Libertarian Quotes

When there is money in your hand and not in your heart, it will not harm you even if it is a lot; and when it is in your heart, it will harm you even if there is none in your hands.

Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.

There is only one way to kill capitalism - by taxes, taxes, and more taxes.

First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me.

Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all . . . . It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.

The essential notion of a capitalist society ... is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force.

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

The media has created this environment that is okay to say almost anything about somebody who is, you know, right of Jane Fonda. You know, if you are slightly conservative or even libertarian points of view, especially if you are persuasive and charismatic and funny and effective, you will get called the most appalling things.

Nations are not ruined by one act of violence, but gradually and in an almost imperceptible manner by the depreciation of their circulating currency, through its excessive quantity.

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

All socialism involves slavery.

In government, the scum rises to the top.

The State calls its own violence, law; but that of the individual, crime.