"To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within their control as may be."

"Government doesn’t louse up everything, but it sure louses up a lot of what it promises to deliver... [G]overnment has an abysmal record of abusing the public’s trust, finances, and its own authority. Now some people want it to take on a bigger role?"

"Governments can be democratic or not, more or less corrupt, but they will still pursue the same basic goals, and they will still be controlled by an elite. Government by its very nature concentrates power and excludes people from making decisions over their own lives."

"Governments are by their nature aggressive and dominating. No society is safe if its neighbor is a state."

"All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people."

"If a private enterprise is a failure, it closes down—unless it can get a government subsidy to keep it going; if a government enterprise fails, it is expanded. I challenge you to find exceptions."

"The state is not a universal nor in itself an autonomous source of power. The state is nothing else but the effect, the profile, the mobile shape of a perpetual statification or statifications, in the sense of incessant transactions which modify, or move, or drastically change, or insidiously shift sources of finance, modes of investment, decision-making centers, forms and types of control, relationships between local powers, the central authority, and so on. In short, the state has no heart, as we well know, but not just in the sense that it has no feelings, either good or bad, but it has no heart in the sense that it has no interior. The state is nothing else but the mobile effect of a regime of multiple governmentalities."

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."

"Women are ineligible to public offices for the following simple reasons: public officers are responsible to the state; and hence must be perfectly free, and dependent always only upon their own will; otherwise such a responsibility would be unjust and contradictory. Woman, however, is free and independent only so long as she has no husband. Hence the exclusive condition under which a woman might become eligible to office, would be the promise not to marry. But no rational woman can give such a promise, nor can the state rationally accept it. For woman is destined to love, and love comes to women of itself — does not depend upon her free will. But when she loves, it is her duty to marry, and the state must not form an obstacle to this duty. Now, if a woman, holding a public office, were to marry, two cases are possible. Firstly, she might not subject herself to her husband so far as her official duties were concerned. But this is utterly against female dignity; for she can not say then, that she has given herself up wholly to the husband. Moreover, where are the strict limits which separate official from private life Or, secondly, she might subject herself utterly, as nature and morality require, to her husband, even so far as her official duties are concerned. But, in that case, she would cease to be the official, and he would become it."

"Each person who hears another one cry for help is lawfully bound by the state-compact to hasten to his assistance. For all individuals have promised to all individuals to protect them; and the cry for help is the announcement that a danger exists, which the representative of the protecting power, the government, can not immediately remove. Hence, the cry for help confers upon each individual again not only the right but also the obligation to render immediate protection. If it can be proved that a citizen heard the cry for help and did not hurry to assistance, he is liable to punishment…"

"No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race."

"The best public servant is the worst one. A thoroughly first-rate man in public service is corrosive. He eats holes in our liberties. The better he is and the longer he stays the greater the danger. If he is an enthusiast -- a bright-eyed madman who is frantic to make this the finest government in the world -- the black plague is a house pet by comparison."

"Let’s look at the real world and set who is causing all this violence and repression of human rights. The wholesale murder by standing armies in World Wars I and II, the pillage and tape of former colonial counties, military invasions or so-called “police operations” in Korea and Vietnam — all of these have been done by governments. It is government and state/class rule, which is the source of all violence. This includes all governments. The so-called “Communist” world is not communist and the “Free” world is not free. East and West, Capitalism, private or state remains an inhuman type of society where the vast majority is bossed at work, at home, and in the community. Propaganda (news and literary), policemen and soldiers, prisons and schools, traditional values and morality all serve to reinforce the power of the few and to convince or correct the many into passive acceptance of a brutal degrading and irrational system. This is what Anarchists mean by authority being oppression, and it is just such authoritarian rule which is at work in the United States of America, as well as the “Communist” governments of China or Cuba."

"To Anarchists, a Capitalist "democratic" government is no better than a fascist or Communist regime, because the ruling class only differs in the amount of violence they authorize their police and army to use and the degree of rights they will allow, if any. Through war, police repression, social neglect, and political repression. Governments have killed millions of persons, whether trying to defend or overthrow a government. Anarchists want to end this slaughter, and build a society based on peace and freedom."

"The government will not free us, and is part of the problem rather than part of the solution."

"A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself. He is made a law unto himself."

"Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced."

"Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state."

"Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been found that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery."

"Whatever is injurious to the interests of the public is void, on the grounds of public policy."

"The argument of public policy leads you from sound law, and is never argued but when all other points fail."

"The principle of public policy is this: ex dolo malo non oritur actio. No Court will lend its aid to a man who founds his cause of action upon an immoral or illegal act."

"There are many cases in which individuals sustain an injury, for which the law gives no action; for instance, pulling down houses, or raising bulwarks for the preservation and defence of the kingdom against the King's enemies."

"The great end, for which men enter into society, was to preserve their property. That right is preserved sacred and incommunicable in all instances, where it has not been taken away or abridged by some public law for the good of the whole. . . . Distresses, executions, forfeitures, taxes, &c, are all of this description; wherein every man, by common consent gives up that right, for the sake of justice and general good."

"Public policy does not admit of definition and is not easily explained. It is a variable quantity; it must vary and does vary with the habits, capacities, and opportunities of the public."

"Public policy is a high horse to mount, and is difficult to ride when you have mounted it."

"Public policy is a very unruly horse, and when once you get astride it you never know where it will carry you."

"It is impossible to say what the opinion of a man or a Judge might be as to what public policy is."