| Ludwig von Mises | There is really no essential difference between the unlimited power of the democratic state and the unlimited power of the autocrat. | Socialism | pp. 64-65 | Constitutional Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | All that good government can do to improve the material well-being of the masses is to establish and to preserve an institutional setting in which there are no obstacles to the progressive accumulation of new capital and its utilization for the improvement of technical methods of production. | Planning for Freedom | p. 6 | Good Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against the violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the country against foreign enemies. | Economic Policy | p. 37 | Good Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | Governments become liberal only when forced to by the citizens. | Omnipotent Government | p. 58 | Good Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | Whoever wants lastingly to establish good government must start by trying to persuade his fellow citizens and offering them sound ideologies. . . . There is no hope left for a civilization when the masses favor harmful policies. | Omnipotent Government | p. 120 | Good Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | Government is essentially the negation of liberty. | Liberty and Property | p. 19 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | Government is not, as some people like to say, a necessary evil; it is not an evil, but a means, the only means available to make peaceful human coexistence possible. But it is the opposite of liberty. It is beating, imprisoning, hanging. Whatever a government does it is ultimately supported by the actions of armed constables. If the government operates a school or a hospital, the funds required are collected by taxes, i.e., by payments exacted from the citizens. | Liberty and Property | p. 19 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | Government means always coercion and compulsion and is by necessity the opposite of liberty. | Human Action | p. 283; p. 285 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | History provides an abundance of striking examples to show that, in the long run, even the most ruthless policy of repression does not suffice to maintain a government in power. | Liberalism | p. 45 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | It is an illusion to expect that despotism will always side with the good causes. | Theory and History | p. 372 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | It is in the nature of the men handling the apparatus of compulsion and coercion to overrate its power to work, and to strive at subduing all spheres of human life to its immediate influence. | Omnipotent Government | p. 58 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | The government pretends to be endowed with the mystical power to accord favors out of an inexhaustible horn of plenty. It is both omniscient and omnipotent. It can by a magic wand create happiness and abundance. | Bureaucracy | p. 84 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | The government and its chiefs do not have the powers of the mythical Santa Claus. They cannot spend except by taking out of the pockets of some people for the benefit of others. | Planning for Freedom | p. 187 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | A liberal government is a contradictio in adjecto. Governments must be forced into adopting liberalism by the power of the unanimous opinion of the people; that they could voluntarily become liberal is not to be expected. | Liberalism | p. 68 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | Politically there is nothing more advantageous for a government than an attack on property rights, for it is always an easy matter to incite the masses against the owners of land and capital. . | Liberalism | p. 69 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | In spite of all persecutions, however, the institution of private property has survived. Neither the animosity of all governments, nor the hostile campaign waged against it by writers and moralists and by churches and religions, nor the resentment of the masses...has availed to abolish it. | Liberalism | p. 69 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | Daily experience proves clearly to everybody but the most bigoted fanatics of socialism that governmental management is inefficient and wasteful. | Economic Freedom and Interventionism | p. 62 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | There is no remedy for the inefficiency of public management. | Economic Freedom and Interventionism | p. 63 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | Government is a guarantor of liberty and is compatible with liberty only if its range is adequately restricted to the preservation of what is called economic freedom. | Human Action | p. 283 | Government |
| Ludwig von Mises | Once the principle is admitted that it is duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. | Human Action | pp. 728-29 p. 733 | Government |