Bruno Prior's Quotes

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

"The assumption that spending more of the taxpayer's money will make things better has survived all kinds of evidence that it has made things worse. The black family -- which survived slavery, discrimination, poverty, wars and depressions -- began to come apart as the federal government moved in with its well-financed programs to 'help.'"

"Nothing is easier than spreading public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody."

"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else", Government (1848)

"But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime", The Law (1850)

"When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating", The Law (1850)

"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?", The Law (1850)