Libertarian Quotes
When I'm asked where libertarians fit on the left-right spectrum, I say we don't. We're above the line.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
In proportion as you give the state power to do things for you, you give it power to do things to you.
But I'm very libertarian in the sense that I believe in small government and, as a general rule, I don't believe in imposing values upon people.
People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting bad economics because they have embraced collectivism.
The state operates in a legal vacuum. There exists no contract between the state and its citizens.
Laissez faire (in its full true meaning) opens the way to the realization of the noble dreams of socialism.
I am so old that I can remember when liberals were liberal - instead of being intolerant of anything and anybody that is not politically correct.
War has been the necessary and inevitable consequence of the establishment of a monopoly on security.
Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop.
What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.
Terrorism is a direct response to the crimes our government has committed against foreigners (besides which, the actual terrorists are within our own government)
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.
No people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want.
The 'private sector' of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; and the 'public sector' is, in fact, the coercive sector.
If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.
No state, no government exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.
The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all.
Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.
If you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band, and all of the libertarian attitudes will logically fall into place.
I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual.
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.
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves.
Now I call myself a bleeding heart libertarian. Because I do believe in the principles of Libertarianism as an ideal - because I'm an idealist.
The chances of your being harmed by terrorists are mathematically minute. The chance of your being robbed by your own government? That's easy: 100 per cent.
The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State.
Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
