Robert Higgs

“The state is a gang of thieves writ large.”

“The state is fundamentally an organization of conquest and exploitation.”

“Whatever the government’s expressed goal, its chief actual product is subordination.”

“The people who have the effrontery to rule us are not worth spit in the ocean.”

“The ideology of the class="highlight">ruling class is that of a shepherd with his sheep.”

“The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, 'See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk.'”

“Regime uncertainty is a pervasive lack of confidence among investors in their ability to foresee the future course of government action.”

“Truly, the world is organized far too much on the basis of nations and nationalism.”

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but it's also the first.”

“We have an 'environmental crisis' because we have a government that has harnessed rhetoric about protecting the environment to serve its own bureaucratic and political interests.”

“Ultimately, the only way to reduce the government’s power is to reduce its size, scope, and spending.”

“The government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.”

“Government expands in scope and power during a crisis, but it does not fully recede to its pre-crisis level afterward. A ratchet effect is at work.”

“The single most important source of the state's subsistence is taxation.”

“War has been the primary factor in the growth of government.”