All Tom G. Palmer Quotes
The government has become a mechanism for distributing largess, and your census form is your ticket.
Tom G. Palmer

65% of people like this quote
To repeat, communitarians maintain that we are constituted as persons by our particular obligations, and therefore those obligations cannot be a matter of choice.
Tom G. Palmer

62% of people like this quote
Libertarians recognize the difference between adults and children, as well as differences between normal adults and adults who are insane or mentally hindered or retarded.
Tom G. Palmer

58% of people like this quote
It is precisely because neither individuals nor small groups can be fully self-sufficient that cooperation is necessary to human survival and flourishing.
Tom G. Palmer

57% of people like this quote
It is obvious that different individuals require different things to live good, healthy, and virtuous lives.
Tom G. Palmer

55% of people like this quote
Obviously, all of us have been influenced by those around us.
Tom G. Palmer

55% of people like this quote
What libertarians assert is simply that differences among normal adults do not imply different fundamental rights.
Tom G. Palmer

55% of people like this quote
The first census in 1790 asked just six questions: the name of the head of the household, the number of free white males older than 16, the number of free white males younger than 16, the number of free white females, the number of other free persons, and the number of slaves.
Tom G. Palmer

54% of people like this quote
Libertarians argue that no normal adult has the right to impose choices on other normal adults, except in abnormal circumstances, such as when one person finds another unconscious and administers medical assistance or calls an ambulance.
Tom G. Palmer

54% of people like this quote
Equality of rights means that some people cannot simply impose obligations on others, for the moral agency and rights of those others would then be violated.
Tom G. Palmer

54% of people like this quote
Libertarians typically argue that particular obligations, at least under normal circumstances, must be created by consent; they cannot be unilaterally imposed by others.
Tom G. Palmer

52% of people like this quote
Abstraction is a mental process we use when trying to discern what is essential or relevant to a problem; it does not require a belief in abstract entities.
Tom G. Palmer

51% of people like this quote
Libertarians recognize the inevitable pluralism of the modern world and for that reason assert that individual liberty is at least part of the common good.
Tom G. Palmer

51% of people like this quote
If an individual is born with the obligation to obey, who is born with the right to command?
Tom G. Palmer

49% of people like this quote
Related authors
