Steven Pinker Quotes

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. Freedom and security.

The need for Government is the need for force; where force is unnecessary, there is no need for Government.

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.

Order is said to exist where the people of the country have, as a general rule, ceased to prosecute their quarrels by private force, and acquired the habit of referring the decision of their disputes and the redress of their injuries to the public authorities.

A libertarian is someone who can believe that the police are no more than a gang of thugs without realizing that in the absence of police, thugs will gather into gangs.

The absolute justice of the State, enlightened by the perfect reason of the State. That is law.

In the supreme struggle of social order against anarchy, we cannot deny to the champions of civilized society the moral latitude which is by common consent accorded to armed men fighting for their country against a foreign foe.

The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.

Few consider how much we are indebted to government, because few can represent how wretched mankind would be without it.

Government is instituted for those who live under it.

Government is not capable of caring. Government gets things done through coercion. They fine, they penalize, they tax, they confiscate, they jail, they bully to get what they want.

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins ... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

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

For the security of particular men, and, by consequence for the common peace, it is necessary that the right of using the Sword for punishment, be transferred to some Man or Counsel, that Man or Counsel is necessarily understood by Right to have the supreme Power in the City.

There is no force greater than the state force.

A government can punish specific acts of spoliation; but no government can conscript cooperation.

Men are born free, that since they begin with no government, they must therefore institute government by voluntary agreement, and thus government must be their agent, not their superior.

A government must govern, must prescribe and enforce laws within its sphere or cease to be a government. Moreover, the individual must be independent and free within his own sphere or cease to be an individual. The fundamental question ... is now, and always will be through what adjustments, by what actions, these principles may be applied.

We still give the nation state the monopoly on the legal use of violence in our own defense.

I have always found that men are happiest where governments interfere least with their actions; effectively, I believe that government should occupy itself only with what the general interest requires and what is necessary for the repression of crime and the safety of morals.

Government, as it was forced upon mankind by their vices, so has it commonly been the creature of their ignorance and mistake.

The fundamental question of political philosophy, one that precedes questions about how the state should be organized, is whether there should be any state at all. Why not have anarchy?

We cannot allow any uncontrolled situation and destabilization in the country.

The state operates in a legal vacuum. There exists no contract between the state and its citizens.

It is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.