Murray Rothbard Quotes

Never underestimate the power of the State to act out its own massive fantasies.

Sovereignty is as necessary as ever.

The power of eminent domain is essential to a sovereign government.

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.

Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.

The State acquires power... and because of its insatiable lust for power it is incapable of giving up any of it. The State never abdicates.

Reduced to its lowest terms, the great struggle which now rocks the whole earth more and more takes on the character of a struggle of the individual versus the state.

Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.

That power which had both the purse and the sword, had the government of the whole country, and might extend its powers to any and to every object.

No one will suppose that a government could have lasted a single year, if offenses against its laws could not have been punished without the consent of the state in which the culprit was found.

The fate of this government depends absolutely upon raising it above the state governments.

The government should not present the anomaly which it now presents—a government the freest, perhaps the most democratic in the world with reference to local and domestic matters in which you rule yourselves as fully as any people in the world, while in your foreign affairs, your relations with other countries, whether peaceful or warlike, commercial, financial, or otherwise, you may have no more voice than the people of Japan.

I cannot subscribe to the omnipotence of a State Legislature.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and for government to gain ground.

In a sense, the police power is but another name for the power of government.

Neither our present-day natives nor their ancestors ever surrendered their sovereignty…. Frankly, I don't recall ever surrendering my sovereignty either. I was never asked whether I accepted the rule of federal, provincial or municipal governments over me. I was simply born here, like a Mohawk or an Inuit, and successive groups of people calling themselves the government have taken it upon themselves to claim that they rule me.

There is no force greater than the state force.

Was, then, the American Revolution effected, was the American Confederacy formed, was the precious blood of thousands spilt, and the hard-earned substance of millions lavished, not that the people of America should enjoy peace, liberty, and safety, but that the government of the individual States, that particular municipal establishments, might enjoy a certain extent of power, and be arrayed with certain dignities and attributes of sovereignty?

Advocating the expansion of the powers of the state is treason to mankind

Government is no sooner created than it becomes too strong for society, and shapes and moulds, as well as controls it.

There is no such thing as a just and fair method of exercising the tremendous power that interventionism puts into the hands of the legislature and the executive.

There is no alternative. Either the colonies are a part of the community of Great Britain, or they are in a state of nature with respect to her, and in no case can be subject to that legislative power which represents her community, which is the British Parliament…. They [the American colonists] ought to reflect, that whatever may be their condition, they cannot apply to parliament to better it. If they reject the jurisdiction of parliament, they must not in any case sue for its interposition on their behalf.

America was not annexed to the realm, and … it was not fitting that Parliament should make laws for those countries.

You know that in the Eurasian space, Russia is the central state, the most powerful state. But to become an empire, a member of some empire, a province in this empire - you know, we're probably not ready for that yet, neither in Kazakhstan nor in Belarus.

The governments of the great States have two instruments for keeping the people dependent, in fear and obedience: a coarser, the army; and a more refined, the school.