I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State has really lived for the poor.

Civilization dawned when the first group of men acted in co-operation, and men have ever since divided over how far they should be forced to group action or whether they should join of their own free will.

[F]reemen believe that governments are for them, not they for governments; and that it is a precious right for every one to seek that spot on earth where he can best pursue the ends of life, physical and mental, religious, political and cultural.

LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter IX

Dictating is the rule of the army, not of liberty; it is the destruction of individuality...liberty...consists in a great measure in protection of individuality.

LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter XXI

The philosophy commonly called individualism is a philosophy of social cooperation and the progressive intensification of the social nexus. On the other hand the application of the basic ideas of collectivism cannot result in anything but social disintegration and the perpetuation of armed conflict...every variety of collectivism promises eternal peace starting with the day of its own decisive victory and the final overthrow and extermination of all other ideologies and their supporters.

It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another; there is no other source from which State power can be drawn. Therefore every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power; there is never, nor can be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power.

This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any public official, save exactly to the degree he himself stands by the country.

When important issues affecting the life of an individual are decided by somebody else, it makes no difference to the individual whether that somebody else is a king, a dictator or society at large.

[E]very one is the best judge of what concerns himself alone, and the person most able to supply his private wants.