“There was a beautiful row. You’ve really scared people, Hoddan! You deserve well of the republic! Every government and every person needs to be thoroughly terrified occasionally. It limbers up the brain.”

— Murray Leinster, book The Pirates of Zan

Source: The Pirates of Zan (1959), Chapter 2

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There was a beautiful row. You’ve really scared people, Hoddan! You deserve well of the republic! Every government and …" by Murray Leinster?

Murray Leinster38

Novelist, short story writer 1896–1975

Related quotes

“Don’t you just hate nights like that, when you think over every mistake you’ve made, every hurt you’ve received, every bit of meanness you’ve dealt out? There’s no profit in it, no point to it, and you need sleep.”

Charlaine Harris Dead and Gone

Source: Dead and Gone

“Every nation gets the government it deserves.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite. <br class="br">Correspondance diplomatique, tome 2. Paris : Michel Lévy frères libraires éditeurs, 1860, p.196. <br class="br">Famous Sayings and their Authors, Edward Latham, 1906, Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=xvkNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA181. <br class="br">Bartlett's Roget's Thesaurus, 2003, Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=D8yVAC8CtO4C&printsec=frontcover. <br class="br">Letter 76, on the topic of Russia's new constitutional laws (27 August 1811); published in Lettres et Opuscules. The English translation has several variations, including "Every country has the government it deserves" and "In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve." The quote is popularly misattributed to better-known commentators such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Abraham Lincoln.

“Democracy is not a beloved Republic really, and never will be. But it is less hateful than other contemporary forms of government, and to that extent it deserves our support.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

What I Believe (1938)
Context: Democracy is not a beloved Republic really, and never will be. But it is less hateful than other contemporary forms of government, and to that extent it deserves our support. It does start from the assumption that the individual is important, and that all types are needed to make a civilization. It does not divide its citizens into the bossers and the bossed — as an efficiency-regime tends to do. The people I admire most are those who are sensitive and want to create something or discover something, and do not see life in terms of power, and such people get more of a chance under a democracy than elsewhere. They found religions, great or small, or they produce literature and art, or they do disinterested scientific research, or they may be what is called "ordinary people", who are creative in their private lives, bring up their children decently, for instance, or help their neighbours. All these people need to express themselves; they cannot do so unless society allows them liberty to do so, and the society which allows them most liberty is a democracy.