Quotes by Benjamin Tucker

About Benjamin Tucker:

Benjamin Ricketson Tucker was a proponent, in the 19th century, of American individualist anarchism, which he called "unterrified Jeffersonianism," and editor and publisher of the individualist anarchist periodical Liberty.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

One thing, however, is sure, - that in all cases the effort should be to impose all the cost of repairing the wrong upon the doer of the wrong. This alone is real justice, and of course such justice is necessarily free.

Benjamin Tucker

The claim of the State Socialists, however, that this right would not be exercised in matters pertaining to the individual in the more intimate and private relations of his life is not borne out by the history of governments.

Benjamin Tucker

Such security is equal liberty. But it is not necessarily equality in the use of the earth.

Benjamin Tucker

Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital.

Benjamin Tucker

Aggression is simply another name for government.

Benjamin Tucker

First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice.

Benjamin Tucker

The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control.

Benjamin Tucker

I insist that there is nothing sacred in the life of an invader, and there is no valid principle of human society that forbids the invaded to protect themselves in whatever way they can.

Benjamin Tucker

Commanded love of all men indiscriminately is an obliteration of distinction between love and hate, and therefore is not love at all.

Benjamin Tucker

To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury.

Benjamin Tucker

And capital punishment, however ineffective it may be and through whatever ignorance it may be resorted to, is a strictly defensive act, - at least in theory.

Benjamin Tucker

And this is the Anarchistic definition of the State: the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual, or a band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire people within a given area.

Benjamin Tucker

But which is the State's essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care.

Benjamin Tucker

For, just as it has been said that there is no half-way house between Rome and Reason, so it may be said that there is no half-way house between State Socialism and Anarchism.

Benjamin Tucker

Murder is an offensive act. The term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act.

Benjamin Tucker

The Anarchists answer that the abolition of the State will leave in existence a defensive association, resting no longer on a compulsory but on a voluntary basis, which will restrain invaders by any means that may prove necessary.

Benjamin Tucker

The cost of justice can be justly paid only by the invader.

Benjamin Tucker

Defence was an afterthought, prompted by necessity; and its introduction as a State function, though effected doubtless with a view to the strengthening of the State, was really and in principle the initiation of the State's destruction.

Benjamin Tucker

The exercise of authority over the same area by two States is a contradiction.

Benjamin Tucker

The moment that justice must be paid for by the victim of injustice it becomes itself injustice.

Benjamin Tucker

Author Bio

  • NameBenjamin Tucker
  • DescriptionAmerican journalist and anarchist
  • AliasesBenjamin Ricketson Tucker
  • BornApril 17, 1854
  • DiedJune 22, 1939
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJournalist; Philosopher