Joseph Sobran Quotes

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren

The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.

Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from birth what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government to do good.

A government role in our society should be inherently suspect …. There is something inherently coercive in the nature of government.

Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.

There is nothing government can give you that it hasn't taken from you in the first place.

A government that understands the limits of power as well as its potential.

I feel that if people investigate the emergence of government, of State power - if they examine the logic of State power historically, and more specifically in the United States - they will find that the concept of limited government is not tenable once they adopt some type of libertarian principle.

Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.

When power is for sale, then government power should be severely limited. When power is abused, then the less power the better.

You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.

All our rights are gradually eroded as government gets bigger.

I don't like the idea that the government has so much of a say in things.

Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands, and perpetuate its institutions.

Never underestimate the power of the State to act out its own massive fantasies.

Government is force, pure and simple. There's no way to sugar-coat that. And because government is force, it will attract the worst elements of society - people who want to use government to avoid having to earn their living and to avoid having to persuade others to accept their ideas voluntarily.

I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P. J. O'Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

The Framers (of the Constitution) were not concerned primarily with favoring one type of government over another, but with limiting the power of government, regardless of its source.

To strengthen a weak government, we must reduce its power.

Civil war was taught them [Americans] that "the sacred right of insurrection" is as much out of place in a democratic state as in an aristocratic or a monarchical state; and that the government should always be clothed with ample authority to arrest and punish whoever plots its destruction.

The power of eminent domain is essential to a sovereign government.

Government is nothing but regulated force; force is its appropriate claim upon your attention

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

In a sense, the police power is but another name for the power of government.

Can government really be active and, at the same time, limited? History suggests otherwise.