“A patent is simply and purely a grant of monopoly. Why would a supposedly enlightened government, which has laws against monopolies in other forms, grant them? The original idea was the opposite: you wanted the inventor to publish a description of the invention instead of keeping it secret. To induce him to, you offered, legally, some of the protection that he would have gotten by keeping the secret, enough to get a good head start on the competition. It's not a bad idea, if it were done right...”

“A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.”

“Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.”

“The description of a new species of crayfish may detail every bristle on every segment of its many appendages and never be read by anyone save its author until a related new species is discovered that needs to be compared and documented. And then the scientist expects to have the book containing the first description readily at hand.”

“You cannot always depend on prayers to be answered the way you want them answered but you can always depend on God. God, the loving Father often denies us those things which in the end would prove harmful to us. Every boy wants a revolver at age four, and no father yet has ever granted that request. Why should we think God is less wise? Someday we will thank God not only for what He gave us, but also for that which He refused.”

“But suppose, for the sake of argument, free competition, without any sort of monopoly, would develop capitalism trade more rapidly. Is it not a fact that the more rapidly trade and capitalism develop, the greater is the concentration of production and capital which gives rise to monopoly?”

“I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.”