Joseph Sobran > Quotes

“If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.”
― Joseph Sobran

“The measure of the state's success is that the word anarchy frightens people, while the word state does not.”
― Joseph Sobran

“An anti-Semite used to mean a man who hated Jews. Now it means a man who is hated by Jews.”
― Joseph Sobran

“By today’s standards King George III was a very mild tyrant indeed. He taxed his American colonists at a rate of only pennies per annum. His actual impact on their personal lives was trivial. He had arbitrary power over them in law and in principle but in fact it was seldom exercised. If you compare his rule with that of today’s U.S. Government you have to wonder why we celebrate our independence..”
― Joseph Sobran

“Need' now means wanting someone else's money. 'Greed' means wanting to keep your own. 'Compassion' is when a politician arranges the transfer.”
― Joseph Sobran

“The purpose of a college education is to give you the correct view of minorities, and the means to live as far away from them as possible.”
― Joseph Sobran

“The real triumph of the state occurs when its subjects refer to it as “we,” like football fans talking about the home team.”
― Joseph Sobran

“When your child is a little older, you can teach him about our tax system in a way that is easy to grasp. Offer him, say, $10 to mow the lawn. When he has mowed it and asks to be paid, withhold $5 and explain that this is income tax. Give $1 to his younger brother, and tell him that this is "fair". Also, explain that you need the other $4 yourself to cover the administrative costs of dividing the money. When he cries, tell him he is being "selfish" and "greedy". Later in life he will thank you.”
― Joseph Sobran

“When you internalize an author whose vision or philosophy is both rich and out of fashion, you gain a certain immunity from the pressures of the contemporary. The modern world, with it's fads, propaganda, and advertising, is forever trying to herd us into conformity. Great literature can help us to remain fad-proof.”
― Joseph Sobran

“There has never been a humane communist regime. Marxism is inherently totalitarian. It recognizes no moral limits on the state. It’s the most convenient ideology for aspiring tyrants; it also retains its appeal for intellectuals, who have proved equally skillful at rationalizing abuses of power and at exculpating themselves.”
― Joseph Sobran

“Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right.”
― Joseph Sobran

“In 100 years, we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching remedial English in college.”
― Joseph Sobran

“At the end of a century that has seen
the evils of communism, Nazism and other modern tyrannies,
the impulse to centralize power remains amazingly persistent.”
― Joseph Sobran

“A bigot can be defined as a guy who gets caught practicing sociology without a license.”
― Joseph Sobran, Joseph Sobran The National Review Years

“You can always tell when a politician has spoken from the heart: he takes it back the next day.”
― Joseph Sobran, Regime Change Begins at Home