# Quote mongers--I need your help

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quote-mongers-i-need-your-help/266378>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 27, 2004, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quote-mongers-i-need-your-help/266378 "2004-09-27T23:39:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quote-mongers-i-need-your-help/266378/1 "2004-09-27T23:39:06Z")

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I’m trying to find a quote that I heard in an undergraduate English class in the mid-80s. The gist of the quote is that fraud is a form of force.

It was attributed to John Hospers, and goes “Fraud is the . . . . . that truth gives to force.”

Can anyone help with a source, or the complete quote?

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**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quote-mongers-i-need-your-help/266378/2 "2004-09-28T00:21:39Z")

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Hobbes, _Leviathan_.

“Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.”

If “John Hospers” has a different quote, he certainly based it upon/stole it from Hobbes.

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**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quote-mongers-i-need-your-help/266378/3 "2004-09-28T02:33:31Z")

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“John Hospers” is a libertarian philosopher, assuming that term is not an oxymoron. (Is **Lib** lurking? :eek: )

A Google search shows that force and fraud are buzzwords that turn up frequently in his works and and in general libertarian parlance.

[http://web.syr.edu/~ejwest/phi191\_files/socialandeconomicjustice.pdf](http://web.syr.edu/~ejwest/phi191_files/socialandeconomicjustice.pdf)

> [@](#):
>
> The sole function of the state is to protect an individual’s life liberty and property against force and fraud

I didn’t find any version of the OP’s quote, though.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quote-mongers-i-need-your-help/266378/4 "2004-09-28T13:12:29Z")

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> [@Exapno Mapcase](#):
>
> “John Hospers” is a libertarian philosopher.

And the person who uttered the quote was a libertarian who was lecturing about libertarianism, so at the time I believed the quote could have come from Hospers.

> [@](#):
>
> A Google search shows that force and fraud are buzzwords that turn up frequently in his works and and in general libertarian parlance.

Yes. Exactly. Some libertarians claim that regulation of fraud is justified because fraud is a form of force.

> [@](#):
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> I didn’t find any version of the OP’s quote, though.

Thanks!