Top 15 Harry Browne Quotes

Republicans campaign like Libertarians and govern like Democrats.

Whenever the government fails to prevent a plane crash, the event is cited as justification for having the government prevent plane crashes.

It is a mistake to define a libertarian as someone who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Never define libertarians in terms of conservatives or liberals. Conservative politicians are as fiscally imprudent as liberals, and liberal politicians are as contemptuous of individual rights as conservatives.

The insurance company has a strong motivation to make no promise it can't keep, and to keep every promise it makes. The police have no such motivation, since they are usually immune from any prosecution for failing to protect you. Thus you can't reply on the police (or any other government agency) to protect you. You must depend upon your own ability to repel an attacker.

When a Republican politician says he's in favor of the 2nd Amendment, it means he won't compromise on gun control until the last possible minute.

I want government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.

The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it.

The Consumer Price Index is 15 times higher than it was when the Federal Reserve was founded in 1913. In the hundred years prior to the advent of the Federal Reserve, prices in America fell by one third.

No one ever died from smoking marijuana, but millions of people have died by believing politicians. So why is marijuana outlawed while politicians are still legal?

Conservatives are very upset at the idea of a single-mom family. But they do their best to create a lot of them by sending American men off to war to be killed.

Since government supposedly can do whatever it sets out to do, the president should sign an executive order outlawing death. However, as with all other laws, Congress should be exempt.

To correct this, we don't need to turn back the clock. We only have to turn away from government — from the idea that we can cure social problems with a gun, from the fairy-tale belief that government can be made to work for anyone but the politicians. Coercion will never be as effective as freedom and cooperation. Government doesn't work. It is time to stop trying to fix it, and start finding ways to live with as little of it as possible.

Government doesn't work, and I want the federal government out of them. The answer always is smaller government. Government forces one choice on everyone. Freedom provides a hundred choices.

Reinventing government isn't the answer; we need to disinvent it. And you can't make an agency of coercion user friendly; a gun is still a gun — even if the triggerman smiles, calls you 'sir' or 'ma'am,' and lets you fill out a sheet evaluating his performance.

We have to understand that politicians don't want to reduce government. And it isn't because they think the spending cuts would hurt too many people. It's because they know it would hurt them. No matter what they say, neither Democrats nor Republicans want to give up the power that allows them to bestow favors and exemptions on friends.