“Take hold of the handles of government carefully and grip them tightly. Destroy all hope, smash all intention of wresting them from you; allow no man to covet them.”

—  Han Fei

"The Way of the Ruler", in Han Feizi: Basic Writings (2003)

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 "Take hold of the handles of government carefully and grip them tightly. Destroy all hope, smash all intention of wresti…" by Han Fei?
Han Fei photo
Han Fei 8
Chinese philosopher -279–-232 BC

Related quotes

L. Ron Hubbard photo

“I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form even if all books are destroyed.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

A letter to his wife Polly (October 1938) http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/excalibur.htm, quoted in Bare-faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard (1987), p. 81 http://www.discord.org/~lippard/bfm/bfm05.htm#81.
Context: Living is a pretty grim joke, but a joke just the same. The entire function of man is to survive. The outermost limit of endeavour is creative work. Anything less is too close to simple survival until death happens along. So I am engaged in striving to maintain equilibrium sufficient to at least realize survival in a way to astound the gods. I turned the thing up so it's up to me to survive in a big way... Foolishly perhaps, but determined none the less, I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form even if all books are destroyed.

Napoleon I of France photo
Harlan Coben photo
Evelyn Waugh photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

This quote is incorrectly quoted from Lincoln's Address to Congress on July 4, 1861 http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3508, in which Lincoln outlined the events that had led to the American Civil War and his views on the nature of the rebellion by the southern slave states. To suppress the rebellion Lincoln said that Congress must "give the legal means for making this contest a short and a decisive one; that you place at the control of the Government for the work at least 400,000 men and $400,000,000." And Lincoln remarked further: "A right result at this time will be worth more to the world than ten times the men and ten times the money. The evidence reaching us from the country leaves no doubt that the material for the work is abundant, and that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it legal sanction and the hand of the Executive to give it practical shape and efficiency. One of the greatest perplexities of the Government is to avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, the people will save their Government if the Government itself will do its part only indifferently well".
Disputed

Oliver Wendell Holmes photo

“Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Edmund Burke photo

“Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Not Burke but Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858).
Misattributed

Mitch Albom photo
Thomas Carlyle photo

“First get your man; all is got: he can learn to do all things, from making boots, to decreeing judgments, governing communities; and will do them like a man.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)
Context: In all cases, therefore, we will agree with the judicious Mrs. Glass: 'First catch your hare!' First get your man; all is got: he can learn to do all things, from making boots, to decreeing judgments, governing communities; and will do them like a man.

Related topics