Albert J. Nock Quotes

49 quotes in 918 categories

• It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its…
• You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State…
• When politicians say "I'm in politics," it may or may not be possible to trust them, but when they say, "I'm in public service," you…
• It is interesting to observe that in the year 1935 the average individual's incurious attitude towards the phenomenon of the State is precisely what his…
• When a beggar asks us for a quarter, our instinct is to say that the State has already confiscated our quarter for his benefit, and…
• The competition of social power with State power is always disadvantaged, since the State can arrange the terms of competition to suit itself, even to…
• 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…
• The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious student sees in them only one root-idea of a…
• As Dr. Sigmund Freud has observed, it cannot even be said that the State has ever shown any disposition to suppress crime, but only to…
• The State, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but…
• It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its…
• The State claims and exercises the monopoly of crime. It forbids private murder, but itself organizes murder on a colossal scale. It punishes private theft,…
• The only thing that the psychically-human being can do to improve society is to present society with one improved unit.
• Someone asked me years ago if it were true that I disliked Jews, and I replied that it was certainly true, not at all because…
• There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. Â One is the production and exchange of…
• Man tends always to satisfy his needs and desires with the least possible exertion.
• It is easy to prescribe improvement for others; it is easy to organize something, to institutionalize this or that, to pass laws, multiply bureaucratic agencies,…
• If you do not want the State to act like a criminal, you must disarm it as you would a criminal; you must keep it…
• Instead of recognizing the State as ‘the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men,’ the run of mankind, with rare exceptions, regards it…
• As a general principle, I should put it that a man's country is where the things he loves are most respected. Circumstances may have prevented…

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