Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert Quotes

• Deny human rights, and however little you may wish to do so, you will find yourself abjectly kneeling at the feet of that old-world god, Force.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in God

  Tags in Yourself, Rights

• How can an act done under compulsion have any moral element in it, seeing that what is moral is the free act of an intelligent being?

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Compulsion, Moral, Free

• And what sort of philosophical doctrine is thi – that numbers confer unlimited rights, that they take from some persons all rights over themselves, and vest these rights in others.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Freedom, Philosophical, Doctrine

• Do you not see, first, that – as a mental abstract – physical force is directly opposed to morality; and secondly, that it practically drives out of existence the moral forces?

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Morality, Force

• Every tax or rate, forcibly taken from an unwilling person, is immoral and oppressive.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Tax, Unwilling, Oppressive

• I venture to prophesy that there lies before us a bitter and an evil time.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Before, Evil, Lies

• How, then, can the rights of three men exceed the rights of two men? In what possible way can the rights of three men absorb the rights of two men, and make them as if they had never existed.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Rights, Men

• If we cannot by reason, by influence, by example, by strenuous effort, and by personal sacrifice, mend the bad places of civilization, we certainly cannot do it by force.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Sacrifice

  Tags in Reason, Bad, Force

• If government half a century ago had provided us with all our dinners and breakfasts, it would be the practice of our orators today to assume the impossibility of our providing for ourselves.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Assume, Government, Dinners

• The career of a politician mainly consists in making one part of the nation do what it does not want to do, in order to please and satisfy the other part of the nation.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Satisfy, Nation, Career

• It is the small owner who offers the only really profitable and reliable material for taxation. He is made for taxation.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Taxation, Small, Owner, Reliable

• The course that will restore to the workmen a father’s duties and responsibilities, between which and themselves the state has now stepped, is for them to reject all forced contributions from others, and to do their own work through their own voluntary combinations.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Father

  Tags in Voluntary, Through, Others

• If you tie a man’s hands there is nothing moral about his not committing murder.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Moral, Murder, Hands

• The ruling idea of the politician – stated rather bluntly – is that those who are opposed to him exist for the purpose of being made to serve his ends, if he can get power enough in his hands to force these ends upon them.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Politics, Power

  Tags in Made

• There never yet has been a great system sustained by force under which all the best faculties of men have not slowly withered.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Men, Best, Force, System

• We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million men cannot morally do, and government, representing many millions of men, cannot do.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Morally, Man, Government

• You will not make a man wiser by taking freedom of action from him. A man can only learn when he is free to act.

  Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Freedom, Man, Free

Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert (17)

Birth:	18th June, 1838
Death:	5th November, 1906
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Individualist, Philosopher, Politician, Theorist, Writer

About

Auberon Herbert was a British writer, theorist, philosopher, and 19th century individualist. He promoted a classical liberal philosophy and took the ideas of Herbert Spencer a stage further by advocating voluntary-funded government that uses force only in defence of individual liberty and private property. He is known as the originator of voluntaryism. Herbert was Member of Parliament for the two member constituency of Nottingham between 1870–1874. He served as President of the fourth day of the first ever Co-operative Congress in 1869.

Related Authors

• Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert
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