Robert LeFevre Quotes

Hundreds if not thousands of zealots seeking ever to create universal harmony and understanding, have offered their particular theology as the truth faith. The justification has been that, once men all agree on a particular series of concepts or beliefs, they will stop imposing on one another. To date, this effort has also fallen short.

Many times when I use the term 'government', people think that I mean law and order. And so, if they hear me say: 'We don't need government', they think I mean we don't need law and order. Well, this is probably what makes me an 'autarchist' rather than an anarchist. I think we need law and order. You see, I am dedicated to the idea of lawful and orderly procedures. And because of that I have to stand against government. Because government doesn't provide either law or order.

Government alone, in all man’s inventions, is capable of independent life. Government alone, like Mrs. Shelley’s terrifying creation of the monster born in Frankenstein’s mind, has the power and the ability to turn upon its creators and destroy them.

If men were basically good, we would not require government; if men were basically evil, we could not afford to grant any man the power of government.

If men are capable of committing evil actions, granting them power over others makes evil actions certain. But there is a difference. When men in government commit and evil act, they are legally shielded from their consequences of the act. ** p. 487

If men are good, you don’t need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don’t dare have one.

The bill of grievances contained in the immortal Declaration of Independence could be extended by our own citizens in modern times, had they the stomach for it. … So important is the right and duty of the people to dispense with despotism, this great Declaration contains the sentence not once, but twice. In its final utterance, the choice of words does not call for the formation of a government. Rather, it calls for "new guards" which may or may not entail such a unit as an artificial agency.

We know that men cannot be compelled to be good. They can only be prevented from being bad—a negative condition. We know from bitter experience that men cannot be forced into doing the wise thing, for such a forcement is foolishness.

What you want is protection. You want to be safe. What the government does is to try to retaliate after the fact.

When the government uses "divide and conquer," it sows suspicion so that the people who would naturally tend to affiliate will distrust each other. Thus, they don't affiliate. The consequence is that everyone distrusts his neighbor. But everyone trusts the government.

The most constructive of the anarchists were, socially speaking, individualists, peaceful and harmless. The least constructive, socially speaking, were dedicated to the overthrow of force by counter force. But without exception, in the realm of economics every anarchist comes unglued.

Very few crooks perform with a police audience.

In brief, let us define the anarchist as a political individualist and an economic socialist. In contrast, the libertarian can be defined as an individualist, both politically and economically.

While it is relatively easy to see that government is a bully, a thief, and a killer, the most baneful effect of government has always been psychological. Government convinced man that it was an absolute necessity for human survival. ‘No matter how bad a government may be, it is better than no government.’ No other church had a more convincing argument.

I demonstrated that slavery is rationalized, under the name of government and politics, because of the belief that if we didn’t enslave others, the others would enslave us. Thus, we practice slavery on some in order that others should be free.