As quoted in "Mogherini: Italy will play a major role" in eunews (12 January 2014).
“The task assumes different shapes at different times. Sometimes the threat to popular government comes from political interests, sometimes from economic interests, sometimes we have to beat off all of them together. But the challenge is always the same — whether each generation facing its own circumstances can summon the practical devotion to attain and retain that greatest good for the greatest number which this government of the people was created to ensure.”
1930s, Address at the dedication of the memorial on the Gettysburg battlefield (1938)
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Franklin D. Roosevelt 190
32nd President of the United States 1882–1945Related quotes
Excerpts from a speech to the Fiji Institute of Accountants, 28 April 2005
As quoted in Philosophers of the Earth : Conversations with Ecologists (1972) by Anne Chisholm
Alleged source is unkown. There are very few references to this quote in the internet, but early quotes can be found on twitter Tweet from 2010 https://twitter.com/karow55/status/24586690041. Brazillian writer Rodrigo Constantino cited it in the book "Prisioneiros da liberdade", page 157, without giving any further references. It may very well be a misquote from Plato's Republic Book 1, 347-C: "Good men are unwilling to rule, either for money's sake or for honour.... So they must be forced to consent under threat of penalty.... The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself."
Disputed
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)
Essay Fourth, The Principles of the Former Essays Applied to Government
A New View of Society (1813-1816)
Source: Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994), p. 278