Robert Nozick

"Rights cannot be overridden for aggregate benefit."

"The legitimacy of institutions depends on their principles."

"The state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens to aid others, or in violation of anyone's rights."

"Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor."

"There is no justified sacrifice of some of us for others."

"A person may not decide to enslave himself voluntarily, because he cannot, whatever his current desires, bind himself, and future selves."

"Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them."

"The minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against theft, assault, and fraud, is justified; any more extensive state will be unjustified."

"Side constraints reflecting the rights of individuals are not merely goals to be achieved."

"No one may be used in ways that violate the constraints against using people."

"Liberty upsets patterns."

"The question of what justifies the state is a deep question about what can justify one group coercing others."

"We cannot regard ourselves as ends in ourselves and also allow our ends to be subordinated to the collective good."

"Moral constraints do not express minimization of some overall goal."

"The world is not just a collection of unrelated goods but involves complex relationships and dependencies."

"We each own ourselves and therefore have the right to do whatever we wish with ourselves so long as we do not violate anyone else's rights."

"A distribution is just if it arises from a just prior distribution through just steps."

"Voluntary exchange and free transactions are essential to justice."

"The question is not merely how resources should be distributed, but why some distribution is anyone's to make."

"Property rights are not derivative from utility or collective welfare."

"Each person is an end in himself, not merely a means to the ends of others."

"Tracking violations against the baseline of rights violations reveals the moral wrongness of redistributive schemes."

"We must distinguish between what makes a distribution just and what makes a distribution good."

"The state cannot justify coercive redistribution on the grounds that it benefits the worse off."

"Nonconsensual taking of property, even for good purposes, is morally problematic."

"Each person has a separateness and integrity that cannot be violated for aggregate social gain."

"Utilitarianism fails to take seriously the distinction between persons."

"We cannot sacrifice some individuals for the greater good without their consent."

"The right to freedom includes the right to keep what one has earned."

"Historical principles of justice require looking at how things came to be as they are."