“Perfect governments are only to be found where the prisons are full.”

Speech at the Institute of Public Administration, London (26 October 1933), quoted in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 53.
1933

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 "Perfect governments are only to be found where the prisons are full." by Stanley Baldwin?
Stanley Baldwin photo
Stanley Baldwin 225
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1867–1947

Related quotes

Aphra Behn photo

“…that perfect Tranquillity of Life, which is no where to be found, but in retreat, a faithful Friend and a good Library…”

Aphra Behn (1640–1689) British playwright, poet, translator and fiction writer

The Lucky Mistake (1689).
Source: The Lucky Chance, Or, the Alderman's Bargain

Leonard Cohen photo

“On that fundamental ground
Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound
And half the perfect world is found.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Half the Perfect World" (2006) (co-written with Anjani)
Other Lyrics
Context: The candles burned
The moon went down
The polished hill
The milky town
Transparent, weightless, luminous
Uncovering the two of us
On that fundamental ground
Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound
And half the perfect world is found.

Dean Acheson photo

“The best environment for diplomacy is found where mutual confidence between governments exists…”

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), Principles

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just photo

“I have not found a single good man in government; I have found good only in the people.”

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) military and political leader

On declaring the Minister of War, Charles François Dumouriez, a traitor (March 1793). [Source: David William Bates, Enlightenment aberrations: error and revolution in France (Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 169]

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo

“It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: "Is it true in and for itself?"”

Pt. III, sec. 3, ch. 2 Lectures on the History of History Vol 1 p. 344 John Sibree translation (1857), 1914
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1
Context: It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: "Is it true in and for itself?" Many think that by pronouncing a doctrine to be Neo-Platonic, they have ipso facto banished it from Christianity. Whether a Christian doctrine stands exactly thus or thus in the Bible, the point to which the exegetical scholars of modern times devote all their attention is not the only question. The Letter kills, the Spirit makes alive: this they say themselves, yet pervert the sentiment by taking the Understanding for the Spirit.

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“A society organized and run on the basis of complete nonviolence would be the purest anarchy… That State is perfect and non-violent where the people are governed the least.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Harijan (21 July 1940)
1940s

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky photo

“All the Universe is full of the life of perfect creatures.”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory

from "The Scientific Ethics", 1930 https://web.archive.org/web/20050808081615/http://www.informatics.org/museum/tsiol.html

Margaret Thatcher photo

“Peace, freedom and justice are only to be found where people are prepared to defend them.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to the Conservative Party Convention 1982 https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105032
First term as Prime Minister

Václav Havel photo

“People have passed through a very dark tunnel at the end of which there was a light of freedom. Unexpectedly they passed through the prison gates and found themselves in a square. They are now free and they don't know where to go.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Address at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; quoted in The Independent, London (22 March 1990)

Related topics