Joseph Sobran Quotes

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

To make a State appear necessary, any would-be State must first destroy the natural order and create a Hobbesian "anarchy" characterized by looting and vandalizing.

The basic principle that governs the relation between a state and its people --a total and unconditional subordination and submission of individuals and classes to the state…

Whoever says State necessarily says domination, and, consequently, slavery; a State without slavery, open or concealed, is inconceivable: that is why we are enemies of the State.

States are violent to the extent that they have the power to act in the interests of those with domestic power

Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage.

The measure of the state's success is that the word anarchy frightens people, while the word state does not.

The State, in fact, as the universal ethical will, is the creator of right.

The bigger the State, the smaller the citizen

Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature.

When we say "the state," the state is We, it is we, it is the proletariat, it is the advanced guard of the working class.

The State is concentric, but the individual is eccentric.

While the state can coerce, with some exceptions (like North Korea) it seems to me misleading to think of it as capable of "enslavement."

The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State.

What is this thing we call government? Is it anything but organized violence? The law orders you to obey, and if you don't obey, it will compel you by force - all governments, all law and authority finally rest on force and violence, on punishment or fear of punishment.

Does it seem to you impossible to imagine anything more inextricable than the social contract, when you think of the frightful number of relations that it must regulate -- something like squaring the circle, or finding perpetual motion? That is the reason why, wearied of the struggle, you fall back on absolutism and force.

States have always needed intellectuals to con the public into believing that its rule is wise, good, and inevitable

The absolute rule of the state shall be a function of the absolute liberty of each individual will.

Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy, but in the state, and in the schools, it is indispensable to resist the consolidation ofall men into a few men.

With the shock of war the state comes into its own again.

An expropriating property protector (the state, through taxation) is a contradiction in terms

In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy's mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state's mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.

Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion.

By measuring individual human worth, the novelist reveals the full enormity of the State

Louis XIV was very frank and sincere when he said: I am the State. The modern statist is modest. He says: I am the servant of the State; but, he implies, the State is God. You could revolt against a Bourbon king, and the French did it. This was, of course, a struggle of man against man. But you cannot revolt against the god State and against his humble handy man, the bureaucrat.