Auberon Herbert Quotes

“every man has to decide for himself, as his creed in life, whether men are to be made happier by a system that rests on and believes in coercion, or a system of self-directed agencies and moral influences; whether their continual cooperation throughout life is to be voluntary or to be imposed;”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“The master-vice of Socialism—the subjection of one man to the views of another—”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“If, with us you accept liberty as a principle, as a moral right supreme above all political conveniences, if you agree that force is a wrong -- except to restrain force -- then you will not hesitate about doing away with force or compulsion the first moment that you can succeed in doing so. If next year, good; if to-morrow, better still. If, on the other hand, you reject principle, treat everything as an open question and are guided by the many conflicting expediencies of the moment, then...you must hold on your zig-zag course...and with such fortuitous inspiration as comes to you, fighting one day in the ranks of the compulsionists and another day in the ranks of those who give liberty the supreme place.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“but we do not appeal only to reason; we appeal also to that instinctive love of Liberty, that master-passion, which in all ages is found in the hearts of men.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“In one way and only one way can the dynamiter be permanently disarmed—by abandoning in almost all directions our force machinery, and accustoming the people to believe in the blessed weapons of reason, persuasion, and voluntary service.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“The only thing that lasts through it all, that endures while the other perishes, is moral force—the word, the conviction, which attempts to bind no hands but acts only on the soul. As Emerson said—I don't remember his exact phrase—there is only one victory worth winning, the victory of principle, the victory over souls.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“All the fighters, from the unscrupulous politician of a low type, who consents to trick or flatter for the advantage of himself or his party, up to the dynamiter, who seeks to terrorize society for the sake of views of which he himself has but a slight understanding, are all fighting together in one vast army to render true progress impossible.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“If ever the world was presented with a saying of the highest wisdom and deepest truth, it was when we were told not to do evil that good might come.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“this word “governing” without thinking of all that is contained in it, to translate the term, which is so often on our lips, into what I hold to be its true meaning: forcing your own will and pleasure, whatever they may be, if you happen to be the stronger, on other persons.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“no man's character, be he rich or poor, can afford the intrusion of a great power like the state between himself and his thoughts for his children.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“effective personal representation is under any circumstances a matter of difficulty; but political organization admits only of the most imperfect form of it, voluntary organization of the most perfect.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“Man is predestined to find his complete happiness, as Mr. Spencer teaches, only when the happiness of others becomes to him an integral part of his own;”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“Of all perverted industries, that of accumulating force, whether in great bodies of soldiers or great bodies of electors, is the most wasteful and disastrous,”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“The creed of rights leads as certainly to the elevation of the human race as the creeds of socialism, founded on force, lead to the degradation of it.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“the important thing is to see that it is only when we are living in the reason relation that we have distinct moral guidance to tell us what are right and what are wrong actions, and that in the force relation we must act often by guesswork and always without certain guidance.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“On what foundation does Mr. Spencer place political liberty?” asked Angus. “He founds it on the right of every man to use the faculties he possesses.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“is not laissez-faire that has failed. That would be an ill day for men. “What has failed is the courage to see what is true and to speak it to the people, to point toward the true remedies away from the sham remedies.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“placing unlimited power—as we do now—in the hands of the state means degrading men from their true rank, the narrowing of their intelligence, the encouragement of intolerance and contempt for each other, and therefore the encouragement of sullen, bitter strife, the tricks of the clever tongue, practiced on both the poor and rich crowd, and the evil arts of flattery and self-abasement in order to conciliate votes and possess power, the excessive and dangerous power of a very able press, which keeps parties together, and too often thinks for most of us, the repression of all those healthy individual differences that make the life and vigor of a nation,”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“you can't have two opposed powers of equal authority; you can't serve two masters. Either the religious conscience and sense of right must stand in the first place, and the commands of all governing authorities in the second place; or the state machine must stand first, and the religious and moral conscience of men must follow after in humble subjection, and do what the state orders. If you make the state supreme, why should it pay heed to the rule of conscience, or the individual sense of right; why should the master listen to the servant? If it is supreme, let it plainly say so, take its own way, and pay no heed, as so many rulers before them have refused to do, to the conscience of those they rule.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“When you once play for so vast a stake, what influence can mere right or wrong have in your counsels? The course that lies before you may be right or wrong, tolerant or intolerant, wise or foolish, but the fatal gift of power, that you have been mad enough to desire and to grasp at, gives you no choice. If you mean to have and to hold power, you must do whatever is necessary for the having and holding of it.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“for those who cling to and believe in possessing power there is only darkness of soul, where no light enters, until at last, through a long bitter experience, they learn how that for which they sacrificed so much has only turned to their own deepest injury.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“thinking and acting for others had always hindered not helped the real progress; that all forms of compulsion deadened the living forces in a nation;”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“the highest value of property results from the qualities of character that are developed in the gaining of it;”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“I ought to show that competition has brought benefits to men tenfold–nay, a hundredfold–greater than the injuries it has inflicted; that every advantage and comfort of civilized life has come from competition; and that the hopes of the future are inseparably bound up with the still better gifts which are to come from it and it alone.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“the great principle–that a man has inalienable rights over himself, over his own faculties and possessions–”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“no momentary convenience can compensate for the mischief which arises from our manufacturing little gods almighty, whether in the shape of town corporations or central parliaments.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist

“Here and there you will find a man engaged in public life who, with courage to stand alone, strives to keep undimmed both for himself and others this inner light. Wherever and whenever you get such a man, stand by him and strengthen him. Do not let him be trampled underfoot by the impatient crowd of those whose opinions are shaped for them by the petty traffic of the hour, and who would have all others such as they are themselves. Remember that in the midst of the selfish scramble that we call politics, such as it is today, you may rarely hope to find a man with iron enough in his character to let him keep a true and dauntless self within him.”
― Auberon Herbert, Auberon Herbert: Selected Writings from a Reluctant Anarchist