“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 Cleyre78

American anarchist writer and feminist 1866–1912

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Variant: Everyone's God is One.
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“At the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God and a belief that government should replace God.”

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Source: The Social Contract

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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 Cleyre78

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