Robert Higgs Quotes

Quotes about:

• The beginning of political wisdom is the realization that despite everything you’ve always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed, it is out to get you.

  Robert Higgs

  Wisdom, Your Side, Government

  61 Copy quote

• In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy's mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state's mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.

  Robert Higgs

  Burden Of Proof, Anarchy, Debate

  36 Copy quote

• Voting, the be all and end all of modern democratic politicians, has become a farce, if indeed it was ever anything else. By voting, the people decide only which of the oligarchs preselected for them as viable candidates will wield the whip used to flog them and will command the legion of willing accomplices and anointed lickspittles who perpetrate the countless violations of the people's natural rights. Meanwhile, the masters soothe the masses by assuring them night and day that they - the plundered and bullied multitudes who compose the electorate - are themselves the government.

  Robert Higgs

  Night, Government, Rights

  39 Copy quote

• Inflation is not a benign element in the economy's operation. It is, as it has always been, the most dangerous and destructive form of taxation.

  Robert Higgs

  Elements, Taxation, Economy

  8 Copy quote

• Of course, political leaders are much more ambitious than gangsters. The latter are content to take your money, whereas the former, besides taking far more of your money, have the effrontery to violate your just rights whenever their convenience dictates.

  Robert Higgs

  Rights, Leader, Political

  31 Copy quote

• If anarchists are idealists, they may simply be likened to someone who finds himself swimming in a cesspool and, rather than paddling about looking for the area with the least amount of floating faeces, seeks to climb out of the pool completely.

  Robert Higgs

  Swimming, Floating, Paddling

  31 Copy quote

• Income inequality has no necessary connection with poverty, the lack of material resources for a decent life, such as adequate food, shelter, and clothing. A society with great income inequality may have no poor people, and a society with no income inequality may have nothing but poor people.

  Robert Higgs

  People, Connections, Income

  45 Copy quote

• This is the true lesson of our history: war, preparation for war, and foreign military interventions have served for the most part not to protect us, as we are constantly told, but rather to sap our economic vitality and undermine our civil and economic liberties.

  Robert Higgs

  Military, War, Preparation

  22 Copy quote

• H. L. Mencken famously said that 'every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.' By now, however, I am no longer ashamed, because I do not identify with the government under which I live. Rather, I view it as a criminal organization that without provocation has chosen to make war on my just rights-not only mine, of course, but everyone's. Although this vile enterprise is my problem, because it robs and bullies me relentlessly and without mercy, it is not my responsibility: the nail is not the hammer.

  Robert Higgs

  War, Responsibility, Men

  Robert Higgs (2007). “Neither Liberty Nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government”, Independent Inst

  31 Copy quote

• The state is the most destructive institution human beings have ever devised - a fire that, at best, can be controlled for only a short time before it o'erleaps it's improvised confinements and spreads its flames far and wide.

  Robert Higgs

  Fire, Flames, States

  "The Song That Is Irresistible: How the State Leads People to Their Own Destruction". Robert Higgs's Schlarbaum Award Acceptance Speech at the Mises Institute's 25th Anniversary Celebration, mises.org. October 16, 2007.

  8 Copy quote

• All nonstate threats to life, liberty, and property appear to be relatively petty and therefore can be dealt with. Only states can pose truly massive threats, and sooner or later the horrors with which they menace mankind invariably come to pass.

  Robert Higgs

  Liberty, Horror, States

  10 Copy quote

• No doubt, anarchy, once established, might not last forever. But if your house is on fire, the sensible course of action is to put out the fire, even though this extinguishment provides no guarantee that the house will never catch fire again.

  Robert Higgs

  Fire, Guarantees That, House

  22 Copy quote

• Without popular fear, no government would endure more than twenty-four hours.

  Robert Higgs

  Government, Twenties, Four

  Robert Higgs (2007). “Neither Liberty Nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government”, Independent Inst

  18 Copy quote

• But politicians who talk about failed policies are just blowing smoke. Government policies succeed in doing exactly what they are supposed to do: channeling resources bilked from the general public to politically organized and influential interests groups.

  Robert Higgs

  Government, Succeed, Groups

  28 Copy quote

• Notwithstanding what some regard as the institutionalization of compassion, the transfer society quashes genuine virtue. Redistribution of income by means of government coercion is a form of theft. Its supporters attempt to disguise its essential character by claiming that democratic procedures give it legitimacy, but this justification is specious. Theft is theft, whether it be carried out by one thief or by a hundred million thieves acting in concert. And it is impossible to found a good society on the institutionalization of theft.

  Robert Higgs

  Character, Mean, Compassion

  21 Copy quote

• In regard to the so-called social contract, I have often had occasion to protest that I haven't even seen the contract, much less been asked to consent to it. A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration. I've never received an offer from my rulers, so I certainly have not accepted one; and rather than consideration, I have received nothing but contempt from the rulers, who, notwithstanding the absence of any agreement, have indubitably threatened me with grave harm in the event that I fail to comply with their edicts.

  Robert Higgs

  Acceptance, Agreement, Events

  17 Copy quote

• In U.S. history, war has served as an important diversionary tactic, causing the people at large to shift their attention away from the state's own criminality and toward real or fictitious devils abroad. Wars have therefore proved to be extremely useful in propping up the political class and preserving it from the public resistance and rebellion that might otherwise have arisen.

  Robert Higgs

  Real, War, Class

  19 Copy quote

• Intervene globally, lose freedom locally.

  Robert Higgs

  Loses

  21 Copy quote

• It would take little more than $50 billion to raise every poor person above the official poverty line, yet the percentage of the population classified as poor hardly budges, while annual welfare spending amounts to four times that much. Where's the money going?

  Robert Higgs

  Lines, Littles, Poverty

  17 Copy quote

• Once a bureau is created, its staff becomes a tenacious political interest group, well placed to defend its budget and to make a case for expanding its activities.

  Robert Higgs

  Political, Groups, Staff

  9 Copy quote

• If I had to use a single word to describe what is fundamentally wrong with government today, I would use the word fraud.

  Robert Higgs

  Government, Use, Today

  18 Copy quote

• Abetted by misguided or co-opted intellectuals, the rulers weave a cloak of legitimacy to disguise their theft and hence to ease their extraction of wealth from the rightful owners.

  Robert Higgs

  Ease, Wealth, Legitimacy

  8 Copy quote

• Recipients of transfers tend to become less self-reliant and more dependent on government payments. When people can get support without exercising their own abilities to discover and respond to opportunities for earning income, those abilities atrophy. People forget - or never learn in the first place - how to help themselves, and eventually some of them simply accept their helplessness.

  Robert Higgs

  Exercise, Opportunity, Government

  16 Copy quote

• In the transfer society, the general public is not only poorer but also less contented, less autonomous, more rancorous, and more politicized. Individuals take part less often in voluntary community activities and more often in belligerent political contests. Genuine communities cannot breathe in the poisonous atmosphere of redistributional politics.

  Robert Higgs

  Community, Political, Atmosphere

  16 Copy quote

• Any society that entails the strengthening of the state apparatus by giving it unchecked control over the economy, and re-unites the polity and the economy, is an historical regression. In it there is no more future for the public, or for the freedoms it supported, than there was under feudalism.

  Robert Higgs

  Giving, Historical, Regression

  15 Copy quote

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