Brad Edwards > Brad's Quotes

“Some of us realize the self-evident truth that no election, no constitution, no legislation, and no other pseudo-religious political ritual can bestow upon anyone the right to rule another. Nothing can make a man into a rightful master; nothing can make a man into a rightful slave.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“For anyone who thinks "profit" is evil, I have a challenge for you: try NOT to get any profit in the next week. Profit simply means increasing how much valuable stuff you have, and if you don't profit, you die. Literally. For example, don't buy any food for a week, because when you buy food (or anything), it's because you value the food MORE than you value the money you trade for it. If you didn't, you wouldn't make the trade. So you PROFIT (and so does the seller) every time you buy something. And every time you sell something, or work for money, etc. So before condemning "profit" (or "greed" or "selfishness," for that matter), see if you can survive without it. Then stop repeating vague collectivist BS, and learn to distinguish between "win/win" events (voluntary exchange) where BOTH sides profit, and "win/lose" events, where one side benefits by harming the other side. By the way, "government" is ALWAYS the latter.”
― Larken Rose

“The larger the group, the more toxic, the more of your beauty as an individual you have to surrender for the sake of group thought. And when you suspend your individual beauty you also give up a lot of your humanity. You will do things in the name of a group that you would never do on your own. Injuring, hurting, killing, drinking are all part of it, because you've lost your identity, because you now owe your allegiance to this thing that's bigger than you are and that controls you.”
― George Carlin, Last Words

“Jesus taught nonviolence, and told you to love your neighbor, but the state encourages you to vote for people who will use the violence of government to butt into every aspect of everyone else’s life. Which do you believe?”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You are not Christians. You are not Jews. You are not Muslims. And you certainly aren’t atheists. You all have the same god, and its name is ‘government.’ You’re all members of the most evil, insane, destructive cult in history. If there ever was a devil, the state is it. And you worship it with all your heart and soul.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“When July Fourth rolls around, and you’re all swigging your beer and waving your flags, does the fact that we are infinitely less free than we ever were under British rule ever make its way into what’s left of your brains?”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“Ayn Rand called it ‘the sanction of the victim.’ If you give the impression to your oppressor that you accept, or even approve of, his oppression of you, things will only get worse. Whatever else happens, never tell someone that you accept that he has the right to rule you. Never. You will make him into a monster, and you will make yourself into a slave.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“What the hell are you proud of? Proud to live in the country with the most intrusive, obnoxious, abusive tax collectors in the world? Proud to live in a country that has a higher percentage of people in prison than any other country in the world? Proud to be ruled by a government that has started and perpetuated more military conflicts in more areas of the world than any other in history? Proud to live in a country where the politicians and bankers have seen to it that you, your children, and your children’s children will forever be their indentured servants, to be forever herded and fleeced like sheep? Proud to live in a country where the biggest slimeballs on the planet tell you what you can eat, what you can drink, what you can drive, what you can build, where you can work, what you can produce, and what you can think?”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You evade your responsibility as human beings by hallucinating a false god that relieves you of the duty to think for yourselves. You don’t want to be free, because being merely obedient requires so much less thought.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“But if you’re not allowed to defend your rights, by force if necessary, then they aren’t rights at all. If it’s up to government to decide what rights we have, then we have no rights at all. You might as well ask a carjacker whether you have the right to keep your own car.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“If you call it ‘taxation’ and ‘war,’ it stops being a sin, right? After all, it was only your god that said you shouldn’t steal and murder, but the state said it was okay. It’s pretty obvious which one outranks the other in your minds. Despite all the churches, synagogues, and mosques we see around us, this nation has one god, and only one god, and that god is called ‘government’.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You call yourselves Christians, or Jews, or claim to follow some other religion, but the truth is, what you call your religion is empty window-dressing. What you truly worship, the god you really bow to, what you really believe in, is the state. ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ ‘Thou shalt not murder.’ Unless you can do it by way of government. Then it’s just fine, isn’t it?”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“The bravest thing you’ll ever do is walk into a booth every few years, where no one can see you, and press a button, to say which of two slave-masters you’d rather be owned by.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“As long as people believe in government, wars will never end.”
― Larken Rose

“If you personally advocate that I be caged if I don't pay for whatever "government" things YOU want, please don't pretend to be tolerant, or non-violent, or enlightened, or compassionate. Don't pretend you believe in "live and let live," and don't pretend you want peace, freedom or harmony. It's a simple truism that the only people in the world who are willing to "live and let live" are voluntaryists. So you can either PRETEND to care about and respect your fellow man while continuing to advocate widespread authoritarian violence, or you can embrace the concepts of self-ownership and peaceful coexistence, and become an anarchist.”
― Larken Rose

“Government” itself does no harm, because it is a fictional entity. But the belief in “government” – the notion that some people actually have the moral right to rule over others – has caused immeasurable pain and suffering, injustice and oppression, enslavement and death.”
― Larken Rose

“I'm not scared of the Maos and the Stalins and the Hitlers.
I'm scared of the thousands of millions of people that hallucinate them to be "authority", and so do their bidding, and pay for their empires, and carry out their orders.
I don't care if there's one looney with a stupid moustache. He's not a threat if the people do not believe in "authority".”
― Larken Rose

“Yes I pay taxes... There are no ethics in the face of coercion, that is blaming the victim. Focus on the man with the gun, not the man in the crosshairs trying to survive.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“Damn it all, a person has a right to be who he is.”
― Clare W. Graves

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
― Dale Carnegie

“Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. ”
― Dale Carnegie

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People

“Success is getting what you want..
Happiness is wanting what you get.”
― Dale Carnegie

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People

“Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.”
― Lysander Spooner

“Taxation is robbery based on monopoly of weapons”
― Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminati Papers

“Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe

“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt,
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills,
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State’s inhabitants, or subjects.”
― Murray N. Rothbard