The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.

In spite of its alluring name, the welfare state stands or falls by compulsion. It is compulsion imposed upon us with the state’s power to punish noncompliance. Once this is clear, it is equally clear...

The instant that any government obtains a monetary printing press, it becomes a deeply dishonest government, empowered to rob people by stealth. A government with the power to print money knows no limits.

When someone steals another’s clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the...

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...

Experience teaches effectually, but brutally. It makes us acquainted with all the effects of an action, by causing us to feel them; and we cannot fail to finish by knowing that fire burns, if we...

People and institutions that refuse to admit error eventually discredit themselves.

I wonder how many such men in America would know that Communism, the New Deal, Fascism, Nazism, are merely so-many trade-names for collectivist Statism, like the trade-names for tooth-pastes which are all exactly alike except...

The matter on which I judge people is their willingness, or ability, to handle contradiction. Thus Paine was better than Burke when it came to the principle of the French revolution, but Burke did and...

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that...

Without anarchy, there would be chaos.

Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes,...

Collectivists see the world the way Mr. Magoo did—as one big blur. They homogenize people in a communal blender, sacrificing the discrete features that make us who we are.

The only common good is the common liberty to pursue individual goods.

Growing economies are built by billions of actors behaving according to their own interests, coordinated through institutions that no one in particular created.Realizing this requires humility, a trait that is in short supply among would-be...

For anyone who thinks “profit” is evil, I have a challenge for you: try NOT to get any profit in the next week. Profit simply means increasing how much valuable stuff you have, and if...

Man is not to direct or to be directed anymore than a tree or a cloud or a stoneMan is not to rule or be ruled anymore than a faith or a truth or a...

I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.

Recall that the minimum wage was initially conceived as a method to exclude undesirables from the workforce.

The age of the skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a prelude to the age of the cave.

The world, viewed philosophically, remains a series of slave camps, where citizens – tax livestock – labor under the chains of illusion in the service of their masters.

Emergencies” have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.

Ultimately, all arguments against markets are arguments against anarchy. Marx understood this much, at least.

He needed the people and the clamour around him. There was no questions and no doubts when he stood on a platform over a sea of faces; the air was heavy, compact, saturated with a...

Tyranny is the wolf cast by the shadows of sheep.

They who employ force by proxy are as much responsible for that force as though they employed it themselves.

Commerce tends toward rewarding inclusion, broadness, and liberality. Tribal loyalties, ethnic and religious bigotries, and irrational prejudices are bad for business. The merchant class has been conventionally distrusted by tribalist leaders — from the ancient...

A world of fully developed individuals is immune to the cult of collectivism.

Information or allegations reflecting negatively on individuals or groups seen less sympathetically by the intelligentsia pass rapidly into the public domain with little scrutiny and much publicity. Two of the biggest proven hoaxes of our...

War has been the necessary and inevitable consequence of the establishment of a monopoly on security.

Libertarians make no exceptions to the golden rule and provide no moral loophole, no double standard, for government. That is, libertarians believe that murder is murder and does not become sanctified by reasons of state...

He felt useless and degraded, as if he no longer lived for others but for himself alone.

I believe that the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world. I further believe that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.

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

If the bulk of the public were really convinced of the illegitimacy of the State, if it were convinced that the State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large, then the...

I collect collectivisms. I’ve already got socialism and communism, and all I need is fascism to complete the set. I’m looking to trade my dusty democracy, but Uncle Sam isn’t interested in a deal at...

Deprived of the infinite, man has become what he always was: a supernumerary. He hardly counts; he forms part of the troupe called Humanity; if he misses a cue, he is hissed; and if he...

Not only is democracy mystical nonsense, it is also immoral. If one man has no right to impose his wishes on another, then ten million men have no right to impose their wishes on the...

In particular, the State has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly over police and military services, the provision of law, judicial decision-making, the mint and the power to create money, unused land (“the public domain”),...

I gathered all my eggs in one basket, because I believe in collectivism, and I wanted a tyrannical omelet.

No one has the right to place one human being in a position of political power over another.

There is only a certain amount of wealth in the world, this thinking goes. Economics is a matter of acquiring and allocating, not creating. This was the view of the world’s smartest people, all top...

Liberty is no less a blessing because oppression has so long darkened the mind that it can not appreciate it.