lysander Spooner

It would be an instructive exercise for the skeptical reader to try to frame a definition of taxation which does not also include theft. Like the robber, the State demands money at the equivalent of gunpoint; if the taxpayer refuses to pay, his assets are seized by force, and if he should resist such depredation, he will be arrested or shot if he should continue to resist. — Murray N. Rothbard

The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax. — Eric Hoffer

What ... can the government do to help the poor? The only answer is the libertarian answer: Get out of the way. — Murray Rothbard

The government is a giant logjam in the eternal river of human potential. — Stefan Molyneux

Government has a monopoly on the legal use of force and violence. — David D. Aitken

Given the low level of competence among politicians, every American should become a libertarian. The government that governs least is certainly the best choice when fools, opportunists and grafters run it. When power is for sale, then the government power should be severely limited. When power is abused, then the less power the better. — Charley Reese

Set men up to rule their fellow-men, to treat them as mere soulless material with which they may deal as they please, and the consequence is that you sweep away every moral landmark and turn this world into a place of selfish striving, hopeless confusion, trickery and violence, a mere scrambling ground for the strongest or the most cunning or the most numerous. — Auberon Herbert

Some that read this book will find its Libertarian and Constitutionalist slant a bit obtuse and maybe even off-putting. This author makes no apologies for viewing the history of the eugenics movement from this political perspective. It is the ethical and legal underpinnings of the American Revolution that remain as a guiding light while the eugenics movement continues to reemerge long after its alleged demise. Limited, or rather minimal government, goes a long way to curtail the disconnect that emerges when government grows so large that it no longer feels compelled to heed to the dictates of the governed. — A.E. Samaan

Legislating morality grows big government immensely, and helps fashion the noose the government will use to ultimately hang you by. — A.E. Samaan

The ruling classes use broken and smashed up childhoods as weaponised instruments of domination around the world. This is why the government has no incentive to end child abuse; because the government needs abuse victims as enforcers. — Stefan Molyneux

Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. — Ludwig Von Mises

The right to "liberty" and "pursuit" of happiness is incompatible with a government that makes choices for you. — A.E. Samaan

A recent book by University of Chicago professor of philosophy and law Brian Leiter outlines what I believe will become the theoretical consensus that does away with religious liberty in spirit if not in letter. "There is no principled reason," he writes, "for legal or constitutional regimes to single out religion for protection." . . . Evoking the principle of fairness, Leiter argues that everybody's conscience should be accorded the same legal protections. Thus he proposes to replace religious liberty with a plenary "liberty of conscience."

Leiter's argument is libertarian. He wants to get the government out of the business of deciding whose conscience is worth protecting. This mentality seems to expand freedom, but that's an illusion. In practice it will lead to diminished freedom, as is always the case with any thoroughgoing libertarianism. — R. R. Reno

Liberty is not something a government gives you. It is a right that no government can legally take away. — A.E. Samaan

Ever wonder why the media never refers to 18 or 19 year old American soldiers as "armed teens"? — Stefan Molyneux

Regulated" rights are not rights. They are niceties and platitudes intended to keep the populace thinking their individual autonomy is respected by their government. — A.E. Samaan

Some people object to libertarian ideas because there are too many irresponsible people in the world - people who will cause trouble if the government doesn't restrain them. — Harry Browne

The product of scientific achievements should be for sale. The scientist should not. — A.E. Samaan

In other words, government had always been big for people like us, and we were fine with that. But beginning in the 1960s, as people of color began to gain access to the benefits for which we had always been eligible, suddenly we discovered our inner libertarian and decided that government intervention was bad, — Tim Wise

A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment ... is not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule. — Ayn Rand

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved. — Aristotle.

As I explain in 'What It Means to be an Anarcho-Capitalist', to be an anarchist simply means you oppose aggression, and you realize the state necessarily commits aggression. If you are not an anarchist, it means you either condone aggression, or think the state does not necessarily commit aggression. As you say you are not an anarchist, can you please tell us which one describes you? Are you in favor of aggression (like socialists and criminals are)? Or, do you think the state does not commit aggression (like children brainwashed by government schools think)? — N. Stephan Kinsella

A number of people who I've talked to about this assume that I got into a fight with the cops. (Because of, y'know, the militant politics.) I actually had an audience member come up to me once and ask me if I paid taxes. Of course I pay taxes! I pay taxes for exactly the same reason that I hate paying taxes - because I think my government is terrifying and stupid. I don't need the IRS kicking my door down and taking my meticulously alphabetized collection of Tijuana bibles. — Phillip Andrew Bennett Low

The war for freedom will never really be won because the price of freedom is constant vigilance over ourselves and over our Government. — Eleanor Roosevelt

History is the same story with different costumes. — Stefan Molyneux

There is no law, there is only conjecture. The Progressive ethos changes the law's meaning according to fad and fashion. — A.E. Samaan

I found most of my friends quite content to be used as tax-material, even though the sums of money taken from them were employed against their own beliefs and interests. They had lived so long under the system of using others, and then in their turn being used by them, that they were like hypnotized subjects, and looked on this subjecting and using of each other as a part of the necessary and even Providential order of things. The great machine had taken possession of their souls. — Auberon Herbert

Private property is redundant. "Public property" is an oxymoron. All legit property is private. If property isn't private it's stolen. — Gustave De Molinari

Here's your enemy for this week, the government says. And some gullible Americans click their heels and salute - often without knowing who or even where the enemy of the week is. — Charley Reese

The vitriol and viciousness is the inevitable result of a government increasingly deciding the vital aspects of people's lives. — A.E. Samaan

A libertarian is somebody who believes, of course, in personal liberty. And liberty is a personal thing; it is not collective. You don't gain liberty because you belong to a group. So we don't talk about women's rights or gay rights or anything else. Everybody has an absolute equal right as an individual, and it comes to them naturally. — Ron Paul

Tyrants are obvious, and easy to identify. It is the well entrenched and corrupt establishment that is truly insidious. — A.E. Samaan

Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence. — Tom C. Clark

For some hippies, this vision could only be realised by rejecting scientific progress as a false God and returning to nature. Others, in contrast, believed that technological progress would inevitably turn their libertarian principles into social fact. Crucially, influenced by the theories of Marshall McLuhan, these technophiliacs thought that the convergence of media, computing and telecommunications would inevitably create the electronic agora - a virtual place where everyone would be able to express their opinions without fear of censorship. Despite being a middle-aged English professor, McLuhan preached the radical message that the power of big business and big government would be imminently overthrown by the intrinsically empowering effects of new technology on individuals. — Richard Barbrook

The libertarian creed ... offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy. — Murray Rothbard