Robert Nozick Quotes

Quotes about:

• Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Seizing the results of someone's labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities.

  Robert Nozick

  Philosophy, Political, Liberty

  "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" by Robert Nozick, (p. 169), 1974.

  82 Copy quote

• No state more extensive than the minimal state can be justified.

  Robert Nozick

  Justified, States

  "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" by Robert Nozick, (p. 297), 1974.

  35 Copy quote

• Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited, to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified, but any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right.

  Robert Nozick

  Rights, Enforcement, Protection

  Anarchy, State, and Utopia preface (1974)

  63 Copy quote

• You can't satisfy everybody; especially if there are those who will be dissatisfied unless not everybody is satisfied.

  Robert Nozick

  Satisfied, Ifs, Dissatisfied

  Robert Nozick (2013). “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”, p.320, Basic Books

  58 Copy quote

• Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?

  Robert Nozick

  Strong, Rights, What If

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  83 Copy quote

• The trouble with government regulation of the market is that it prohibits capitalistic acts between consenting adults.

  Robert Nozick

  Government, Adults, Regulation

  54 Copy quote

• Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor.

  Robert Nozick

  Liberty, Taxation, Libertarian

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  35 Copy quote

• Instead of trying to prove your opponent wrong, try to see in what sense he might be right.

  Robert Nozick

  Trying, Opponents, Might

  49 Copy quote

• The illegitimate use of a state by economic interests for their own ends is based upon a preexisting illegitimate power of the state to enrich some persons at the expense of others. Eliminate that illegitimate power of giving differential economic benefits and you eliminate or drastically restrict the motive for wanting political influence.

  Robert Nozick

  Giving, Political, Use

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  52 Copy quote

• Marxian exploitation is the exploitation of people's lack of understanding of economics.

  Robert Nozick

  People, Understanding, Economics

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  44 Copy quote

• What else can matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside?

  Robert Nozick

  Matter, Feels, Our Lives

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  26 Copy quote

• From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen.

  Robert Nozick

  Inspirational, Chosen

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  22 Copy quote

• The socialist society would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults.

  Robert Nozick

  Adults, Socialist, Capitalist

  Anarchy, State, and Utopia ch. 7 (1974)

  32 Copy quote

• In a free system any large, popular, revolutionary movement should be able to bring about its ends by such a voluntary process. As more and more people see how it works more and more will wish to participate in or support it. And so it will grow, without being necessary to force everyone or a majority or anyone into the pattern.

  Robert Nozick

  People, Support, Wish

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  11 Copy quote

• Some communities will be abandoned, others will struggle along, others will split, others will flourish, gain members, and be duplicated elsewhere. Each community must win and hold the voluntary adherence of its members. No pattern is imposed on everyone, and the result will be one pattern if and only if everyone voluntarily chooses to live in accordance with that pattern of community.

  Robert Nozick

  Struggle, Winning, Ifs And

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  24 Copy quote

• Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just.

  Robert Nozick

  Justice, Steps, Arise

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  12 Copy quote

• A distribution is just if it arises from another just distribution by legitimate means.

  Robert Nozick

  Mean, Arise, Distribution

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  27 Copy quote

• Is there really someone who, searching for a group of wise and sensitive persons to regulate him for his own good, would choose that group of people that constitute the membership of both houses of Congress?

  Robert Nozick

  Wise, Sensitive Person, People

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  31 Copy quote

• No one has ever announced that because determinism is true thermostats do
  not control temperature.

  Robert Nozick

  Temperature, Determinism

  Robert Nozick (1981). “Philosophical Explanations”, p.315, Harvard University Press

  8 Copy quote

• Some people steal from others, or defraud them, or enslave them, seizing their product and preventing them from living as they choose, or forcibly exclude others from competing in exchanges. None of these are permissible modes of transition from one situation to another.

  Robert Nozick

  People, Transition, Stealing

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  20 Copy quote

• It goes without saying that any persons may attempt to unite kindred spirits, but, whatever their hopes and longings, none have the right to impose their vision of unity upon the rest.

  Robert Nozick

  Unity, Vision, May

  Robert Nozick (2013). “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”, p.325, Basic Books

  15 Copy quote

• The scientists often have more unfettered imaginations than current philosophers do. Relativity theory came as a complete surprise to philosophers, and so did quantum mechanics, and so did other things.

  Robert Nozick

  Imagination, Philosopher, Surprise

  38 Copy quote

• Only the refusal to listen guarantees one against being ensnared by the truth.

  Robert Nozick

  Guarantees, Refusal

  Robert Nozick (1974). “Anarchy, state, and utopia”

  15 Copy quote

• Wisdom is not just knowing fundamental truths, if these are unconnected with the guidance of life or with a perspective on its meaning. If the deep truths physicists describe about the origin and functioning of the universe have little practical import and do not change our picture of the meaning of the universe and our place within it, then knowing them would not count as wisdom.

  Robert Nozick

  Knowing, Perspective, Fundamentals

  Robert Nozick (1989). “The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations”

  23 Copy quote

• Through the evolutionary process, those who are able to engage in social cooperation of various sorts do better in survival and reproduction.

  Robert Nozick

  Survival, Engagement, Able

  23 Copy quote

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