Ludwig von Mises Quotes

No government allows absolute liberty

The freedom of a government does not depend on the quality of its laws, but upon the power that has the right to create them.

Political power means the capacity to regulate national life through national representatives.

You see, that's the whole point of being in government. If you don't like something you simply make up a law that makes it illegal.

Democracy and markets are both fundamental building blocks for a decent society. But they clash at a fundamental level. We need to balance them.

Government is the assumption of authority over a given area and all within it, exercised generally for the double purpose of more complete oppression of its subjects and extension of its boundaries.

The Constitution: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

I look on that paper (the Constitution) as the most fatal plan that could possibly be conceived to enslave a free people.

I want the seals of power and place, the ensigns of command, charged by the people's unbought grace, to rule my native land. Nor crown, nor scepter would I ask but from my country's will, by day, by night, to ply the task her cup of bliss to fill.

If we care about universal principles such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law, we cannot leave them to the care of market forces; we must establish some other institutions to safeguard them.

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence.

Economics is not politics. One is a science, concerned with the immutable and constant laws of nature that determine the production and distribution of wealth; the other is the art of ruling.

Whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and tyrant, and I declare him my enemy.

Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions-a government of force, and a government of laws; the first is the definition of despotism-the last, of liberty.

Without authority there is no liberty. Freedom is doomed to destruction at every turn, unless there is a recognized right to freedom. And if there are rights, there is an authority to which we appeal for them.

The government is supposed to respond to the will of the people. Not dictate to the people what they are doing.

It is democracy I am really suffering from as much as I am suffering from the opposition.

I think where I get frustrated at times was the belief that the president can do anything if he just decides he wants to do it.

Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the federal government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency, and they are not altered by emergency.

Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.

So what is government?... Very simply, it is an agency of coercion. Of course, there are other agencies of coercion - such as the Mafia. So to be more precise, government is the agency of coercion that has flags in front of its offices.

We hold that the Constitution does not forbid the states minor intrusions into an individual's body under stringently limited conditions.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

[The Constitution] is an experiment as all life is an experiment.