Skip to content

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 Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

Another quote →

More quotes by Robert Nozick

Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).

Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

Is there really one kind of life which is best for each of these people?

Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus.

Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

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

Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

Is not the minimal state, the framework for utopia, an inspiring vision?

Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

All Robert Nozick quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Nozick (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.