193 Quotes About Libertarianism

[A] great embarrassing fact… haunts all attempts to represent the market as the highest form of human freedom: that historically, impersonal, commercial markets originate in theft.

The theories of the social sciences do not consist of “laws” in the sense of empirical rules about the behavior of objects definable in physical terms. All that the theory of the social sciences attempts is to provide a technique of reasoning which assists us in connecting individual facts, but which, like logic or mathematics, is not about the facts. It can, therefore, and this is the second point, never be verified or falsified by reference to facts.

The challenge that faced the English in the seventeenth century was how to curb the power of an absolute monarch. In the twenty-first century, it is the markets that have taken on the mantle of absolutism, placing themselves about the jurisdiction of national governments.

It is illogical to say, as many etatists do, that liberalism is hostile to or hates the state, because it is opposed to the transfer of the ownership of railroads or cotton mills to the state. If a man says that sulphuric acid does not make a good hand lotion, he is not expressing hostility to sulphuric acid as such; he is simply giving his opinion concerning the limitations of its use.

Capitalism is not a form of government. Capitalism is a symptom of freedom. It is the result of individual rights, which include property rights.

There's something immoral about abandoning your common sense in matters of social importance.

Countries adopting free-market capitalism have increased output 70-fold, halved work days and doubled lifespans.

Even Adam Smith's "invisible hand" occasionally needs a slap on the wrist.

A limited state with free economic systems is the soil where the liberty tree blossoms.