The Most Dangerous Superstition Quotes

“In truth, the belief in "government" is a religion, made up of a set of dogmatic teachings, irrational doctrines which fly in the face of both evidence and logic, and which are methodically memorized and repeated by the faithful. Like other religions, the gospel of "government" describes a superhuman, supernatural entity, above mere mortals, which issues commandments to the peasantry, for whom unquestioning obedience is a moral imperative.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“The truth is that any form of authoritarian control—any type of "government," whether constitutional, democratic, socialist, fascist, or anything else—will result in a set of masters forcibly oppressing a group of slaves. That is what "authority" is—all it ever has been, and all it ever could be, no matter how many layers of euphemisms and pleasant rhetoric are used in an attempt to hide it.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“Frederick Douglass, a former slave, witnessed and described that exact phenomenon among his fellow slaves, many of whom were proud of how hard they worked for their masters and how faithfully they did as they were told. From their perspective, a runaway slave was a shameful thief, having "stolen" himself from the master.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“If, on the other hand, you value peaceful coexistence, compassion and cooperation, freedom and justice, then teach your children the principle of self ownership, teach them to respect the rights of every human being, and teach them to recognize and reject the belief in "authority" for what it is: the most irrational, self-contradictory, antihuman, evil, destructive and dangerous superstition the world has ever known.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“The belief in "government" is not based on reason; it is based on faith.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“The ability of people to resist tyranny depends largely upon whether they accept the myth of "authority" or not. Those who can see the injustice committed by "government," but who continue to believe that they must "follow the law" and "work within the system," will never achieve justice.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“To be blunt, the belief in "authority" serves as a mental crutch for people seeking to escape the responsibility involved with being a thinking human being. It is an attempt to pass off the responsibility for decision-making to someone else: those claiming to have "authority.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“But history shows that most human beings would literally rather die than objectively reconsider the belief systems they were brought up in. The average man who reads in the newspaper about war, oppression and injustice will wonder why such pain and suffering exists, and will wish for it to end. However, if it is suggested to him that his own beliefs are contributing to the misery, he will almost certainly dismiss such a suggestion without a second thought, and may even attack the one making the suggestion.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“Pride in being a "law-abiding taxpayer" is not the result of having helped people, which the person could have done far more effectively on a voluntary basis; the pride comes from having faithfully obeyed the commands of a perceived "authority.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“For something to be "government," it must, by definition, do something that average people do not have the right to do. A "government" with the same rights as everyone else is not a "government" any more than the average man on the street is "government.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“Instead of being offended at the insult and injustice of being coercively controlled and exploited—in fact, instead of even recognizing that as injustice— many victims of "government" oppression feel profound loyalty to their controllers.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“There would be a difference between "rule of law" and "rule of men" only if the so-called "laws" were written by something other than men.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“Legalizing" wrong does not make it right.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“Just as everyone in a tribe praying to a volcano god would reinforce the idea that there is a volcano god, so begging politicians for favors reinforces the idea that there is a rightful ruling class, that their commands are "law," and that obedience to such "laws" is a moral imperative.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“people cannot delegate rights they do not have, which makes it impossible for anyone to acquire the right to rule ("authority"). Also, people cannot alter morality, which makes the "laws" of "government" devoid of any inherent "authority." Ergo, "authority"—the right to rule—cannot logically exist. The concept itself is self-contradictory, like the concept of a "militant pacifist.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“In short, if the victims of authoritarian extortion, harassment, surveillance, assault, kidnapping, and murder simply stopped assisting in their own oppression, tyranny would crumble. And if the people went a step further and forcibly resisted, tyranny would collapse even more quickly.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“There is a certain feeling of comfort and safety that one gets by conforming and obeying. Believing that things are in someone else's hands, and having trust that someone else will make things right, is a way to avoid responsibility.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“Whether an old lady is robbed by an armed street thug or by a well-dressed, well-educated "tax collector" makes no difference, morally or in practical terms.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“Perhaps one of the most heinous examples of this was the dropping of nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, which constituted by far the two worst individual acts of terrorism and mass murder in history. Together, they resulted in the deaths of around two hundred thousand civilians—about seventy times worse than the number of deaths from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The admitted goal was to inflict fear, pain and death on the population of an entire country, in order to coerce the ruling class of that country to bend to the will of another ruling class.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“people who have been taught to respect "authority," and have been taught that obedience is a virtue and that cooperating with "authority" is what makes us civilized, do not like to hear the truth, which is that truly evil people, with all their malice and hatred, pose far less of a threat to mankind than the basically good people who believe in "authority.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“The "lawmakers" give the commands, but it is their faithful enforcers who carry them out. Millions upon millions of otherwise decent, civilized people spend day after day harassing, threatening, extorting, controlling and otherwise oppressing others who have not harmed or threatened anyone.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“In short, despite all of the complex rituals and convoluted rationalizations, all modern belief in "government" rests on the notion that mere mortals can, through certain political procedures, bestow upon some people various rights which none of the people possessed to begin with.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“All belief in "government" rests on the idea that the "common good" justifies the "legal" initiation of violence against innocents to one degree or another. And once that premise has been accepted, there is no objective moral standard to limit "government" behavior.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“Bizarrely, almost every statist admits that politicians are more dishonest, corrupt, conniving and selfish than most people, but still insists that civilization can exist only if those particularly untrustworthy people are given both the power and the right to forcibly control everyone else. Believers in "government" truly believe that the only thing that can keep them safe from the flaws of human nature is taking some of those flawed humans—some of the most flawed, in fact—and appointing them as gods, with the right to dominate all of mankind, in the absurd hope that, if given such tremendous power, such people will use it only for good. And the fact that that has never happened in the history of the world does not stop statists from insisting that it "needs" to happen to ensure peaceful civilization.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“truly evil people, with all their malice and hatred, pose far less of a threat to mankind than the basically good people who believe in "authority.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“The men who wear black dresses and wield wooden hammers and refer to themselves as "the court" are seen as the madmen they are. Those who wear badges and uniforms, and imagine themselves to be something other than mere human beings, are not seen by the deprogrammed as noble warriors for "law and order" but as confused souls suffering from what is little more than a mental disorder.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“To argue that human beings need to have a rightful ruler, one with the moral right to forcibly control all others, and one whom all others are obligated to obey, does not change the fact that there is no such thing, and can be no such thing.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“When the people recognize and accept no master, they will have no master. Ultimately, their bondage, and the means to escape it, exists entirely inside their own minds.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“In one sense, there is no positive, active solution to "government." The ultimate solution is negative and passive: Stop advocating aggression against your neighbors. Stop engaging in rituals that condone the initiation of violence and reinforce the notion that some people have the right to rule. Stop thinking and speaking and acting in ways that reinforce the myth that normal people should be, and must be, beholden to some master, and should obey such a master rather than follow their own consciences.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“Perhaps the most valuable thing the "Great American Experiment" accomplished was to demonstrate that "limited government" is impossible. There cannot be a master who answers to his slaves.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition