Lysander Spooner Quotes

118 quotes in 1653 categories

• 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…
• The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim…
• Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care…
• There has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the power and duty…
• If our fathers, in 1776, had acknowledged the principle that a majority had the right to rule the minority, we should never have become a…
• No State shall pass any law impairing the [natural] obligation of contracts.
• All the great establishments, of every kind, now in the hands of a few proprietors, but employing a great number of wage laborers, would be…
• It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other…
• Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or…
• And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are…
• The Rothschilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the representatives and agents - men who never think of lending a shilling to…
• Our constitutions purport to be established by 'the people,' and, in theory, 'all the people' consent to such government as the constitutions authorize. But this…
• The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men,…
• The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are…
• The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And…
• Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.
• All restraints upon man's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other…
• For everybody has a natural right to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defence of…
• Vices are not crimes.
• I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the…

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