Robert Nozick Quotes

The government's only functions are to protect the rights of the individual; therefore, you need a police force and an army.

These things I believe: that government should butt out.

No American conservative has ever argued that the government should never be involved in peoples' lives. That is anarchy, and we don't argue for that.

And since our country's founding, we've tried to keep government's heavy hand out of our personal lives, while ensuring that we do the most important thing, which is to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that.

Families cannot prosper and keep America strong if government becomes a Goliath that preys upon their wealth, usurps their rights, and crushes their spirit.

I have been a libertarian in my past but now I consider myself a classical liberal.

Humanity has gained its suit; Liberty will nevermore be without an asylum.

Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverance for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government.

To work for libertarianism - to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual - used to be an idealistic choice taken for purely idealistic reasons. Now it is an act of intelligent and almost desperate self-defense.

As the guardian of our rights, the Supreme Court makes decisions every year which either protect the individual or leave him at the mercy of more powerful forces in our society.

Libertarians secretly worried that ultimately someone will figure out the whole of their political philosophy boils down to “Get Off My Property.” News flash: This is not really a big secret to the rest of us.

The equal rights of man and the happiness of every individual are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

By definition, the moment one crosses from center to left, one accepts more government control of people's lives. Therefore, the further left society moves, the more there is government control over its citizens' lives. It is astonishing that this obvious fact is not universally acknowledged and that the Left has somehow successfully portrayed itself as preoccupied with personal liberty.

Freedom is not a self-preserving gift. It has to be earned, and it has to be protected.

Opinion, and the just maintenance of it, shall never be a crime in my view.

The thing about drugs is this ... the Libertarians kind of have the right idea on this: Basically, their theory is that you own your own body, and the government should get out of your face. But, you also do not have the right to harm other people or to impinge on their rights or space. So, let's apply that to drugs . If you want to get wrecked, and you could afford it, and you have a place to do it where the results of your behavior can't harm another person, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be allowed to do it.

Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?

Government should stay the hell out of people's business.

The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men to each govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience.

Laws are the very bulkwarks of liberty; they define every man's rights, and defend the individual liberties of all men.

The less government we have the better.

If a man speculates on what 'society' should do for the poor, he accepts thereby the collectivist premise that men's lives belong to society and that he, as a member of society, has the right to dispose of them...that psychological confession reveals the enormity of the extent to which altruism erodes men's capacity to grasp the concept of rights or the value of an individual life.

The judicial branch has, in its finest hours, stood firmly on the side of individuals against those who would trample their rights.