Henry Martyn Robert Quotes

If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny.

If the average man had had his way there would probably never have been any state. Even today he resents it, classes death with taxes, and yearns for that government which governs least. If he asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.

Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes.

For why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience?

Liberty unregulated by law becomes anarchy.

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.

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or human happiness or a quiet conscience.

I'm a very individualistic person. That is why I don't belong to any political party or anything. I really believe in justice and freedom.

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.

It's about living in a world with rules, or a world without rules.

In their rules there was only one clause: Do what you will.

As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.

We're seeing the fulfillment of the Book of Judges here in our own time - every man doing that which is right in his own eyes.

I want to live perfectly above the law, and make it my servant instead of my master.

If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.

Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear.

America is the most individualist, libertarian culture in the world.

To the laws all men show respect and deference, as without them peace and harmony would be supplanted by anarchy and terror; human laws being instituted for the express purpose of regulating our interests as individuals and nations, between man and man; and divine laws given of heaven, prescribing rules on spiritual concerns, for faith and worship

Anyone who takes it upon himself ... to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones.

In those days [after Samson's death] there was no king in Israel, but every man did what was right in his own eyes.

Individual liberty, freed from all bonds and all laws, all objective and social values, is in reality only a death-dealing anarchy.

I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow …. Liberty … consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature …

Obviously I prefer freedom, but I know, and I think all history has told us, that freedom cannot flow from anarchy and disorder.

Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends; the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them.