Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

The organization of order is not the exclusive monopoly of the State

Priests, kings, statesmen, soldiers, bankers and public functionaries of all sorts; policemen, jailers and hangmen; capitalists, usurers, businessmen and property-owners; lawyers, economists and politicians - all of them, down to the meanest grocer, repeat in chorus the words of Voltaire, that if there were no God it would be necessary to invent Him.

The function of State coercion is to override individual coercion, and, of course, coercion exercised by any association of individuals within the State. It is by this means that it maintains liberty of expression, security of person and property, genuine freedom of contract, the rights of public meeting and association, and finally its own power to carry out common objects undefeated by the recalcitrance of individual members.

We say, 'You may drink at the age of 21 but not at the age of 20.' Why? Because humans like to create terribly neat categories out of nature because it allows us a nice, tight social organization. The truth is, nature doesn't care that we like nice, neat social organizations. Nature likes variety.

That man is a creature who needs order yet yearns for change is the creative contradiction at the heart of the laws which structure his conformity and define his deviancy.

The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order ...

Nanny states are interested in social order. Daddy states are interested in public order.

If a community decides this is how you're going to dress and these are the punishments, who are we to say different?

Even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through.

The public power of all society is above every soul contained in the same society.

Government is force.

The Social Sciences will concern themselves with the rationalization of social control... the control of human behavior.

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices.

No government allows absolute liberty

Never Forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn't allow him to do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians.

As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.

We have to take the guns away from these people that have them and they are bad people that shouldn't have them.

Gun-control has always been an elitist method of controlling the common.

There is no such thing as gun control. There is only centralizing gun ownership into the hands of a small, political elite and their minions.

A government that intended to protect the liberty of the people would not disarm them. A government planning the opposite most certainly and logically would disarm them. And so it has been in this century. Check out the history of Germany, the Soviet Union, Cuba, China and Cambodia.

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

All political power comes from the barrel of either guns, pussy, or opium pipes, and people seem to like it that way.

Laws can't control the lawless.

[Liberals] think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control.

How long would authority ... exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen.