Quote

Vices are not crimes.

Lysander Spooner

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lysander Spooner
Age: 79 †
Born: 1808
Born: January 19
Died: 1887
Died: May 14
Anarchist
Businessperson
Essayist
Journalist
Lawyer
Opinion Journalist
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Crime
Crimes
Vices
Prison

More quotes by Lysander Spooner

Image
A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases.
Lysander Spooner
Image
Practically and commercially speaking, a dollar is not necessarily a specific thing, made of silver, or gold, or any other single metal, or substance. It is only such a quantum of market value as exists in a given piece of silver or gold.
Lysander Spooner
Image
Men's moral principles are weak enough without their being made subordinate to selfishness and their selfishness is quite active enough, without any such effort as Christianity makes to constitute it the mainspring of all their conduct.
Lysander Spooner
Image
The desertion of Jesus, by his followers, furnishes an argument in support of the supposition that he attempted to be king of the Jews, rather than that he was a superior being.
Lysander Spooner
Image
Doing a thing by law, or according to law, is only carrying the law into execution. And punishing a man by, or according to, the sentence or judgment of his peers, is only carrying that sentence or judgment into execution.
Lysander Spooner
Image
Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive government in the world, if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they could see any chance of thereby ameliorating their condition.
Lysander Spooner
Image
Taking a man's money without his consent, is also as much robbery, when it is done by millions of men, acting in concert, and calling themselves a government, as when it is done by a single individual, acting on his own responsibility, and calling himself a highwayman.
Lysander Spooner
Image
Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice. They are men of the same nature as minorities. They have the same passions for fame, power, and money, as minorities and are liable and likely to be equally - perhaps more than equally, because more boldly - rapacious, tyrannical and unprincipled, if intrusted with power.
Lysander Spooner
Image
If it be said that the consent of the strongest party in a nation, is all that is necessary to justify the establishment of a government that shall have authority over the weaker party, it may be answered that the most despotic governments in the world rest upon that very principle, viz.: the consent of the strongest party.
Lysander Spooner
Image
The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me.
Lysander Spooner
Image
There can be no criminal intent in resisting injustice.
Lysander Spooner
Image
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.
Lysander Spooner
Image
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.
Lysander Spooner
Image
Any number of scoundrels, having money enough to start with, can establish themselves as a 'government' because, with money, they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort more money and also compel general obedience to their will.
Lysander Spooner
Image
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.
Lysander Spooner
Image
The mental capacity of a person to make reasonable contracts, is the only criterion, by which to determine his legal capacity to make obligatory contracts. And his mental capacity to make reasonable contracts is certainly not to be determined by the fact that he is, or is not, twenty-one years of age.
Lysander Spooner
Image
All these cries of having abolished slavery, of having saved the country, of having preserved the union, of establishing a government of consent, and of maintaining the national honor, are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats - so transparent that they ought to deceive no one.
Lysander Spooner
Image
One essential of a free government is that it rest wholly on voluntary support. And one certain proof that a government is not free, is that it coerces more or less persons to support it, against their will.
Lysander Spooner
Image
Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction.
Lysander Spooner
Image
There is not, in the Constitution, a syllable that implies that persons, born within the territorial limits of the United States, have allegiance imposed upon them on account of their birth in the country, or that they will be judged by any different rule, on the subject of treason, than persons of foreign birth.
Lysander Spooner