Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter II : Consciousness I: Loss Of Reality, p. 21 (See also: Hunter S. Thompson)
Context: To the American people of 1789, their nation promised a new way of life: each individual a free man; each having the right to seek his own happiness; a republican form of government in which the people would be sovereign; and no arbitrary power over people's lives. Less than two hundred years later, almost every aspect of the dream has been lost.
1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)
December, 1917
India's Rebirth
pg 21
Equitable Commerce (1848)
Barcelona and Beyond: How Politicians & Policy Wonks Play God With Your Life http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/21/barcelona-and-beyond-how-politicians-wonks-play-god/, Daily Caller, August 21, 2017.
Barcelona and Beyond: How Politicians & Policy Wonks Play God With Your Life http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/08/barcelona_and_beyond_how_politicians_and_policy_wonks_play_god_with_your_life_.html, American Thinker, August 20, 2017.
2010s, 2017
As quoted in Hitler (1974) by Joachim C. Fest, p. 533
Other remarks
1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776)
Context: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Quoting Abraham Lincoln
The Future of Civilization (1938)
Context: In some states of society it may even be that a form of dictatorship is necessary. No doubt in the hands of an able man it may possibly be more efficient than a democratic form of administration. But in the end, I am confident that a free government is best for free people. The old phrase, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people"*, represents a true ideal. It is best for the people as a whole. It is even more clearly the best for the development of the individual man and woman. And since in the end, the character and the prosperity of the nation depend on the character of the individuals that compose it, the form of government which best promotes individual development is the best for the people as a whole.
Independence Day speech (1828)
Context: Americans no longer argue on the propriety of making all men soldiers, in order that their nation may be an object of terror to the rest of the world. They understand that the happiness of a people is the only rational object of a government, and the only object for which a people, free to choose, can have a government at all. They have, farther, almost excluded war as a profession, and reduced it from a system of robbery to one of simple defence. In so doing, they ought also to have laid aside all show of military parade, and all ideas of military glory. If they have not done so, it is that their reform in this matter is yet imperfect, and their ideas respecting it are confused.
