Quote#Nature
The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place,…
Quote byLysander Spooner · 1808–1887
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority, p. 12–13.
English (original)
The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.
— Lysander Spooner
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Majorities and minorities cannot rightfully be taken at all into account in deciding questions of justice. And all talk about them, in matters of government, is mere absurdity.
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If our fathers, in 1776, had acknowledged the principle that a majority had the right to rule the minority, we should never have become a nation; for they were in a small minority, as compared with those who claimed the right to rule over …
The science of mine and thine—the science of justice—is the science of all human rights; of all a man’s rights of person and property; of all his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it.
The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that—however …