Liberty Quotes

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all."-- Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) [Claude Frederic Bastiat] French economist, statesman, and author. He did most of his writing during the years just before -- and immediately following -- the French Revolution of February 1848 Source: ca. 1837
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Frederic.Bastiat.Quote.9759

"We must, therefore, emphasize that 'we' are not the government; the government is not 'us.' The government does not in any accurate sense 'represent' the majority of the people. But, even if it did, even if 70 percent of the people decided to murder the remaining 30 percent, this would still be murder and would not be voluntary suicide on the part of the slaughtered minority. No organicist metaphor, no irrelevant bromide that 'we are all part of one another,' must be permitted to obscure this basic fact."-- Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) Dean of the Austrian School of Economics Source: Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays (Auburn: Mises Institute, 2000 [1974]), pp. 55-88.
http://www.mises.org/easaran/chap3.asp
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Murray.Rothbard.Quote.5CA9

"The more profound problem, however, is the degree to which many academic intellectuals, especially in the humanities, have lost their ability to distinguish the 'state' from 'society'."-- Stephen Cox Source: "Assumptions of Power" Reason magazine, March, 1993
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Stephen.Cox.Quote.DB55