“Private lives should be no business of the State. The State is bad enough as it is.”

—  Gore Vidal

Quoted in Gert Jonkers, "Gore Vidal, the Fantastic Man," http://www.buttmagazine.com/?p=457 Butt, No. 20 (7 April 2007)
2000s
Context: Private lives should be no business of the State. The State is bad enough as it is. It cannot educate or medicate or feed the people; it cannot do anything but kill the people. No State like that do we want prying into our private lives.

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 "Private lives should be no business of the State. The State is bad enough as it is." by Gore Vidal?
Gore Vidal photo
Gore Vidal 163
American writer 1925–2012

Related quotes

Chester A. Arthur photo

“Madam, I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damn business.”

Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886) American politician, 21st President of the United States (in office from 1881 to 1885)

To a temperance reformer.
Quoted in Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur, ch. 8, Thomas C. Reeves (1975).
1880s

Mao Zedong photo
H. G. Wells photo
Alfred de Zayas photo

“The State has the obligation to prohibit certain business activities in order to protect the lives and welfare of the population.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G16/151/19/PDF/G1615119.pdf?OpenElement.
2016, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

José Baroja photo

“Surrendering to state or private financing is bullshit.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Revista Momento ahora o nunca, n°139 (2019)

José Baroja photo

“Surrendering to state or private financing is bullshit.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Revista Momento ahora o nunca, n°139 (2019)

John F. Kennedy photo

“I think it is most appropriate that the President of the United States, whose business place is in Washington, should come to this city and participate in these rallies. Because the business of the Government is the business of the people”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

and the people are right here.
Speech at Madison Square Garden in New York City to support his program of "medical care for the aged." (20 May 1962) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=8669 http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKPOF-038-023.aspx
1962

Ilana Mercer photo

“Self-government, and not imposed government, implies that society, and not The State, is to develop value systems. The State's role is to protect citizens as they go about their business peacefully, living in accordance with their peaceful values.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Beware The Values Cudgel," http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/03/beware-the-values-cudgel/ The Daily Caller, February 2, 2017
2010s, 2017

Sally Brampton photo

“Bad enough to be ill, but to feel compelled to deny the very thing that, in its worst and most active state, defines you is agony indeed.”

Sally Brampton (1955–2016) British writer

Source: Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression

“What our nation needs is a separation of “business and state” as it has a separation of “church and state.””

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

2010s, American Contempt for Liberty (2015)
Context: What our nation needs is a separation of “business and state” as it has a separation of “church and state.” That would mean crony capitalism and crony socialism could not survive.

Related topics