“Thank the Lord, we subsidize our own debauchery first of all before we subsidize the debauchery of others.”

Boule de Suif (1880)
Context: At the end of a short time, once the first terror had subsided, calm was again restored. In many houses the Prussian officer ate at the same table with the family. He was often well-bred, and, out of politeness, expressed sympathy with France and repugnance at being compelled to take part in the war. This sentiment was received with gratitude; besides, his protection might be needful some day or other.

Cutting the Budget
1980s–1990s, Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays (1987)

Source: The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy

Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 3 : On Middle Age

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

Variant: Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

"The Abyss"
The Far Field (1964)
Context: A terrible violence of creation,
A flash into the burning heart of the abominable;
Yet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,
The burning lake turns into a forest pool,
The fire subsides into rings of water,
A sunlit silence.

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 30

Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 131, 131 (1943)
Judicial opinions