Quotes about government (7014 quotes, page 54)

“The CBS crew had arrived: Ed Bradley; his producer, David Gelber; and a cameraman. The 60 Minutes people had government permission to work on other stories in Beijing, but they went first to Shanghai as tourists, which gave them cover to work on the real story. Ordinary Chinese did not recognize Ed Bradley as a television star as he walked down the streets of Shanghai.”

Ed Bradley (1941–2006) News correspondent

[Troublemaker: One Man's Crusade Against China's Cruelty, 120, 0970402996, Harry Wu, ‎Hongda Harry Wu, ‎George Vecsey, 1996, Newsmax Media Inc]
About

People , Star

“Parents control their children in the interests of the family, universities exercise control over professors and students, government exercises control over citizens, and religions control their adherents… Society's need for social control was stated most dramatically by Hobbes (1651/1958), who observed that in the "natural" state (without social control), as each person attempted to satisfy his/her individual needs and desires at the expense of others, humankind would be in a war of all against all, such that life would be "nasty, brutish, and short."”

Bertram Raven (1926) American psychologist

Source: "Influence, Power, Religion, and the Mechanisms of Social Control," 1999, p. 161

Life , War , Children , Family

“Nations it may be have fashioned their Governments, but the Governments have paid them back in the same coin.”

Joseph Conrad book Under Western Eyes

Pt. I, ch. 2
Under Western Eyes (1911)

Fashion

“By 1922, General Hans von Seeckt, commander of the German armed forces, was secretly advising his government: "Poland's existence is intolerable, incompatible with the essential conditions of Germany's life. Poland must go and will go". He added that Poland's obliteration "must be one of the fundamental objectives of German policy… With the disappearance of Poland will fall one of the strongest pillars of the Versailles Peace, the hegemony of France."”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

Life , Peace

“Next to him will come Thomas Jefferson, whose wisdom insured that the Government which Washington had formed should be entrusted to the administration of the people. He emphasized the element of self-government which had been enshrined in American institutions in such a way as to demonstrate that it was practical and would be permanent. In him was likewise embodied the spirit of expansion. Recognizing the destiny of this Country, he added to its territory. By removing the possibility of any powerful opposition from a neighboring state, he gave new guaranties to the rule of the people.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Address at the Black Hills (1927)

Wisdom , People , Way , Country

“Science, and physics in particular, has developed out of the Newtonian paradigm of mechanics. In this world view, every phenomenon we observe can be reduced to a collection of atoms or particles, whose movement is governed by the deterministic laws of nature. Everything that exists now has already existed in some different arrangement in the past, and will continue to exist so in the future. In such a philosophy, there seems to be no place for novelty or creativity”

Francis Heylighen (1960) Belgian cyberneticist

Source: The science of self-organization and adaptivity (2001), p.253

World , Law , Nature , Science

“Bruce Hawker was a useful press secretary for a state premier a few years ago before becoming a lobbyist. Right now I am sure he has his hands full helping bail out a sinking Labor government with a recycled Kevin Rudd.”

Bruce Hawker (1955) Australian political strategist

Lynton Crosby, quoted in Evening Standard, Wednesday 7 August 2013, p. 2
About

Help

“The most important thing is that we need to be a party that is inclusive and tolerant. We can be those things and be the party we always have been. We need to think about the environment. Teddy Roosevelt was a great environmentalist and people forget Reagan was the one who dealt with the ozone layer with the Montreal protocol. We also need to talk about healthcare honestly. Nixon almost passed universal healthcare. We need to have an talk about immigration and realize you can't just deport people. We need a comprehensive answer. We also need to stay out of people's bedrooms. The party that is for small government shouldn't be over-reaching into people's private lives. Mainly, we need to be a party where people know what we are for, not just what we are against.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/16mq0g/iamarnold_ask_me_anything/c7xg9aa (2013)
2010s

People , Thinking , Universe , Forgetting

“Our achievement…has been to show that you can build far greater, and far more lasting, prosperity by letting people co-operate in the freedom of the market place than by making them submit to the coercion of Government regulations and state bureaucracy. If you look around the world today, East and West, even in Soviet Russia and Communist China, you will see that lesson being taken to heart…The truth is that a prosperous world based on free and open markets is a world of co-operation and interdependence between the people of all nations. By contrast, a world of closed, State controlled economies is a world disposed towards confrontation and conflict.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

Speech to the Conservative Party Conference (13 October, 1988).

People , Truth , World , Freedom

“The corporatist-economic model of society appears to be governing us. Economists, often in the pay of transnationals, are deciding, for us, what democracy is, and will be.”

B. W. Powe (1955) Canadian writer

Letter To Those In power, p. 83
Towards a Canada of Light (2006)

Democracy , Appearance

“We had affirmative action programs to help women help themselves economically. Is it now time for affirmative action programs to do for men’s feelings what the government did for women’s economics?”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

Women , Men , Feeling , Time

“The Treaty [of Rome] does not touch any of the matters which concern solely England and the people in it. These are still governed by English law. They are not affected by the Treaty. But when we come to matters with a European element, the Treaty is like an incoming tide. It flows into the estuaries and up the rivers. It cannot be held back, Parliament has decreed that the Treaty is henceforward to be part of our law. It is equal in force to any statute.”

Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge

H.P. Bulmer Ltd v J. Bollinger SA [1974] Ch 401 at 418.
Judgments

People , Law , Parting

“I am now profoundly convinced of what I had only hinted at before, namely, that the struggle between the advocates of a free society and the advocates of the socialist system is not a moral but an intellectual conflict. Thus socialists have been led by a very peculiar development to revive certain primitive instincts and feelings which in the course of hundreds of years had been practically suppressed by commercial or mercantile morals, which by the middle of the last century had come to govern the world economy.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

" The Moral Imperative of the Market https://mises.org/library/moral-imperative-market", in The Unfinished Agenda: Essays on the Political Economy of Government Policy in Honour of Arthur Seldon (1986)
1980s and later

World , Feeling

“At bottom, the court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”

John Paul Stevens (1920–2019) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Dissenting, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. ___ (2010).

Money , People , Democracy , Sense

“ You're listening to the sounds of the reason we're about to die as a nation. The vermin in the media…they all yesterday said it was a white man. There was Bloomberg saying it was a deranged man with a political agenda. Not one of them would say if it was a Muslim. Not one of them would say if it was a Middle-Easterner. Not one of them if it hit them in the face would acknowledge what's going on around them, which is why we must defend ourselves—we have a bunch of overly race-conscious government dupes running everything in this country. There were the news anchors and the reporters, you heard it with your own ears, just yesterday. Repeating "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male". Because they believe in blackmail, blackmail, blackmail, blackmail. They blackmail the entire white race into a corner. They blackmail the entire white race into a corner. And they're killing us. The Muslims are running wild in this country. The Muslims are running wild in this country, and the police are afraid of them. The police are afraid of CAIR. The police are afraid of the ACLU. The police are afraid of everybody but you. "White male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male". You haven't heard, "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "Muslim male", did you? After they found who it was? The guy gave himself up, and they won't say "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "links to Islam", "Islam", "Muslim", "Muslim", "Islam", "Islam", "Muslim!"”

Michael Savage book The Savage Nation

Why won't they say it? Because they're a bunch of morons. And that's why we're in trouble. You heard it with your own damn ears, what more do I have to say to you?
The Savage Nation
The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2010-05-04
Radio (Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaE2YA8vFEs)
2010

Guy , Country

“What’s odd about Friedman’s absolutism on the virtues of markets and the vices of government is that in his work as an economist’s economist he was actually a model of restraint. As I pointed out earlier, he made great contributions to economic theory by emphasizing the role of individual rationality—but unlike some of his colleagues, he knew where to stop. Why didn’t he exhibit the same restraint in his role as a public intellectual?
The answer, I suspect, is that he got caught up in an essentially political role. Milton Friedman the great economist could and did acknowledge ambiguity. But Milton Friedman the great champion of free markets was expected to preach the true faith, not give voice to doubts. And he ended up playing the role his followers expected. As a result, over time the refreshing iconoclasm of his early career hardened into a rigid defense of what had become the new orthodoxy.
In the long run, great men are remembered for their strengths, not their weaknesses, and Milton Friedman was a very great man indeed—a man of intellectual courage who was one of the most important economic thinkers of all time, and possibly the most brilliant communicator of economic ideas to the general public that ever lived. But there’s a good case for arguing that Friedmanism, in the end, went too far, both as a doctrine and in its practical applications. When Friedman was beginning his career as a public intellectual, the times were ripe for a counterreformation against Keynesianism and all that went with it. But what the world needs now, I’d argue, is a counter-counterreformation.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Who Was Milton Friedman?", The New York Review of Books (February 15, 2007)
The New York Review of Books articles

Men , World , Faith , Communication

“It is a disparagement of the Government, who put an ill man into office.”

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) (1642–1710) English lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England

Regina v. Langley (1703), 2 Raym. 1029.

“Write on my gravestone: "Infidel, Traitor" — infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.”

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer

As quoted in the American Federation of Labor Bulletin, Vol. 8, Issues 11-18 (1926), p. 69

People

“Our clear goal must be the advancement of the white race and separation of the white and black races. This goal must include freeing of the American media and government from subservient Jewish interests.”

David Duke (1950) American White nationalist, white supremacist, writer, right-wing politician, and a former Republican Louisiana …

"Duke Speaks Out," in The Crusader, a Knights of the KKK newsletter (November 1978)

“The danger which threatened the natives in the future, at any rate in the mining districts, would arise from the desire to obtain a constant and cheap supply of native labour for the mines. It would be the duty of those in authority to guard the native against the oppressive laws which were in force in the Dutch Republics. In conclusion, he protested against a policy of harshness and violence in South Africa. We should try to inculcate forbearance, wisdom, and the generosity into the minds of those who had the government of the country.”

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician

Speech to the Women's National Liberal Association Conference, Memorial Hall, London (12 June 1901), quoted in The Times (13 June 1901), p. 12.
1900s

Wisdom , Law , Future , Country

“Whenever you put your faith in big government for any reason, sooner or later you wind up an apologist for mass murder.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

As quoted in Why Americans Hate Politics, by E.J. Dionne, Jr., Simon & Schuster (2004) p. 267.

Faith

“As our parliamentary system now stands, we say that this role of overseeing the Government has probably become the main function of the House of Commons. the purpose of this function is to illuminate the weaknesses in government policies, the errors that may have been committed and the sectors that may have been forgotten, and to suggest alternative solutions.”

John Allen Fraser (1931) Canadian politician

Source: The House Of Commons At Work (1993), Chapter 9, The House of Commons Functions, p. 122

Error , Housing

“To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter VII, Part Third, p. 667.

People , Appearance

“Disorderly, unorganised and petty terrorist acts may, if carried to extremes, only scatter and squander our forces. That is a fact, which, of course, should not be forgotten. On the other hand, under no circumstances should it be forgotten that a slogan calling for an uprising has already been issued, that the uprising has already begun. To launch attacks under favourable circumstances is not only every revolutionary’s right, but his plain duty. The killing of spies, policemen, gendarmes, the blowing up of police stations, the liberation of prisoners, the seizure of government funds for the needs of the uprising—such operations are already being carried out wherever insurrection is rife, in Poland and in the Caucasus, and every detachment of the revolutionary army must be ready to start such operations at a moment’s notice. Each group should remember that if it allows a favourable opportunity for such an operation to slip by today, it will be guilty of unpardonable inactivity, of passivity—and such an offence is the greatest crime a revolutionary can commit at a time of insurrection, the greatest disgrace that can befall anyone who is striving for liberty in deed, and not in word alone.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

As quoted in Tasks of Revolutionary Army Contingents, Collected Works, Vol. 9, pages. 420-24.
Attributions

Time

“Happy is that City that hath a wise man to govern it.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

The Sayings of the Wise (1555)

Happiness

“That deterioration, if you like, has to be addressed in the context of the Government being prepared to look at further programmes to see what way we can ensure that going into next year, as challenging as it may be, to see in what way we can seek to help stabilise the finances further.”

Brian Cowen (1960) Irish politician

Whatever you do, Brian, don't mention the deficit, Irish Independent, 3 December 2008, 2010-06-12 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/whatever-you-do-brian-dont-mention-the-deficit-1561099.html,
Cowen's unwillingness to clarify in the Dáil, the post budget deficit.
2008

Way , Help

“Either, then, we must carry out our modern moral conception of God's nature and government into a conception of creation that matches it — a conception based on that eternity (or intrinsic supertemporal self-activity) of man which alone can mean moral freedom — or else, in all honesty and good logic, we ought to travel penitently back to a Calvinism, a Scotism, an Augustinianism, of the so-called "highest" type. Then we would view man as a "creature" indeed. We should have to accept him as a being belonging to time only, with a definite date of beginning, though lasting through unceasing ages, if that could indeed then be. We should have to surrender all freedom for him as a delusion. In effect, with this conception of creation, we must return to an unmitigated Predestinationism. Nor may this stop short of foreordination to Reprobation as well as to Election — a foreordination not simply "supralapsarian," but precedent to creation itself. The separation of the Sheep from the Goats must be from "before the foundation of the world," and the Elect must be created "unto life everlasting," while the reprobate are created "unto shame and everlasting contempt."”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.333-4

Life , God , Age , World

“Of all the African Amazons, only the Gorgons seem to have maintained a pure Amazon state; the others, though keeping the army purely feminine, maintained some men in their camps. [Among] [t]he Libyan Amazons …. [, ] [t]he women monopolized government and other influential positions. In contrast to the later Thermodontines, however, they lived in a permanent relationship with their sex partners, even though the men led a retiring life, could not hold public office, and had no right to interfere in the government of the state or society. Children, who were brought up on mare's milk, were given to the men to rear”

Helen Diner (1874–1948) Austrian writer and historian

.
Mothers and Amazons (trans. 1965 (original 1930s)), p. 136.

Life , Women , Men , Children

“For just experience tells; in every soil,
That those that think must govern those that toil.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 371.

Thinking

“Homeland security will make America not only stronger, but, in many ways, better. Knowledge gained from bioterrorism research will improve public health. Stronger police and fire departments will mean safer neighborhoods. Stricter border enforcement will help combat illegal drugs. And as government works to better secure our homeland, America will continue to depend on the eyes and ears of alert citizens.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Health , Way , Knowledge , Help

“Public administration is a process or a theory, not merely an accumulation of detailed facts. It is Verwaltungslehre. The object of administrative study should be to discover, first, what government can properly and successfully do, and secondly, how it can do these proper things with the utmost possible efficiency and at the least possible cost both of money and of energy.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: "The Study of Administration." 1937, p. 29

Money , Study

“Is the Church fulfilling a purely religious role when by its silence or friendly relationships it lends legitimacy to dictatorial and oppressive government?”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

Source: A Theology of Liberation - 15th Anniversary Edition, Chapter Five, Crisis Of the Distinction Of Planes Model, p. 40

Silence

“No one will contend that negroes, for instance, should roam at large in puris naturalibus, with the apes and tigers of Africa, and ‘worry and devour each other.’ Nor are they fitted for an Athenian democracy. What form of government short of domestic slavery will suit their wants and capacities?”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 171

Democracy

“The American people, through the 35 states that have liberalized laws banning either medical marijuana, marijuana in general, or cannabinoid oils, have made it clear that federal enforcers should stay out of their personal lives. It’s time for restraint of the federal government’s over-aggressive weed warriors.”

Dana Rohrabacher (1947) American politician

"O.C. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher trying again with bill protecting state marijuana laws", The Orange County Register http://www.ocregister.com/articles/rohrabacher-659189-laws-state.html (April 23, 2015)

People , Law , Time , Personality

“All the Democrats are for higher taxes. All of them are in favor of Hillary's socialist health-care plan. All of them are for higher pay for teachers and nurses — and no pay at all for anyone in the pharmaceutical or oil industries, especially Halliburton executives, who should be sent to Guantánamo. All the Democrats believe the way to strike fear in the hearts of the terrorists is for the federal government to invest heavily in windmills.
All the Democrats oppose the war. And all the Democrats who took a position on the war before it began were for it, but now believe that everything Bush did from that moment forward has been bad! bad! bad! … Finally, all the candidates are willing to sell out any of these other issues in service of the one burning desire of all Democrats: abortion on demand. If they could just figure out a way to abort babies using solar power, that's all we'd ever hear about.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"What happened to your queer party-friends?" (22 January 2004) http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2004/01/22/what_happened_to_your_queer_party-friends/page/full/ also in How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), p. 49.
2004

War , Health , Fear , Way

“The United States is engaged today in a great mission to spread democracy to the Middle East, beginning with Afghanistan, and continuing with Iraq. The inhabitants of Iraq are divided into many groups and factions that hate and distrust each other. The attitude of Sunni and Shia Muslims toward each other resembles that of Catholic and Protestant Christians in the sixteenth century, which persist today in northern Ireland, each regarding the other as heretics. Under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, the minority of Sunnis persecuted the majority Shias. It is understandable that the minority Sunnis are today resisting majority rule, while the majority Shia favor it. The Sunnis clearly believe that majority rule by Shia will be used as a means of retribution and revenge. The Sunnis look upon majority rule by the Shia the way the South looked upon the election of Lincoln in 1860. It is inconceivable to the Sunnis that the rule of the Shia majority will be anything other than tyranny. Indeed, it is inconceivable to them that any political power, whether of a minority or a majority, would be non-tyrannical. The idea of non-tyrannical government is alien to their history and their experience. They regard our assertions of Jeffersonian or Lincolnian principles as mere hypocrisy, as they see no other form of rule other than that of force. Our government assumes that the people of the Middle East, like people elsewhere, seek freedom for others no less than for themselves. But that is an assumption that has not yet been confirmed by experience.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Central Idea (2006)

Hate , People , Way , Democracy

“The hardest strokes of heaven fall in history upon those who imagine that they can control things in a sovereign manner, as though they were kings of the earth, playing Providence not only for themselves but for the far future—reaching out into the future with the wrong kind of far-sightedness, and gambling on a lot of risky calculations in which there must never be a single mistake. And it is a defect in such enthusiasts that they seem unwilling to leave anything to Providence, unwilling even to leave the future flexible, as one must do; and they forget that in any case, for all we know, our successors may decide to switch ideals and look for a different utopia before any of our long shots have reached their objective, or any of our long-range projects have had fulfillment. It is agreeable to all the processes of history, therefore, that each of us should rather do the good that is straight under our noses. Those people work more wisely who seek to achieve good in their own small corner of the world and then leave the leaven to leaven the whole lump, than those who are for ever thinking that life is vain unless one can act through the central government, carry legislation, achieve political power and do big things.”

Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) British historian

Christianity and History (1949), p. 104.

Life , People , World , Imagination

“The first notion of constructing a free goal-seeking mechanism goes back a wartime talk with the psychologist, Kenneth Craik, whose untimely death was one of the greatest losses Cambridge has suffered in years. When he was engaged on a warjob for the Government, he came to get the help of an automatic analyzer with some very complicated curves he had obtained, curves relating to the aiming errors of air gunners. Goal-seeking missiles were literally much in the air in those days; so, in our minds, were scanning mechanisms. Long before the home study was turned into a workshop, the two ideas, goal-seeking and scanning, had combined as the essential mechanical conception of a working model that would behave like a very simple animal.”

William Grey Walter (1910–1977) American-born British neuroscientist and roboticist

Source: The Living Brain (1953), p. 82.

Death , Error , Home , Idea

“Government cannot be abolished but they can be abandoned and this will take place when you give up your political adolescence and stop trying to establish your will on others. The bureaucracies will be abandoned when people demonstrate they can bet along without familia.”

Phillip Abbott Luce (1935–1998)

As quoted in “For Utopia, Curb State Controls”, Peggy Baker, Ames Daily Tribune (Ames, Iowa), January 23, 1970

People

“If the UK is not in the European Union, there is no way we could speak to countries such as Estonia. As a former British colony, as a former British protectorate, as someone who can speak English, we would not be able to articulate [our positions] or have a conversation. Of course we can have a conversation with Estonia or any other European government but collective decision with the UK at the forefront helps us.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr Nasheed said it was in the "best interests of the Commonwealth" for Britain to remain within the union because of its ability to provide a link between the multinational bodies, quoted on The Telegraph, "Brexit would be damaging for EU-Commonwealth relations, says former Maldives president" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/maldives/12187682/Brexit-would-be-damaging-for-EU-Commonwealth-relations-says-former-Maldives-president.html, March 9, 2016.

Way , Decision , Help , Country

“I will here say, before closing, that two weeks before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, "You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God." There were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited on me for two days and two nights. I thought it very singular, that notwithstanding so much work had been done, and yet nothing had been done for them. The thought never entered my heart, from the fact, I suppose, that heretofore our minds were reaching after our more immediate friends and relatives. I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and fifty other eminent men, making one hundred in all, including John Wesley, Columbus, and others; I then baptized him for every President of the United States, except three; and when their cause is just, somebody will do the work for them.”

Wilford Woodruff (1807–1898) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Journal of Discourses 19:229 (September 16, 1877)

Men , God , Faith , Waiting

“SPAN ID=We_live_in>We live in a highly competitive society, each of us trying to outdo the other in wealth, in popularity or social prestige, in dress, in scholastic grades or golf scores. […] One is often tempted to say that conflict, rather than cooperation, is the great governing principle of human life.

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Pooling of Knowledge, p. 14

Life , Wealth

“A deliberate and determined effort is being made to break down the guarantees of our fundamental law. It has for its purpose the confiscation of property and the destruction of liberty. At the present time the chief obstacle to this effort is the Supreme Court of the United States. In this contest there is but one place for a real American to stand. That is on the side of ordered liberty under constitutional government. This is not the struggle of the rich and powerful. They will be able to survive. It is the struggle of the common run of people. Unless we can maintain our institutions of liberty unimpaired they will see their savings swept away, their homes devastated, and their children perish from want and hunger.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ordered Liberty and World Peace (1924)

Hunger , Children , People , Law

“Nothing gives history a greater superiority to many branches of literature, than to see in a manner imprinted, in almost every page of it, the precious footsteps and shining proofs of this great truth, viz. that God disposes all events as supreme Lord and Sovereign; that he alone determines the fate of kings and the duration of empires; and that he transfers the government of kingdoms from one nation to another, because of the unrighteous dealings and wickedness committed therein.”

Charles Rollin (1661–1741) French historian

The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians, and Grecians, Vol. I, Eleventh Edition (1808), Preface, p. iii

God , Fate , Truth , History

“It is obious that the glorious day of July, 18, 1936 [Franco's coup d'état] was one of the nicest political and social movements that the world remembers. Historians shall admit that the most and best part of the country was the one who raised against the governement, illegal and corrupt, who was preparing the darkest red revolution from the power.”

Manuel Fraga Iribarne (1922–2012) Spanish politician

1949, reported in Hernández, María Jesús. El verbo de don Manuel http://www.elmundo.es/especiales/espana/manuel-fraga/perlas/02.html Elmundo.es.
Franco and Francoism

World , Parting , Country

“Government protection should be thrown around every wild grove and forest on the mountains, as it is around every private orchard, and the trees in public parks. To say nothing of their value as fountains of timber, they are worth infinitely more than all the gardens and parks of towns.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

1895, pages 350-351
John of the Mountains, 1938

Mountain , Tree

“Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men; on the contrary, the great danger was that philosophers would be lulled into complacence by the accidental rise of a Franklin or a Washington. Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was an illusion.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

Source: The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948), Ch. 4, Part 1: Natural History and Political Science, p. 178.

Men , Hope , Success , Dependency

“Today we are asking our political system to do things of which the founding fathers never dreamed. The government they designed for a few hundred thousand people now serves a nation of almost 230 million people. Their small coastal republic now spans beyond a continent, and we now have the responsibility to help lead much of the world through difficult times to a secure and prosperous future.
Today, as people have become ever more doubtful of the ability of the government to deal with our problems, we are increasingly drawn to single-issue groups and special interest organizations to ensure that whatever else happens our own personal views and our own private interests are protected.
This is a disturbing factor in American political life. It tends to distort our purposes because the national interest is not always the sum of all our single or special interests. We are all Americans together — and we must not forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Presidency (1977–1981), Farewell Address (1981)

Life , People , World , Dreams

“One of the most dangerous words is 'extremist'. A person who commits acts of violence is not an 'extremist'; he is a criminal. If he commits those acts of violence with the object of detaching part of the territory of the United Kingdom and attaching it to a foreign country, he is an enemy under arms. There is the world of difference between a citizen who commits a crime, in the belief, however mistaken, that he is thereby helping to preserve the integrity of his country and his right to remain a subject of his sovereign, and a person, be he citizen or alien, who commits a crime with the intention of destroying that integrity and rendering impossible that allegiance. The former breaches the peace; the latter is executing an act of war. The use of the word 'extremist' of either or both conveys a dangerous untruth: it implies that both hold acceptable opinions and seek permissible ends, only that they carry them to 'extremes'. Not so: the one is a lawbreaker; the other is an enemy.

The same purpose, that of rendering friend and foe indistinguishable, is achieved by references to the 'impartiality' of the British troops and to their function as 'keeping the peace'. The British forces are in Northern Ireland because an avowed enemy is using force of arms to break down lawful authority in the province and thereby seize control. The army cannot be 'impartial' towards an enemy, nor between the aggressor and the aggressed: they are not glorified policemen, restraining two sets of citizens who might otherwise do one another harm, and duty bound to show no 'partiality' towards one lawbreaker rather than another. They are engaged in defeating an armed attack upon the state. Once again, the terminology is designed to obliterate the vital difference between friend and enemy, loyal and disloyal.

Then there are the 'no-go' areas which have existed for the past eighteen months. It would be incredible, if it had not actually happened, that for a year and a half there should be areas in the United Kingdom where the Queen's writ does not run and where the citizen is protected, if protected at all, by persons and powers unknown to the law. If these areas were described as what they are—namely, pockets of territory occupied by the enemy, as surely as if they had been captured and held by parachute troops—then perhaps it would be realised how preposterous is the situation. In fact the policy of refraining from the re-establishment of civil government in these areas is as wise as it would be to leave enemy posts undisturbed behind one's lines.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the South Buckinghamshire Conservative Women's Annual Luncheon in Beaconsfield (19 March 1971), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew, 1991), pp. 487-488.
1970s

War , World , Peace , Law

“Conservatives believe in limited government. Liberals believe in intrusive government when required to achieve societal needs. (Exception: social-issues conservatives advocate government intrusion on matters of abortion, drugs and pornography.)”

Mike Rosen (1944) American political pundit

Rocky Mountain News column, 2000

“Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted.”

Ernesto Che Guevara book Guerrilla Warfare

Source: Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Ch. I: 1. Essence of Guerrilla Warfare

Peace , Appearance

“Johnson: Well, they’d impeach a president, though, that would run out, wouldn’t they?
Russell: I don’t think they would. I don’t know how in hell you’re going to get out, unless they [the South Vietnamese government] tell you to get out.
Johnson: Wouldn’t that pretty well fix us in the eyes of the world and make us look mighty bad?
Russell: Well, I don’t know, we don’t look too good right now, going in there with all the troops, sending them all in there, I’ll tell you it'll be the most expensive adventure this country ever went into.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Telephone call with Senator Richard Russell (May 27, 1964)

World , Hell , Thinking , Country

“I propose that it shall be no longer malum in se for a citizen to pummel, cowhide, kick, gouge, cut, wound, bruise, maim, burn, club, bastinado, flay, or even lynch a [government] jobholder, and that it shall be malum prohibitum only to the extent that the punishment exceeds the jobholder’s deserts. The amount of this excess, if any, may be determined very conveniently by a petit jury, as other questions of guilt are now determined. The flogged judge, or Congressman, or other jobholder, on being discharged from hospital — or his chief heir, in case he has perished — goes before a grand jury and makes a complaint, and, if a true bill is found, a petit jury is empaneled and all the evidence is put before it. If it decides that the jobholder deserves the punishment inflicted upon him, the citizen who inflicted it is acquitted with honor. If, on the contrary, it decides that this punishment was excessive, then the citizen is adjudged guilty of assault, mayhem, murder, or whatever it is, in a degree apportioned to the difference between what the jobholder deserved and what he got, and punishment for that excess follows in the usual course.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"The Malevolent Jobholder," The American Mercury (June 1924), p. 156
1920s

Question

“These reminiscences are neither history, biography nor a diary, although they comprise something of each of these categories. What is presented is far from a complete account even of all of the incidents in which I had a part, but merely my recollections of events, refreshed by a reference to my own memoranda and a free use of staff studies and historical records made under my direction and supervision. It may assist the future historian when he seeks to account for the motives and reasons which influenced some of the actions in the great drama of war. It is also my hope that it will prove of some interest to the rising generations, who may learn thereform that a country and government such as ours is worth fighting for, and dying for, if need be.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

Source: Reminiscences (1964), p. v

War , Hope , History , Motivation

“But now if any one hath a mind to come over to their sect, he is not immediately admitted, but he is prescribed the same method of living which they use for a year, while he continues excluded'; and they give him also a small hatchet, and the fore-mentioned girdle, and the white garment. And when he hath given evidence, during that time, that he can observe their continence, he approaches nearer to their way of living, and is made a partaker of the waters of purification; yet is he not even now admitted to live with them; for after this demonstration of his fortitude, his temper is tried two more years; and if he appear to be worthy, they then admit him into their society. And before he is allowed to touch their common food, he is obliged to take tremendous oaths, that, in the first place, he will exercise piety towards God, and then that he will observe justice towards men, and that he will do no harm to any one, either of his own accord, or by the command of others; that he will always hate the wicked, and be assistant to the righteous; that he will ever show fidelity to all men, and especially to those in authority, because no one obtains the government without God's assistance; and that if he be in authority, he will at no time whatever abuse his authority, nor endeavor to outshine his subjects either in his garments, or any other finery; that he will be perpetually a lover of truth, and propose to himself to reprove those that tell lies; that he will keep his hands clear from theft, and his soul from unlawful gains; and that he will neither conceal anything from those of his own sect, nor discover any of their doctrines to others, no, not though anyone should compel him so to do at the hazard of his life. Moreover, he swears to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise than as he received them himself; that he will abstain from robbery, and will equally preserve the books belonging to their sect, and the names of the angels [or messengers]. These are the oaths by which they secure their proselytes to themselves.”

Josephus on the Essenes

Jewish War

Life , Men , God , Hate

“There are many who have lost faith in this early American ideal and believe in a form of socialistic, totalitarian rule, a sort of big brother deity to run our lives for us. They no longer believe that free men can successfully manage their own affairs. Their thesis is that a handful of men, centered in government, largely bureaucratic not elected, can utilize the proceeds of our toil and labor to greater advantage than those who create it. Nowhere in the history of the human race is there justification for this reckless faith in political power. It is the oldest, most reactionary of all forms of social organization. It was tried out in ancient Babylon, ancient Greece and ancient Rome; in Mussolini's Italy, in Hitler's Germany, and in all communist countries. Wherever and whenever it has been attempted, it has failed utterly to provide economic security, and has generally ended in national disaster. It embraces an essential idiocy, that individuals who, as private citizens, are not to manage the disposition of their own earnings, become in public office supermen who can manage the affairs of the world.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

Source: Reminiscences (1964), p. 418

Men , World , Faith , History

“What has gone on in Iraq and Afghanistan has many echoes with what was going in this part of the world in 18th and 19th century - setting up of puppet governments, the lending of troops and the training of local troops in recent Western techniques. Anyone that knows the history of South Asia in 18th century can see million echoes in what has been going in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

William Dalrymple (1965) author and historian

In Zeenews, "William Dalrymple's book on first Anglo-Afghan war out in December"

World , History , Parting , Training

“Child support should do just that – support children, not the federal government.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

Press release: [2006-07-10, Reps. Ryan and Moore Unveil Child Support Pass-Through Legislation, paulryan.house.gov, http://paulryan.house.gov/news/documentprint.aspx?DocumentID=246775, 2012-09-30]

Children , Support

“The progress of science in furnishing the government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wire tapping. Ways may some day be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. Advances in the psychic and related sciences may bring means of exploring unexpressed beliefs, thoughts and emotions. 'That places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer' was said by James Otis of much lesser intrusions than these. 1 To Lord Camden a far slighter intrusion seemed 'subversive of all the comforts of society.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

Can it be that the Constitution affords no protection against such invasions of individual security?
Dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).
Judicial opinions

Secret , Way , Home , Science

“A word about Hayti. We are not to judge her by the height which the Anglo-Saxon has reached. We are to judge by the depths from which she has come. We are to look at the relation she sustained to the outside world, and the outside world sustained to her. One hundred years ago every civilized nation was slave-holding. Yet these negroes, ignorant, downtrodden, had the manhood to arise and drive off their masters and assert their liberty. Her government is not so unsteady as we think.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1890s, Speech at the Abolitionist Reunion in Boston (1890)

World , Thinking

“Admit their maxims, and the universe returns to a frightful chaos; all things are thrown into disorder upon the earth; all the notions of virtue and vice are overthrown; the most inviolable laws of society are abolished: the discipline of morality is swept away; the government of states and empires ceases to be subject to any rule; the whole harmony of political institutions is dissolved; and the human race becomes an assemblage of madmen, barbarians, cheats, unnatural wretches who have no other laws but force, no other curb than their passions and the dread of authority, no other tie than irreligion and independence, no other gods than themselves.”

Jean Baptiste Massillon (1663–1742) French Catholic bishop and famous preacher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 348.

God , Law , Universe , Passion

“A State which is incompetent to satisfy different races condemns itself; a State which labours to neutralise, to absorb, or to expel them, destroys its own vitality; a State which does not include them is destitute of the chief basis of self-government. The theory of nationality, therefore, is a retrograde step in history.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

"Nationality" (1862)

History

“Taxes are a barbaric remnant of ancient times in which early farmers, tied to the land, no longer able to roam freely, unable to fight back with awkward agricultural tools the way they once could with hunting implements, became victims, first, of itinerant plunderers, then of bandits settling down beside them to become the governments we know today.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"The Unnecessary Depression".

Way , Time , Fight

“But the sect of the Essens affirm, that fate governs all things, and that nothing befalls men but what is according to its determination”

Josephus on the Essenes

AJ 13.5.9
Antiquities of the Jews

Men , Fate

“To work is to transform or move things or creatures in ways that will render them more useful or more beautiful; it is also to study the laws governing these transformations, formulate them or apply them.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Working

Law , Beauty , Way , Study

“Over the years, many nations have made well-intentioned efforts to promote these goals. Yet the success of these efforts must be measured by more than intentions, they must be measured by results. My Nation has placed an insistence on results at the heart of our foreign assistance programs. We launched a new initiative called the Millennium Challenge Account, which directs our help to countries that demonstrate their ability to produce results by governing justly, and fighting corruption, and pursuing market-based economic policies, as well as investing in their people. Every country and institution that provides foreign assistance, including the United Nations, will be more effective by showing faith in the people of the developing world and insisting on performance in return for aid.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

People , World , Faith , Effort

“I think those who say that they are patriotic, they should be quiet and let the country run in a democratic way. In every election, if you don't like the government, you don't vote for it.”

Thaksin Shinawatra (1949) Thai politician

Interview with World Policy http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2016/04/21/interview-thaksin-shinawatra-thailand

Way , Thinking , Country

“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]

People

“The responsibility for progress rests not only on the Government, but on every man and woman in the country. The Government can go no faster in progress than the people will allow them to do. Willing co-operation in new methods is essential, and without the will to work progress is not possible, and with constant stoppages of industry progress is not possible.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at the Albert Hall (4 December 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 70.
1924

People , Country

“The Italian Government has repeatedly noted that, during the course of the present war, the Greek Government has adopted and maintained a position which goes not only against the smooth and peaceful… Alors, c'est la guerre.”

Ioannis Metaxas (1871–1941) Greek politician

Ioannis Metaxas, quoted in: Ángelos Terzákis (1990) The Greek Epic: 1940 - 1941. p. 36.
His response to the Italian ultimatum given by Ambassador Emanuele Grazzi, 28 October 1940. Greece entered the WWII.

War , Peace

“There is much sentimentality in the fourteen Points of Wilson's peace program. As far as we are concerned the question of Alsace-Lorraine is one that we cannot discuss and it cannot even be raised at any international conference. The territorial integrity of Turkey must be maintained. The Reich Chancellor has declared that we do not seek the annexation of Belgium. However, the Flemish movement is working for independence. The Reich Government should make it its task to support this movement. With regard to the question of self-determination…it must be remembered that there is no political education in Lithuania and that from seventy to eighty per cent. of the population there is illiterate…[Poland does] not need freedom.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Speech in the Reichstag (24 January 1918), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), p. 138.
1910s

Education , Peace , Question , Support

“That Big Science culture in the USA, and similar groups elswhere, tended to have separate, direct access to government and hence to funding sources. It was independent to a great extent of the rest of science, of which it was never a majority component except in funding.”

Philip Warren Anderson (1923) American physicist

p. 94 https://books.google.com/books/about/More_and_Different.html?id=tU9yOac455kC&pg=PA94
More and Different: Notes from a Thoughtful Curmudgeon (2011)

Science

“An enterprise must be viewed from several perspectives if it is to be fully described and understood (Barnett 1994; ESPIRIT Consortium AMICE 1991). Previous work in the development of architectures by the Automation & Robotics Research Institute (Presley et al. 1993) describes a five view approach. The Business Rule (or Information) View defines the entities managed by the enterprise and the rules governing their relationships and interactions. The Activity View defines the functions performed by the enterprise (what is done) while the Business Process View defines a time sequenced set of processes (how it is done). The resources and capabilities managed by the enterprise are defined in a Resource View. Finally, the Organization View is used to define how the enterprise organizes itself and the set of constraints and rules governing how it manages itself and its processes.”

Donald H. Liles (1947) American engineer

Source: Enterprise modeling within an enterprise engineering framework (1996), p. 994

Business , Time

“[How is it consistent with what you advocated this evening in terms of a vision for peace, that you continued to allow the building of settlements in the West Bank, during your primeministership? ] Let me tell you, first of all, during my term as a Prime Minister, we have not built a single new settlement. I ordered the dismantling of many voluntary -- I don't know how to call it -- new settlements that had been set on top of hills in different parts of the West Bank, basically. But, I allowed contracts, contracts that had been signed, legally, in Israel, beforehand. To build new neighborhoods in some big cities in the West Bank, cities with 25,000 or 30,000 people. And very few new homes, in small settlements, where youngsters, who came back from the army service, asked to build their home near the home of their parents. Now, Israel is a law-abiding state, you cannot break contracts, there is Supreme Court. If the government behaves in a way that is not proper, any individual can appeal and change whatever we decide. Realizing that this is a sensitive issue from the Palestinian side, I talked to Arafat, at the beginning of my term as a Prime Minister, and I told him: Mr. Chairman, I know that you are worried about it, it creates some problems, in your own constituency. But let me tell you, we have a great opportunity here to put an end to the whole conflict, in a year and a half. When President Clinton that invested unbelievable amount of energy and political capital in trying to solve it, and he's still in power. Now, I understand your problem with settlement if there is no end, there is no time limit, and you are afraid that maybe the accumulation of new settlements will change the nature of the situation, for the worse, from your position. So I tell you, out of our own considerations, independent of you, we have decided not to set even a single new settlement. We will not allow anyone to establish his own private initiatives on the hills, for our own reasons, not because of you. But at the same time I will respect any contract that has been signed, under law, in Israel. But -- and here is a point -- bearing in mind that we can put an end to the conflict, to reach an agreement within a year and a half, why the hell it will matter? To build a new building in Israel takes more than a year and a half, so you won't see any building that is not already emerging from the ground, having it's roof before we can reach an agreement. Now if such a building happens to be in a settlement that will become, under the agreement, part of the new independent Palestine, why the hell you have to care? Take it, use it, put some refugees in it. And if it will happen to be a part of what will be agreed, as Israel, in a mutual agreement that is signed by you, why the hell do you care, if you agree? I believe that that simple answer would not solve his public -- or internal political -- problems, but it would solve the real issue if the will was there to make peace, and not just to politically maneuver and manipulate.”

Ehud Barak (1942) Israeli politician and prime minister

Speech at UC Berkeley http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/19324/edition_id/391/format/html/displaystory.html, November 22, 2002

People , Peace , Law , Way

“It always is wretched weather according to us. The weather is like the government — always in the wrong. In summer-time we say it is stifling; in winter that it is killing; in spring and autumn we find fault with it for being neither one thing nor the other and wish it would make up its mind…We shall never be content until each man makes his own weather and keeps it to himself.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

"On the Weather".
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Spring , Autumn , Winter , Time

“How can the government stop anyone from protesting? The land is not their 'father's property'. The citizens are the masters of this country and the ministers are their servants.”

Anna Hazare (1937) Indian activist

"Action against Ramdev: Anna Hazare supporters to observe countrywide hunger strike", http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_team-anna-terms-police-action-on-ramdev-barbaric-to-boycott-lokpal-meet_1551517 Daily News & Analysis (Mumbai), 5 June 2011

Country

“One can't get to know people well here; the social life is amusing but superficial. However, remember that I am just a savage, from the jungles (of New Guinea where he had sailed and worked as a government clerk)! Perhaps when I am tamed, I will jump through the social hoops, too.”

Errol Flynn (1909–1959) Australian actor

Spoken to M.G. Hart, writer, after his success as "Captain Blood," about being a newcomer to Hollywood, for magazine article Silver Screen, January 1936

Life , People

“Other people have marveled at the growth and strength of America. They have wondered how a few weak and discordant colonies were able to win their independence from one of the greatest powers of the world. They have been amazed at our genius for self-government. They have been unable to comprehend how the shock of a great Civil War did not destroy our Union. They do not understand the economic progress of our people. It is true that we have had the advantage of great natural resources, but those have not been exclusively ours. Others have been equally fortunate in that direction. The progress of America has been due to the spirit of the people. It is in no small degree due to that spirit that we have been able to produce such great leaders. If coming generations are to maintain a like spirit, it will be because they continue to support the principles which these men represented. It is for that purpose that we erect memorials. We can not hold our admiration for the historic figures which we shall see here without growing stronger in our determination to perpetuate the institutions which their lives revealed and established.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Address at the Black Hills (1927)

Men , War , People , World

“[The church's] job is to provide permanent solace and spiritual leadership to the people as a whole, whatever their government at the moment, so long as it stays within the bounds of moral decency.”

James A. Michener book Poland

page 591
Poland (1983)

People

“We are not empire builders. How important this fact is no American who has not lived in Asia can appreciate. It goes against our conscience, which is a very tender part of the American spirit. Therefore we are learning how to hold our allies, not by force of arms and government, but by mutual benefit and friendship. So much is already clear…
I am therefore hopeful. In spite of dismaying contradictions in individuals in our national scene, I feel the controlling spirit or our people, generous, decent, and sane. In this mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Source: My Several Worlds (1954), p. 407, This has sometimes been quoted as "In a mood of faith and hope..."

Friendship , People , Books , Faith

“These people in the North-east of Ireland, from old prejudices perhaps more from anything else, from the whole of their past history, would prefer, I believe, to accept the government of a foreign country rather than submit to be governed by honourable gentlemen below the gangway”

Bonar Law (1858–1923) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

i.e. the Irish Nationalist Party
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1913/jan/01/clause-1-establishment-of-irish in the House of Commons (1 January 1913) rejecting the Home Rule Bill

People , History , Past , Country

“If I had a province to punish, I would let it be governed by philosophers. Attributed in The Orthodox churchman's magazine; or, A Treasury of divine and useful knowledge”

Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786) king of Prussia

1803
Attributed

Knowledge

““Do you realize,” he asked, “that the whole purpose of civilization is to take the surprises out of life, so one can be bored to death? That a culture in which nothing unexpected ever happens is in what is called its Golden Age? That when nobody can even imagine anything happening unexpectedly, that they later fondly refer to that period as the Good Old Days?”
“I hadn’t thought of it in just those words, sir—”
“It is one of the most-avoided facts of life,” said the ambassador. “Government, in the local or planetary sense of the word, is an organization for the suppression of adventure. Taxes are, in part, the insurance premiums one pays for protection against the unpredictable.”

Murray Leinster book The Pirates of Zan

Source: The Pirates of Zan (1959), Chapter 2

Life , Death , Age , Imagination

“I have somewhere found it recorded that as Johann Gottlieb Fichte progressed with his first reading of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," he was moved to tears. To those who have labored through the tortured pages of the great German thinker this would be no matter for surprise, were it not for the quality of the tears: not those of vexation and baffled understanding, indeed, but of enthusiasm and sheer gratitude. For Fichte had fallen into the melancholy persuasion of Spinoza. At least, certain views of this austere thinker of the seventeenth century appeared to Fichte as no less gloomy in their implication than irresistible in the logic which led to them. Irresistible were the reasons which had driven Spinoza to look upon nature as governed by inexorable Fate. In the world as a whole there was no purpose, in its parts there was no freedom.”

Edgar A. Singer, Jr. (1873–1954) American philosopher

Source: Modern thinkers and present problems, (1923), p. 63: Chapter 3. A disciple of Spinoza, an illustration

Fate , World , Understanding , Nature

“I'm a libertarian, which means I'm against the government doing almost anything. But citizens having arsenals? No, that is the kind of rough stuff I would like the government to get involved in…. It just seems the debate, — you know, they will not give an inch. There are many attempts to pass a law in states just requesting a limit of buying one gun a month, and it doesn't pass. People are like, "What about Christmas?" I mean, one gun a month. If you started when you were 18, by the time you were 60 that's over a thousand guns. I don't care how small your penis is, that should be enough guns.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Be More Cynical (2000)

People , Law , Time , Christmas

“The Earth gives us life, not the American government. The earth gives us life, not the multi-national corporate government. The Earth gives us life. We need to have the Earth. We must have it, otherwise our life will be no more. So we must resist what they do.”

John Trudell (1946–2015) Native American rights activist, musician, poet

"We are Power" speech (1980)

Life

“In world history we have other examples of frightful destruction. There was Alexander the Great and all of the destruction he caused. Napoleon, too, would have destroyed all of Europe. But unfortunately, the Nazi government, the government of which I unfortunately partook, had no Talleyrand, but we had a Ribbentrop. Through Talleyrand's policy France was saved from a catastrophe that Ribbentrop would have brought about.”

Walther Funk (1890–1960) German economist and politician

To Leon Goldensohn, May 12, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

World , History

“This is the greatest political question of our time. How can we put an end to the empire of mega-corporations and restore democracy? If I knew I would be the savior of the world. What I think I can tell is that the media are crucial. The power of the corporate media enables truth to be suppressed and lies to be passed as truth. You probably heard that a half-truth can be worse than a lie. A lot of the things that our governments and media saying are 1/10 truths, 9/10 lies. And it doesn't take very many of them together to create a completely fictional world view (like the one that Bush presents when he talks). So I recommend that people stop listening to the mainstream media. Don't watch television news. Don't listen the news on radio. Don't read news from ordinary newspapers. Get it from variety of web sites which are not operated under the power of business money and you'll have better chance of not being fooled by the systematic lies that they all tell, because they're all paid by the same people to tell the same lies or 9/10 lies.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

2000s, What is free software? (2006)

Money , People , Truth , Lie

“Duty is collective as well as personal. Law must rest on the eternal foundations of righteousness. Industry, thrift, character, cannot be conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil. Do the day's work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak — whoever objects — do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand patter, but don't be a stand patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don't be a demagogue. We need a broader, firmer, deeper faith in the people, a faith that men desire to do right, that the government is founded upon a righteousness which will endure.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Duty of Government (1920)

Men , People , Faith , Law

“"Thank God for the French army." When we read about Germany, when we watch with surprise and distress the tumultuous insurgence of ferocity and war spirit, the pitiless ill-treatment of minorities, the denial of the normal protections of civilised society to large numbers of individuals solely on the ground of race—when we see that occurring in one of the most gifted, learned, scientific and formidable nations in the world, one cannot help feeling glad that the fierce passions that are raging in Germany have not found, as yet, any other outlet but upon themselves. It seems to me that, at a moment like this, to ask France to halve her army while Germany doubles hers… to ask France to halve her air force while the German air force remains whatever it is… such a proposal, it seems to me, is likely to be considered by the French Government at present, at any rate, as somewhat unseasonable.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1933/mar/23/european-situation#S5CV0276P0_19330323_HOC_299 in the House of Commons (23 March 1933) shortly after Hitler became Chancellor
The 1930s

God , War , World , Feeling

“What made Ingolfur Arnarson a great man was first and foremost his ideals, his unquenchable love of mankind, his conviction that the people needed improved conditions of life and better facilities for cultural advancement, his determination to mitigate his fellow men's sufferings by establishing a better form of government in the country... Middlemen and other parasites would no longer be allowed to batten on the farming classes. Ingolfur wanted to elevate the farmer's life to a position of honor and dignity, not in word alone, but in deed.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book Two, Part II: Years of Prosperity

Love , Life , Men , People

“The time was, when I was a boy, when people hardly dreamed that the day would come when there would be large numbers of Members in this House who could not afford to perform their duties here unless they had an allowance; but I think, looking at the whole Continent of Europe, that, the more the basis of our liberty and our Constitution is broadened, the better for our country. Would anyone who remembers the old days here go back to them and give up what we have gained? This Chamber, the most famous Chamber in democratic government in the world, is now open to all, and, once you admit that everybody has a right to be elected to this House if he can, you cannot logically create or leave a financial bar.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1937/apr/12/ministers-of-the-crown-bill in the House of Commons (12 April 1937) announcing an increase in MP's salaries.
1937

People , World , Dreams , Boy

“Government is, unquestionably, a science of compromises, but only of policies and interests, not of essential rights; and if of them, then the sacrifice must fall equally on all.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Science

“He was not a friend to Paine's doctrines, but he was not to be deterred by a name from acknowledging that he considered the rights of man as the foundation of every government, and those who stood out against those rights as conspirators against the people. The dearest right of Englishmen was to the possession of their constitution, while it was maintained on its true principles; but if it was abused, the effect must infallibly be to inflame men's minds, and ministers alone would be responsible for the consequences which might ensue. If the people complained of grievances, let those grievances be removed, and their discontents would cease. If the people were put in possession of their rights, there would be no longer any fear of internal or foreign danger…The retreat of the duke of Brunswick, which he, along with his right hon. friend, and every friend of freedom, considered as matter of joy and exultation, had indeed thrown them into confusion.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech in the House of Commons (12 December 1792), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. XXX (London: 1817), pp. 41-42.
1790s

Men , Pain , People , Fear

“The Filipino, it seems, has lost his soul, his dignity, and his courage.

We have come upon a phase of our history when ideals are only a veneer for greed and power, (in public and private affairs) when devotion to duty and dedication to a public trust are to be weighted at all times against private advantages and personal gain, and when loyalties can be traded.

…Our government is in the iron grip of venality, its treasury is barren, its resources are wasted, its civil service is slothful and indifferent, its armed forces demoralized and its councils sterile.,

We are in crisis. You know that the government treasury is empty. Only by severe self-denial will there be hope for recovery within the next year…

This nation can be great again. This I have said over and over. It is my articles of faith, and Divine Providence has willed that you and I can now translate this faith into deeds.”

Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986

Mandate for Greatness,” First Inaugural Speech of President Ferdinand E. Marcos, 30 December 1965.
1965

Faith , Hope , Soul , History

“What was critical for the maintenance of pegged exchange rates, I argue in this book, was protection for governments from pressure to trade exchange rate stability for other goals.”

Barry Eichengreen Introduction

Source: Globalizing Capital (2008), Chapter 1. Introduction

Books

“America had declared war with Spain…. It did not require much political wisdom to see that America's concern was a matter of sugar and had nothing to do with humanitarian feelings. Of course there were plenty of credulous people, not only in the country at large, but even in liberal ranks, who believed in America's claim. I could not join them. I was sure that no one, be it individual or government, engaged in enslaving and exploiting at home, could have the integrity or the desire to free people in other lands.”

Emma Goldman book Living My Life

Source: Living My Life (1931), p. 226

Wisdom , War , People , Feeling

“We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"Think Little".
A Continuous Harmony (1972)

Friendship , Marriage , Communication

“If I am elected President, I will work with anyone who sincerely wants to get this country moving again. I will listen to any idea that is offered in good faith and intended to help solve our problems, not make them worse. I will seek the counsel of members of Congress from both parties in forming government policy before I ask them to support it. I will ask Democrats to serve in my administration. My administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability. I will hold weekly press conferences. I will regularly brief the American people on the progress our policies have made and the setbacks we have encountered. When we make errors, I will confess them readily, and explain what we intend to do to correct them. I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the Prime Minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

[Text of McCain's Speech on First-Term Goals, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/15/text_of_mccains_vision_of_2013.html, washingtonpost.com, 2008-05-15, 2008-06-01]
2000s, 2008

People , Faith , Error , Idea

“I think power is a sickness and governing is a folly for madmen.”

Robert Silverberg book Lord Valentine's Castle

Book 1, Chapter 15 (p. 113)
Lord Valentine's Castle (1980)

Thinking

Quotes about government page 54

Quotes about government
page 54