“Government is as unreal, as intangible, as unapproachable as God.”

— Voltairine de Cleyre

The Economic Tendency of Freethought (1890)
Context: Government is as unreal, as intangible, as unapproachable as God. Try it, if you don't believe it. Seek through the legislative halls of America and find, if you can, the Government. In the end you will be doomed to confer with the agent, as before.

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Voltairine de Cleyre 78

American anarchist writer and feminist 1866–1912

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“The production of security should, in the interests of the consumers of this intangible commodity, remain subject to the law of free competition. … [N]o government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or to require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity.”

Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912) Belgian political economist and classical liberal theorist

Source: The Production of Security (1849), p. 22

“I am not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my country's God. Jehovah, though with us he has acquired new attributes, is more absolute and unapproachable, but hardly more divine, than Jove. He is not so much of a gentleman, not so gracious and catholic, he does not exert so intimate and genial an influence on nature, as many a god of the Greeks.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Sunday

“One God governs all.”

Sai Baba of Shirdi (1836–1918) Hindu and muslim saint

Laziness is man's own enemy, and it takes toward inertia, which is a downward tendency. Inertia can neither lead to devotion, nor to material advancement. The lazy one's downfall is assured. One gets nothing free in the world. If we labour hard we exist. Labour alone shall triumph is a truism in itself. note: As translated in Shirdi Sai Baba Life: Life-philosophy and Devotion (2011) by O.P. Jha
Variant: Everyone's God is One.
Source: As translated in Shirdi Sai The Supreme (1997) by S. P. Ruhela, p. 188
Source: As translated in Follow The Wind Of Your Soul (2006), by George C. Kottis, p. 345

“The strangest of the soul's experiences is this, that it finds, when it ceases to care for the image and threat of troubles, then the troubles themselves are nowhere to be found in one's neighbourhood. It is then that we hear from behind those unreal clouds God laughing at us.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Bhakti

“This is the negation of God erected into a system of Government.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

A letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, on the state prosecutions of the Neapolitan government (7 April 1851), p. 9.
1850s

“At the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God and a belief that government should replace God.”

Todd Akin (1947) American politician

24 June 2011, radio interview with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins

“If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book The Social Contract

Source: The Social Contract

“We are all born with God-given, unique traits and skills. But, as with all possibilities they will remain unrealized unless they are developed, nurtured, and put into practice. You may have the "capacity" to love, but if left undeveloped, you will never gain the "ability."”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

A Magazine of People and Possibilities interview (1998)

“Theocracy, Government of God, is precisely the thing to be struggled for!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Priest

“Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

This has been quoted as Penn's in various forms since at least 1943 (Fulton J. Sheen, Philosophies at War, p. 154). James H Billington of the Library of Congress wrote (Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations, 2010, p. 145) "Numerous sources cite this remark but it has not been found in Penn's writings." Other variants include:
Unless we are governed by God, we shall be ruled by tyrants. (1949 speech by Norman Vincent Peale)
If men do not find God to rule them, they will be ruled by tyrants. (Roy Masters, How to Conquer Suffering Without Doctors, 1976, p. 50)
... those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants. (David Barton, The Myth of Separation, 1992, p. 89
Misattributed

“Government is as unreal, as intangible, as unapproachable as God.”

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Voltairine de Cleyre 78

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