“No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion — it is an evil government.”

— Eric Hoffer

Section 147
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Context: The only index by which to judge a government or a way of life is by the quality of the people it acts upon. No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion — it is an evil government.

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 "No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds i…" by Eric Hoffer?

Eric Hoffer 240

American philosopher 1898–1983

Related quotes

“Liberty is an evil which government is intended to correct. This is the sole object of government.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 170

“Authority must be utilized by government to attain certain noble objective but this authority must be circumscribed.”

Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986

in an interview with William F. Buckley Jr. , November 17, 1977
1965

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

To the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland (31 March 1809)
1800s, Post-Presidency (1809)

“No matter how deeply wedded one may be to the free enterprise system (and I, for one, am wedded for life), one has to accept the need for positive government; one has to consider government action on a sizable scale as desirable rather than as a necessary evil.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959), p. 178

“She finally came to admit sadly that the human race in its weakness demanded government and all government was evil because human nature was basically weak and weakness is evil.”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

The Never-Ending Wrong (1977)
Context: In 1935 in Paris, living in that thin upper surface of comfort and joy and freedom in a limited way, I met this most touching and interesting person, Emma Goldman, sitting at a table reserved for her at the Select, where she could receive her friends and carry on her conversations and sociabilities over an occasional refreshing drink. She was half blind (although she was only sixty-six years old), wore heavy spectacles, a shawl, and carpet slippers. She lived in her past and her devotions, which seemed to her glorious and unarguably right in every purpose. She accepted the failure of that great dream as a matter of course. She finally came to admit sadly that the human race in its weakness demanded government and all government was evil because human nature was basically weak and weakness is evil. She was a wise, sweet old thing, grandmotherly, or like a great-aunt. I said to her, "It's a pity you had to spend your whole life in such unhappiness when you could have had such a nice life in a good government, with a home and children."
She turned on me and said severely: "What have I just said? There is no such thing as a good government. There never was. There can't be."
I closed my eyes and watched Nietzsche's skull nodding.

“Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

Dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).
Judicial opinions

“Well governed, poverty, ill governed, wealth a disgrace.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Ethics of Confucius https://books.google.ca/books?id=dYfFFik3e0YC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, Cosimo Inc, 2005, p. 318 of Index under "People, the Nourishment of".
:Variation: To be wealthy in an unjust society is a disgrace.
Attributed