No man can rightfully be required to join, or support, an association whose protection he does not desire.

A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.

The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.

Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it.

Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.

These so-called governments are in reality only great bands of robbers and murderers, organized, disciplined, and constantly on the alert.

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

No government knows any limits to its power except the endurance of the people.

To say that majorities, as such, have a right to rule minorities, is equivalent to saying that minorities have, and ought to have, no rights, except such as majorities please to allow them.

A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. Neither are a people any the less slaves because permitted periodically to choose new masters.

I'd rather give my life than be afraid to give it.

To stumble twice against the same stone is a proverbial disgrace.

You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right.

What one skill, if you developed it, could have the greatest positive impact on your career? This is the key to your future.

Formal religion was organized for slaves: it offered them consolation which earth did not provide.

Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.

Most men only commit great crimes because of their scruples about petty ones.

Sorrow only increased with knowledge.

There is nobility in the struggle, you don't have to win.

Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father's dead. Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief Shore his old thread in twain.