"We have the illusion of freedom only because so few ever try to exercise it. Try it sometime. Try to save your home from the highway crowd, or to work a trade without the approval of the goons, or to open a little business without a permit, or to grow a crop without a quota, or to educate your child the way you want to, or to not have a child. We all have the freedom of a balloon floating in a pin factory."

“From Far Right to Far Left – and Farther – With Karl Hess" by James Boyd, in The New York Times”

“Radical and revolutionary movements seek not to revise but to revoke. The target of revocation should be obvious. The target is politics itself.”

“LP News Jun94 - Karl Hess 1923-1994”

“Libertarianism is rejected by the modern left — which preaches individualism but practices collectivism. Capitalism is rejected by the modern right-which preaches enterprise but practices protectionism.”

“Karl Hess: Toward Liberty”

“The Federal government of the United States today is guilty of exactly every sort of infringement, abuse, and denial stated as intolerable by the Declaration of Independence. I cannot, in conscience, sanction that government by the payment of taxes.”