Jaron Lanier Quotes

Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.

I do not know of any environmental group in any country that does not view its government as an adversary.

The single definition of government I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's the organization which claims the right to kill people who won't do what it wants.

On social media, like on Instagram and stuff that I post, and the way that I view myself, and portray myself on there, that's definitely a much more personalized take. I'm not collaborating with people to make that, it's my own social media platform in which I'm - it's not a character, it's just me.

One of the tricks of the west is to use or create images, they create images of a person who doesn't go along with their views and then they make certain that this image is distasteful, and then anything that that person has to say from thereon, from thereon in, is rejected.

Governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. Its one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.

It's clear that other problems such as [...] the domination of business over government, science, thought, and society, are much bigger than non-free software.

Why are you so docile when you give up your child to a government agent called a schoolteacher?

My position is that I am personally opposed to abortion, but I don't think I have a right to impose my view on the rest of society. I've thought a lot about it, and my position probably doesn't please anyone. I think the government should stay out completely. I will not vote to overturn the Court's decision. I will not vote to curtail a woman's right to choose abortion. But I will also not vote to use federal funds to fund abortion.

I do not share the general view that market forces are the basis of personal liberty.

Religion has been a powerful weapon in the hands of governments, in the hands of priests, in the hands of kings who have used it as a weapon to keep down the populace. It is a wonderful way of disciplining people and making them do what you want, to tell them that if they don't do what you want they will, for example, go to Hell.

The capitalist class rules but does not govern: it contents itself with ruling the government.

But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticise the Government. Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.

There's nothing more political than sex. The church has had its hand on our crotch for more than 2,000 years, and the government is moving in that direction.

The basic function of the government everywhere in all times, whatever title it adopts and whatever its origin and organisation may be, is always that of oppressing and exploiting the masses, of defending the oppressors and the exploiters: and it's principal, characteristic and indispensable instruments are the police agent and the tax-collector, the soldier and the gaoler - to whom must be invariably added the trader in lies, be he priest of schoolmaster, remunerated or protected by the government to enslave minds and make them docilely accept the yoke.

I like to say I have Internet Immorality. From the beginning of the "internet famous" era until now, I've evolved and went with the flow of change, always changing my makeup looks, fashion, and vision. My brand has grown so fast from social media and I don't know how life would be without be logging onto MySpace for the first time 10 years ago!

The best view of big government is in the rearview mirror as we leave it behind.

When your government, employer, landlord, merchant, banker and local sports team gang up to picture, digitize and permanently record your every activity, you are placed under unprecedented control.

Influence is not government.

Young people are not raw material to be employed by the political class on behalf of whatever fashionable political, military, or social cause catches its fancy. In a free society, their lives are not the playthings of government.

To salvage a society, it is necessary to aid, abet, raise and increase that state of mind. If you were to set up a perfect government out here which required the intervention of nobody, you would have destroyed the society. But by raising the individual ability of the persons in the society within the framework that they are able to view, raise their ability within the framework they are able to view, you would have achieved a marked advance for that society.

No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty.

Those policies - more taxes, more regulation, more debt, more spending, more government - will make American worse. It just will, in my view.

The only legitimate purpose of government is to serve citizens, and ... the only legitimate purpose of technology is to improve our lives, not to manipulate or enslave us.

Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government.