Quotes by Lysander Spooner

About Lysander Spooner:

Lysander Spooner is also known for competing with the U.S. Post Office with his American Letter Mail Company, which was forced out of business by the United States federal government.
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

Children learn many principles of natural law at a very early age. For example: they learn that when one child has picked up an apple or a flower, it is his, and that his associates must not take it from him against his will.

Lysander Spooner

The mental capacity of a person to make reasonable contracts, is the only criterion, by which to determine his legal capacity to make obligatory contracts. And his mental capacity to make reasonable contracts is certainly not to be determined by the ...

Lysander Spooner

And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract—the Constitution—made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three gener...

Lysander Spooner

A man's natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime; whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, or by millions calling themselves a go...

Lysander Spooner

Le fait est que le gouvernement, comme un bandit de grand chemin, dit à un individu: "La bourse ou la vie." Quantité de taxes, ou même la plupart, sont payées sous la contrainte d'une telle menace.

Lysander Spooner

N'importe quel groupe de scélérats, pourvu qu’ils aient assez d'argent pour l'entreprendre, peuvent décider qu'ils sont un gouvernement; car, pourvu qu'ils aient de l'argent, ils peuvent engager des soldats, et utiliser ces soldats pour extorque...

Lysander Spooner

A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.

Lysander Spooner

In reality there is no such thing as an inflation of prices, relatively to gold. There is such a thing as a depreciated paper currency.

Lysander Spooner

A man who is without capital, and who, by prohibitions upon banking, is practically forbidden to hire any, is in a condition elevated but one degree above that of a chattel slave. He may live; but he can live only as the servant of others; compelled ...

Lysander Spooner

Majorities and minorities cannot rightfully be taken at all into account in deciding questions of justice.

Lysander Spooner

There is not, in the Constitution, a syllable that implies that persons, born within the territorial limits of the United States, have allegiance imposed upon them on account of their birth in the country, or that they will be judged by any different...

Lysander Spooner

All governments, the worst on earth, and the most tyrannical on earth, are free governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them.

Lysander Spooner

There can be no criminal intent in resisting injustice.

Lysander Spooner

The imaginations of believers have dressed up and exaggerated the excellence of the style and matter of the New Testament generally, in the same manner, in which they have the moral instructions of Jesus.

Lysander Spooner

Practically and commercially speaking, a dollar is not necessarily a specific thing, made of silver, or gold, or any other single metal, or substance. It is only such a quantum of market value as exists in a given piece of silver or gold.

Lysander Spooner

The greatest of all crimes are the wars that are carried on by governments, to plunder, enslave, and destroy mankind.

Lysander Spooner

Who are ever taxed? Individuals only. Who have property that can be taxed? Individuals only. Who can give their consent to be taxed? Individuals only. Who are ever taxed without their consent? Individuals only. Who, then, are robbed, if taxed without...

Lysander Spooner

To measure prices by a currency that is called by the same names as gold, but that is really inferior in value to gold, and then - because those prices are nominally higher than gold prices - to say that they are inflated, relatively to gold, is a pe...

Lysander Spooner

To say that majorities, as such, have a right to rule minorities, is equivalent to saying that minorities have, and ought to have, no rights, except such as majorities please to allow them.

Lysander Spooner

Doing a thing by law, or according to law, is only carrying the law into execution. And punishing a man by, or according to, the sentence or judgment of his peers, is only carrying that sentence or judgment into execution.

Lysander Spooner

Author Bio

  • NameLysander Spooner
  • DescriptionAnarchist, Entrepreneur, Abolitionist
  • BornJanuary 19, 1808
  • DiedMay 14, 1887
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionLawyer; Journalist; Essayist; Philosopher
  • WorksNo Treason