“A people under the menace of war and of invasion is very easy to govern. It does not claim social reforms, it does not cavil over armaments or military equipment. It pays without haggling, it ruins itself at it, and that is excellent for the syndicates, the financiers, and the heads of industry to whom patriotic terrors open an abundant source of gain.”

[1914-01-22, Anatole France on Education. Speech at the Inauguration of the Education Part of the Socialist "Maison de Peuple," at Brussels, Translated for "The New Age" by Leonard J. Simons, The New Age (Volume 14, Number 12), 363, http://www.modjourn.org/render.php?id=1165338028234375&view=mjp_object, Modernist Journals Project, 2017-01-04]

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 "A people under the menace of war and of invasion is very easy to govern. It does not claim social reforms, it does not …" by Anatole France?
Anatole France photo
Anatole France 122
French writer 1844–1924

Related quotes

Napoleon I of France photo

“Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Attributed in Monarchy or Money Power (1933), by R. McNair Wilson. No primary source for this is known.
Attributed

Earl Warren photo

“Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism.”

Earl Warren (1891–1974) United States federal judge

Address to National Press Club in Washington DC, as quoted in Freedom and Union (April 1952)
Variants:
Most people consider the things which government does for them to be social progress, but they consider the things government does for others as socialism.
As quoted in Politics and Policies : The Continuing Issues (1970) by Duane W. Hill, p. 170.
Many people consider the things which government does for them to be social progress, but they consider the things government does for others as socialism.
As quoted in Encarta Book of Quotations (2000) edited by Bill Swainson, p. 969
1950s

“Only under a system as warped as apartheid, does a government need to label and treat non-violence as terrorism.”

Bradley Burston israeli journalist

It's Time to Admit It. Israeli Policy Is What It Is: Apartheid (2015)

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Alfred de Zayas photo
Clement Attlee photo
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo

“A government which cannot be reformed does not merit to be preserved.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Private notes, quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952), p. 74
Undated

Sayyid Qutb photo
Deborah Tannen photo

Related topics