Quotessence
Home / Authors / Lysander Spooner
Lysander Spooner

Lysander Spooner Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllGovernmentMenIfsPersonsLawPeopleNaturalPrinciplesRightsSlaveIndividualConsentContractsLibertyStatesJusticePropertyRobbersConstitutionCrime

Famous Lysander Spooner Quotes

“The 'nations,' as they are called, with whom our pretended ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators profess to make treaties, are as much myths as our own. On general principles of law and reason, there are no such 'nations.' ... Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades.”

MenPersonsMadeReasonLawIndividualNationsPresidentPrinciplesHe ManKingsMoonAuthoritySlaveryMythIndividualismRepresentativesSecretarySenatorsSovereigntyTreatiesAmbassadorsValidityIndividual RightsMan In The Moon
Book:The collected works of Lysander Spooner
Create image

“If two individuals enter into a contract to commit trespass, theft, robbery or murder upon a third, the contract is unlawful and void, simply because it is a contract to violate natural justice, or men's natural rights.”

IfsMenTwoIndividualNaturalJusticeRightsThirdsMurderCommitContractsVoidTheftRobberyNatural RightsUnlawfulNatural Justice
Book:The unconstitutionality of slavery: including parts first and second
Create image

“It cannot be said that the Constitution formed 'the people of the United States,' for all time, into a corporation. It does not speak of 'the people' as a corporation, but as individuals. A corporation does not describe itself as 'we,' nor as 'people,' nor as 'ourselves.' Nor does a corporation, in legal language, have any 'posterity.'”

PeopleDoeSaidStatesIndividualSpeakLanguageUnitedUnited StatesConstitutionAll TimeCorporationsPosterity
Book:Let's Abolish Government
Create image

“Legally speaking, the term 'public rights' is as vague and indefinite as are the terms 'public health,' 'public good,' 'public welfare,' and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals.”

UsedIndividualTermNumbersGreaterRightsWelfareVaguePublic HealthIndividual RightsPublic GoodPublic Welfare
Book:The collected works of Lysander Spooner
Create image

“It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals. And whenever any number of men, calling themselves a government, do anything to another man, or to his property, which they had no right to do as individuals, they thereby declare themselves trespassers, robbers, or murderers, according to the nature of their acts.”

MenSelfGovernmentIndividualNumbersRightsCallingPropertyAcquireEvidentMurdererAnother ManRobbersConspiring
Author:Lysander Spooner
Create image

“For everybody has a natural right not only to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defence of everybody else, whose person or property is invaded. The natural right of each individual to defend his own person and property against an aggressor, and to go to the assistance and defence of every one else whose person or property is invaded, is a right without which men could not exist on earth.”

MenPersonsEarthIndividualNaturalPropertyCitizenshipAssistanceDefenceAggressors
Author:Lysander Spooner
Create image