Quotes about government (7014 quotes, page 68)

“Man is an animal, but a social animal. Society for its manifold blessings asks in exchange sacrifice and compromise. Concession is the world's walking gait. Fevers and hallucinations sweep over us, it is true; but be they permitted to infect the public body, slaughter shall result. Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Act I
Buchanan Dying (1974)

Animals , World , Madness

“We're not prophets. We're not here to inform the rich people of the world on how to make more money, or to inform governments on how to direct themselves. We are here to allow you to dream your dreams and make them happen, and have your nightmares a little in advance so you can prevent them from happening.”

Greg Bear (1951) American writer best known for science fiction

On science fiction writers, Guest of Honor speech at the Millennium Philcon 59th World Science Fiction Convention (2001), from Women in Deep Time (2002), ed. ibooks

Money , Dreams , People , World

“[After the stock-markets crash] the number one priority will be the provision of adequate food for all the people; two, the provision of adequate housing for all the people; thirdly, the provision of adequate healthcare and education for all the people. These are the basic human rights needed everywhere by all people, yet there is no country in the world in which all of these pertain as a universal right. When the economic collapse occurs, humanity will begin to recognize its oneness, and the need to co-operate and share the world’s resources.Maitreya will present the nations with an alternative way of living, of conducting economic and political affairs... The new government which will emerge after the stock market crash will reflect the will of the people and stand for the people.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: Maitreya's Mission Vol. II (1993), Chapter 4, Economic Change

Housing , Food , Country , People

“The Original Dream. We have forgotten how radical that original dream was—how bold the founders of the democracy really were. They knew that they were framing a form of government that challenged all the aristocratic assumptions and top-heavy power structures of Western history. The Revolutionaries exploited every available means of communication. They linked their networks by energetic letter writing. Jefferson designed an instrument with five yoked pens for writing multiple copies of his letters. The new ideas were spread through pamphlets, weekly newspapers, broadsides, almanacs, and sermons.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Five, The American Matrix for Transformation

Democracy , History , Dreams , Communication

“I preside over a government that is made up of three independent parties who have built consensus around the issues we will collectively pursue. The fact that we will work together collaboratively does not diminish the identities of those parties. There are a number of reasons why confidence and supply is a form of arrangement that will suit the needs of particular parties and why others will prefer coalition. I have no trouble, and I do not question my role or authority simply by allowing a party to speak to that issue themselves.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

On why the Greens are outside of cabinet.
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

Self-confidence , Confidence , Question

“Let me be absolutely clear: in terms of potential deaths and the impact on our economy, the crisis we face from coronavirus is on the scale of a major war, and we must act accordingly. Nobody knows how many fatalities we may see, but they could equal or surpass the U.S. casualties we saw in World War II. It is an absolute moral imperative that our response -- as a government, as a society, as business communities, and as individuals -- meets the enormity of this crisis... If our neighbor or co-worker gets sick, we have the potential to get sick. If our neighbors lose their jobs, then our local economies suffer, and we may lose our jobs. If doctors and nurses do not have the equipment and staffing capacity they need now, people we know and love may die. The American people deserve transparency... We need daily information -- clear, science-based information -- from credible scientific voices, not politicians.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

2020

Science , Death , Business , War

“Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other then we shall have no more wars. We shall be all alike – brothers of one father and mother, with one sky above us and one country around us and one government for all. Then the Great Spirit Chief who rules above will smile upon this land and send rain to wash out the bloody spots made by brothers' hands upon the face of the earth. For this time the Indian race is waiting and praying. I hope no more groans of wounded men and women will ever go to the ear of the Great Spirit Chief above, and that all people may be one people.”

Chief Joseph (1840–1904) Nez Percé Chieftain

Lincoln Hall Speech (1879)

Time , Waiting , Country , War

“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Source: The Russian Revolution (1918), Chapter Six, "The Problem of Dictatorship"

Justice , Dependency , Freedom , Support

“My administration has done a job on really working across government and with the private sector, and it’s been incredible. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, I have to say. Unfortunately, the end result of the group we’re fighting — which are hundreds of billions and trillions of germs, or whatever you want to call them — they are bad news. This virus is bad news and it moves quickly, and it spreads as easily as anything anyone has ever seen.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

As quoted in Remarks by President Trump in a Meeting with Supply Chain Distributors on COVID-19 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-supply-chain-distributors-covid-19/ (March 29, 2020), whitehouse.gov.
2020s, 2020, March

Fight , Bad luck , Beauty

“The federal government has done something that nobody has done anything like this other than perhaps wartime. And that’s what we’re in: We’re in a war.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

As quoted in Remarks by President Trump in a Meeting with Supply Chain Distributors on COVID-19 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-supply-chain-distributors-covid-19/ (March 29, 2020), whitehouse.gov.
2020s, 2020, March

War

“The court is the least abstract of institutions. It is nine men, nine very human men, participating in a process that can be impressive or disturbing, grave or funny. And contrary to the general impression, the process is more visible than most of what goes on in government.”

Anthony Lewis (1927–2013) American journalist

Quoted in Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court (1979), p. viii.

Men

“When the doctor has a heart-problem, he goes to the “heart-specialist”. The “heart-specialist” goes to the “skin-specialist” when he has a skin-problem. The “skin-specialist” goes to the “psychiatrist” when he has a mental-problem. The “psychiatrist” goes to the “priest” when he has a spiritual problem. The “priest” goes to the doctor for the “annual medical checkup”. All TRUE. SOLUTION… End the INQUISITION by EDUCATING Humanity HOW to USE the ONELAW in Normal Daily Life. And, to make the HOME again the True Center of Government.”

Roy Littlesun (1934)

facebook

Home , Heart , Problem , Education

“Legal intervention costs money; legal intervention opens up new avenues for abuse, including totalitarian excesses by government officials who seek to determine preferences on personal matters.”

Richard Epstein (1943) American legal scholar

[Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism, https://books.google.com/books?id=B36vxZZ4cLcC, June 2003, University of Chicago Press, 978-0-226-21304-0] (quote from p. 157)

Money , Personality

“The problem to which the eminent domain clause is directed is that of political obligation and organization. What are the reasons for the formation of the state? What can the state demand of the individuals citizens whom it both governs and represents?”

Richard Epstein (1943) American legal scholar

[Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain, https://books.google.com/books?id=uz7nJkFvVn0C, 1985, Harvard University Press, 978-0-674-86729-1] (quote from p. 3)

Problem

“The Crisis: Our institutions—especially our governing structures—are mechanistic, rigid, fragmented. The world isn't working.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Seven, Right Power

World

“Of the four terms ... Praise, Blame, Punishment, and Responsibility, the cardinal and governing one is the last.”

Chapman Cohen (1868–1954) British atheist and secularist writer and lecturer

p. 68 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89009314162&view=1up&seq=72
Determinism or Free-will? (1912)

“Of course, working people ultimately cannot rely upon the federal government or the state governments (whose purpose is to maintain the hegemony of the markets and the rule of capital) to fix this crisis in any equitable way. Only the working class has the power to make this happen through mass strikes and work actions. In order to act swiftly in the case of any layoffs, lockouts, or shutdowns, working people ultimately must organize themselves at their workplaces and in the streets, whether they are in a union or not, and be prepared to use their collective power to demand that all necessary resources be employed for the well being of the whole class with full compensation and benefits, that full back pay be provided to all workers upon returning to work, and that everyone has access to well compensated employment.”

James Dennis Hoff

Freeze Layoffs: Make the Capitalists Pay (March 23, 2020)

Way , Making love , People

“In a Constitutional Monarchy, the Government governs and the King reigns.”

Georgios Papandreou (1888–1968) Greek politician - former prime minister of Greece

During the political crisis of 1965.

“There are two ways this could go. We could, as some people have done, double down on denial. Some of those who have dismissed other threats, such as climate breakdown, also seek to downplay the threat of Covid-19... Or this could be the moment when we begin to see ourselves, once more, as governed by biology and physics, and dependent on a habitable planet. Never again should we listen to the liars and the deniers. Never again should we allow a comforting falsehood to trounce a painful truth. No longer can we afford to be dominated by those who put money ahead of life...”

George Monbiot (1963) English writer and political activist

Covid-19 is nature's wake-up call to complacent civilisation https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/25/covid-19-is-natures-wake-up-call-to-complacent-civilisation?, The Guardian, 25 March 2020

Money , Pain , Dependency , People

“One of my roles was consulting other political parties to ensure that support was there to pass a legislative agenda. That is absolutely not new. What has changed over time is the way that those relationships have evolved. The processes, I think, have become a lot more refined. We’re probably a lot more effective and efficient in the way that we conduct coalition governments now, and certainly you’ll see that I think we will make sure that we run a very efficient, effective government.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

Time , Support , Thinking , Way

“When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans' benefits. I meant every single, solitary thing in the government. And I not only tried it once, I tried it twice, I tried it a third time and I tried it a fourth time. Somebody has to tell me in here, how we're going to do this hard work without dealing with any of those sacred cows.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Senate, , quoted with video in * 2019-05-20

Watch: Joe Biden Once Boasted About Wanting to Cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans’ Benefits

Walker Bragman

Paste Magazine

https://www.pastemagazine.com/politics/joe-biden/watch-joe-biden-boasts-about-wanting-to-cut-social/
1990s

Time

“What is most dangerous is that although this virus will eventually disappear, the assault on our civil liberties is not likely to be reversed. From this point on, whenever local officials, county officials, state governors, or federal bureaucrats decide there is sufficient reason to suspend the Constitution they will not hesitate to do so. Anyone who challenges the suspension of the Constitution “for our own good” will be labeled “unpatriotic” and perhaps even reported to the authorities. We have already seen hotlines springing up across the country for Americans to report other Americans who dare venture outside to enjoy the sun and build up their vitamin D protection against the coronavirus. The government is justified in cancelling the Constitution, we are told, because we are in an emergency situation caused by the Covid-19 virus. But do people forget that the Constitution itself was written and adopted while we were in an “emergency situation”? Did the framers of the Constitution fail to add an 11th Amendment to the Bill of Rights saying, “oh by the way, none of this counts if we get sick?””

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Of course not! Those who wrote our Constitution understood that these rights are not granted by the government, but rather by our Creator. Thus it was never a question as to when or under what conditions they could be suspended: the government had no authority to suspend them at all because it did not grant them in the first place.
2020, End the Shutdown; It’s Time for Resurrection!

Country , Sun , Forgetting , People

“For many millions of Christians, Easter is a time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Others may celebrate the arrival of spring and the promise of new life. Whatever one’s beliefs, after several weeks of mandatory “stay at home” orders and the complete shutdown of the US economy over the coronavirus, this self-destructive hysteria must end and we must reclaim the freedom and liberty that has provided us so much opportunity as Americans. To do that we should first understand that much of the hysteria is being generated by a mainstream media that has long prioritized sensationalism over investigating and reporting the truth. Government bureaucrats are also exaggerating the threat of this virus and appear to be enjoying the power and control that fearful people are willingly handing over to them. One “coronavirus” bureaucrat even told us that we can no longer go to the grocery store! So we should just starve? It is certainly possible to believe that this virus can be dangerous while at the same time pointing out that radical steps are being taken in our society – stay-at-home orders, introduction of de facto martial law, etc.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

with very little knowledge of just how deadly is this disease.
2020, End the Shutdown; It’s Time for Resurrection!

Life , Home , Time , Understanding

“According to Confucian writings, wise individuals, wanting good government, looked first within, seeking precise words to express their hitherto unvoiced yearnings, "the tones given off by the heart."”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Once they were able to verbalize the intelligence of the heart they disciplined themselves. Order within the self led first to harmony within their own households, then the state, and finally the empire.
The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Seven, Right Power

Heart

“The Trump administration has, for good measure, rewritten the eligibility rules for such programs in order to lower the number of people who qualify. The supposed goal: to cut costs by reducing dependence on government.”

Rajan Menon (1953) political scientist

Never mind the subsidies and tax loopholes Trump’s crew has created for corporations and the super wealthy, which add up to many billions of dollars in spending and lost revenue.
Trump’s War on the Poor Includes Our Children (February 4, 2020)

People , Dependency

“Importantly, socialized medicine is not about health care, it is about control.
Are you going to oppose the government or defy bureaucrats when they have the power of veto over your spouse’s or children’s health care?”

Trevor Loudon New Zealand politician

"The Fatal Flaw of Socialized Health Care" https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-fatal-flaw-of-socialized-health-care_2815015.html

Children , Health

“If people want to pursue accountability (about the lockdown of Wuhan City due to the COVID-19 outbreak and Wuhan City Government below-standard handling of the outbreak) and the public has a strong opinion, we (Zhou Xianwang and Wuhan Communist Party Chief Ma Guoqiang) are willing to step down.”

Zhou Xianwang (1963) Chinese politician

Zhou Xianwang (2020) cited in " Mayor of Wuhan, epicenter city of coronavirus, offers to resign over outbreak https://nypost.com/2020/01/27/mayor-of-wuhan-epicenter-city-of-coronavirus-offers-to-resign-over-outbreak/" on New York Post, 27 January 2019.

Strong , People

“(We, the Government of China) must provide better support for fighting and controlling the (COVID-19) outbreak, while safeguarding the normal order of the economy and society.”

Li Keqiang (1955–2023) Premier of the People's Republic of China

Li Keqiang (2020) cited in " China faces dilemma as it tries to get back to work amid coronavirus outbreak fears following Lunar New Year https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3049407/china-faces-dilemma-it-tries-get-back-work-amid-coronavirus" on South China Morning Post, 6 February 2020.
2020s

Fight , Support

“There is (currently) indeed a shortage of surgical masks (in New Taipei due to COVID-19 outbreak). There is a lack of transparency on information about mask manufacturers and distribution. The (Republic of China) central government should clearly tell people how many masks each person can purchase.”

Hou You-yi (1957) Taiwanese politician

Hou You-yi (2020) cited in " Virus Outbreak: NHI cards required to purchase masks http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/02/04/2003730320" on Taipei Times, 4 February 2020.

Personality , People

“It was a hard decision (to close casinos in Macau for two weeks after a hotel worker was infected by COVID-19), but we (Government of Macau) must make it for the health of Macau residents. Macau can still withstand economic losses.”

Ho Iat Seng (1957) Chief Executive of Macau

Ho Iat Seng (2020) cited in " Coronavirus: casinos to close in Macau for at least two weeks after hotel worker infected https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3048904/coronavirus-casinos-close-macau-least-two-weeks" on South China Morning Post, 4 February 2020.

Loss , Making love , Health , Decision

“We (Government of Macau) appeal to the public not to go out unless it's absolutely necessary. That's the best prevention (against the COVID-19). We had no choice but to cancel the (2020 Lunar) new year celebrations even when everything was ready.”

Ho Iat Seng (1957) Chief Executive of Macau

Ho Iat Seng (2020) cited in " Macau confirms second patient infected with Chinese coronavirus https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3047337/macau-confirms-second-patient-infected-chinese-coronavirus?utm_content=article&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3J-0hvJBW78tSA93OtCjZ6icG5WEavRE5UoemIkusUOiK3vuJ1DgNRWZc#Echobox=1579765233" on South China Morning Post, 23 January 2020.

“What undoubtedly was an even more sensitive venture was the use of chemical and biological weapons against Cuba by the United States....The full extent of American chemical and biological warfare against Cuba will never be known. Over the years, the Castro government has in fact blamed the United States for a number of other plagues which afflicted various animals and crops. And in 1977, newly-released CIA documents disclosed that the Agency "maintained a clandestine anti-crop warfare research program targeted during the 1960s at a number of countries..."”

William Blum (1933–2018) American author and historian

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Chapter 30. Cuba 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution

Animals , Affliction , Country

“Governments which live in fear of tomorrow's headline are incapable of any change.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

First speech of Tony Abbott to Australian Parliament https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22chamber/hansardr/1994-05-31/0043%22, 1994.
First speech to Parliament

Fear , Change

“I stand for active government, not big government. I stand for government which gets off people's backs, not government which opts out of the future because it cannot face hard decisions. I stand for government which backs Australia's families with real policies and not just platitudes.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

First speech of Tony Abbott to Australian Parliament https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22chamber/hansardr/1994-05-31/0043%22, 1994.
First speech to Parliament

Family , Future , People , Decision

“While my actions were meant with the best of intentions, my actions also fell below the standards of transparency and openness that I have promoted and advocated. I offer a fulsome apology to you and to the government for what has happened and offer my resignation.”

Priti Patel (1972) British politician

Said in her resignation letter to Theresa May in November 2017 after she had unauthorised meetings with Israeli officials while Secretary of State for International Development. Priti Patel quits cabinet over Israel meetings row https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41923007 (8 November 2017)
2017

“The parish makes the constable, and when the constable is made he governs the parish.”

John Selden (1584–1654) English jurist and scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution, and of Jewish law

Law.
Table Talk (1689)

Making love

“States are violent institutions. The government of any country, including ours, represents some sort of domestic power structure, and it's usually violent. States are violent to the extent that they're powerful, that's roughly accurate.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 1990s, 1990–1994, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, 1992

Country

“Humans already massively intervene in Nature, whether through habitat destruction, captive breeding programs for big cats, "rewilding", etc. So the question is not whether humans should "interfere", but rather what ethical principles should govern our interventions.”

David Pearce (philosopher) (1959) British transhumanist

" The Antispeciesist Revolution https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/pearce20130726", Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 26 Jul. 2013

Cats , Nature , Question

“It’s quite clear that when you impose sanctions on a country that the population is going to suffer. It’s ridiculous to pretend that the sanctions are only going to affect the government elite. In fact, the government elite usually continues living rather well. It’s the most vulnerable – women, children – who have to pay for the consequences of these illegal sanctions.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

2020

Children , Suffering , Women , Country

“I have a rooted hatred to this police establishment; that I hate it, because it is of foreign growth, and because it is French; that I hate it because it really tears up the government; that good-natured government, that gentle, that confiding, that neighbourly and friendly government, under which I was born, and under which my forefathers lived.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (17 August 1833), p. 386
1830s

Confidence , Hate , Nature , Self-confidence

“Democracy is in principle the suppression of class government, though it is not yet the actual suppression of classes.”

Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932) German politician

Source: "Evolutionary Socialism" (1899) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1899/evsoc/index.htm, Chapter III, The Tasks and Possibilities of Social Democracy

Democracy

“If democracy is not to excel centralised absolutism in the breeding of bureaucracies, it must be built up on an elaborately organised self-government with a corresponding economic, personal responsibility of all the units of administration as well as of the adult citizens of the state. Nothing is more injurious to its healthy development than enforced uniformity and a too abundant amount of protectionism or subventionism.”

Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932) German politician

Source: "Evolutionary Socialism" (1899) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1899/evsoc/index.htm, Chapter III, The Tasks and Possibilities of Social Democracy

Democracy , Personality , Self-confidence

“Governments are by their nature aggressive and dominating. No society is safe if its neighbor is a state.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 2. Recuperation is How We Lose

Nature

“Government violence is not the result of violent revolutions, but the product of government itself. Any movement that leaves the State intact will fail in ending the oppressions we are fighting against. A nonviolent movement that replaces one government with another—and this is the greatest victory a nonviolent movement has ever achieved in the history of the world—ends up betraying itself, allowing Power to change its masks without addressing the fundamental problems of society. Nonviolence as an analytical tool has no means of understanding this kind of defeat—the kind that looks like victory.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 2. Recuperation is How We Lose

Understanding , History , Victory , Problem

“Telecenters are facilities where the general public can access computers for free. The computers are usually equipped with a variety of open source, and sometimes closed source, software and are connected to the internet. Some Telecenters offer computer lectures and workshops to communities in order to improve social and technical skills. Such activities are an attempt to promote use of the technology to fulfill individual and community needs, increasing human capital and employment. The government, NGOs, and the private sector operate Telecenter units.”

David Nemer

(p. 66)
Favela Digital- The other side of technology. (2013)

Communication

“In the light of the coronavirus pandemic, I focus criticism on capitalism and the vulnerabilities it has accumulated for several reasons. Viruses are part of nature. They have attacked human beings—sometimes dangerously—in both distant and recent history. In 1918, the Spanish Flu killed nearly 700,000 in the United States and millions elsewhere. Recent viruses include SARS, MERS and Ebola. What matters to public health is each society's preparedness: stockpiled tests, masks, ventilators, hospital beds, trained personnel, etc., to manage dangerous viruses. In the U.S., such objects are produced by private capitalist enterprises whose goal is profit. It was not profitable to produce and stockpile such products, that was not and still is not being done. Nor did the U.S. government produce or stockpile those medical products. Top U.S. government personnel privilege private capitalism; it is their primary objective to protect and strengthen. The result is that neither private capitalism nor the U.S. government performed the most basic duty of any economic system: to protect and maintain public health and safety. U.S. capitalism's response to the coronavirus pandemic continues to be what it has been since December 2019: too little, too late. It failed. It is the problem.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

History , Light , Health , Nature

“The problem of policies aimed to return the economy to what it was before the virus hit is this: Global capitalism, by 2019, was itself a major cause of the collapse in 2020. Capitalism's scars from the crashes of 2000 and 2008-2009 had not healed. Years of low interest rates had enabled corporations and governments to "solve" all their problems by borrowing limitlessly at almost zero interest rate cost. All the new money pumped into economies by central banks had indeed caused the feared inflation, but chiefly in stock markets whose prices consequently spiraled dangerously far away from underlying economic values and realities. Inequalities of income and wealth reached historic highs. In short, capitalism had built up vulnerabilities to another crash that any number of possible triggers could unleash. The trigger this time was not the dot.com meltdown of 2000 or the sub-prime meltdown of 2008/9; it was a virus. And of course, mainstream ideology requires focusing on the trigger, not the vulnerability. Thus mainstream policies aim to reestablish pre-virus capitalism. Even if they succeed, that will return us to a capitalist system whose accumulated vulnerabilities will soon again collapse from yet another trigger.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

Money , Time , Wealth , Problem

“The desperate policies of panic-driven governments involve throwing huge amounts of money at the economies collapsed in response to the coronavirus threat. Monetary authorities create money and lend it at extremely low interest rates to the major corporations and especially big banks "to get them through the crisis." Government treasuries borrow vast sums to get the collapsed economy back into what they imagine is "the normal, pre-virus economy."”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

Capitalism's leaders are rushing into policy failures because of their ideological blinders.
COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

Money , Imagination

“In a well-ordered state, the sovereign power must remain in one only, without communicating any part thereof unto the state (for in that case it should be a popular government and no monarchy). Wise politicians, philosophers, divines and historiographers, have highly commended a monarchy above all other commonweals. It is not to please the prince, that they hold this opinion; but for the safety and happiness of the subjects. And contrariwise, when as they shall limit and restrain the sovereign power of a monarch, to subject him to the general estates, or to the council; the sovereignty hath no firm foundation, but they frame a popular confusion, or a miserable anarchy, which is the plague of all estates and commonweals.”

Robert Filmer (1588–1653) English writer

Source: The Power of Kings, p. 325

Parting , Communication

“I see not then how the children of Adam, or of any man else, can be free from subjection to their parents. And this subjection of children being the fountain of all regal authority, by the ordination of God himself. From whence it follows, that civil power, not only in general is by Divine institution, but even the assigning of it specifically to the eldest parent. Which quite takes away that new and common distinction which refers only power universal and absolute to God, but power respective in regard of the special form of government to the choice of the people. Nor leaves it any place for such imaginary pactions between Kings and their people as many dream of. This lordship which Adam by creation had over the whole world, and by right descending from him the Patriarchs did enjoy, was as large and ample as the absolutest dominion of any monarch which hath been since the creation.”

Robert Filmer book Patriarcha

Source: Patriarcha, pp. 57–58

God , Children , People , Dreams

“If, in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen, I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow citizens, trophies obtained by the bloodstained steel, or the tattered flags of the tented field, will never be envied. The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland (31 March 1809), published in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1871), edited by H. A. Washington, Vol. 8, p. 165 https://www.bartleby.com/73/778.html
1800s, Post-Presidency (1809)

Happiness , Life , Envy

“[W]hen our country shall have got a good and cheap government, we can, with clear consciences, recommend the paring of their nails, and the making of them bow to that power which, freed from infernal boroughmongering, will again claim and enforce her dominion of the seas. No American that ever conversed with me upon this subject will deny, that I always said, that I should never die in peace without making them again bow to England; and that bow to her again they should, whenever we shook off the power of the hellish boroughmongers. ... ENGLAND is my country: I must share in all her glory and in all her disgrace; and when it is a question of her honour and well-being, I must cast aside all private recollections and feelings. ... I always said...I never would rest until I saw the Americans acknowledge, explicitly our right to dominion on the seas. I wish them all the happiness that men can enjoy in this world; but a nation may be very happy without being permitted to swagger about and be saucy to England.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (2 June 1832), p. 545
1830s

Peace , Question , Country , Happiness

“I am no citizen of the world. It is quite enough for me to think about what is best for England, Ireland and Scotland. I do not like those whose philanthropy is so enlarged as to look, as Rousseau said, to Tartary for objects of affection and commiseration, while their own countrymen are starving, or existing on sea-weed and nettles. I do not approve of any efforts to urge our Government to interfere at all in the affairs even of Poland: it is too distant, too out of the way of our affairs, that we should take one single meal from a weaver or a ploughman for the sake of doing good to the Poles.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘Belgium and Poland’, Political Register (20 August 1831), p. 496
1830s

Distant , Way , Thinking , World

“It has long been a fashion amongst you, which you have had the complaisance to adopt at the instigation of a corrupt press, to call every friend of reform, every friend of freedom, a Jacobin, and to accuse him of French principles. ... What are these principles?—That governments were made for the people, and not the people for governments.—That sovereigns reign legally only by virtue of the people's choice.—That birth without merit ought not to command merit without birth.--That all men ought to be equal in the eye of the law.—That no man ought to be taxed or punished by any law to which he has not given his assent by himself or by his representative.—That taxation and representation ought to go hand in hand.—That every man ought to be judged by his peers, or equals.—That the press ought to be free. ... Ten thousand times as much has been written on the subject in England as in all the rest of the world put together. Our books are full of these principles. ... There is not a single political principle which you denominate French, which has not been sanctioned by the struggles of ten generations of Englishmen, the names of many of whom you repeat with veneration, because, apparently, you forget the grounds of their fame. To Tooke, Burdett, Cartwright, and a whole host of patriots of England, Scotland and Ireland, imprisoned or banished, during the administration of Pitt, you can give the name of Jacobins, and accuse them of French principles. Yet, not one principle have they ever attempted to maintain that Hampden and Sydney did not seal with their blood.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘To the Merchants of England’, Political Register (29 April 1815), pp. 518–19
1810s

Time , Law , Freedom , Forgetting

“In committing these crimes, the mullahs are testing Western governments. In such circumstances, a lack of resolve or a passive attitude by Western governments will intensify the regime’s terrorist actions.”

Maryam Rajavi (1953) Iranian politician

Maryam Rajavi as quoted in The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/sep/24/iranian-resistence-calls-european-action-against-r/ (24 September 2018)

“Having said all this, I acknowledge that “I got mine” from the government over the course of many years. Thus, as I say so long,” one component of my last-gasp disquiet stems from pompously worrying about biologists who are starting out or are in mid-career.”

Jeffrey C. Hall (1945) American geneticist and chronobiologist

As quoted in A 2017 Nobel laureate says he left science because he ran out of money and was fed up with academia https://qz.com/1095294/2017-nobel-laureate-jeffrey-hall-left-science-because-he-ran-out-of-funding/ (October 5, 2017) Akshat Rathi, Quartz.

“Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason. It is our part, by religion and reason joined, to counteract them all we can.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Letter to John Benson (5 October 1770); published in Wesley's Select Letters (1837), p. 207
1770s

Passion , World , Religion , Parting

“By backing a people's vote, by backing remain, I am sure we can deliver the Labour government the people of this country so badly need,”

Tom Watson (Labour politician) (1967) British politician

Labour party conference: Corbyn plays down divisions amid aide's exit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49786833 BBC News (22 September 2019)
2019

People , Country

“Save me from that! To pour your life into sons for eighteen or twenty years, and then have the government take them away and waste them cleaning up after some failure of politics—no thanks.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 3 (p. 41)

Life , Failure

“Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know. So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC30/Berry.htm in Farming: A Hand Book (1970)
Poems

Understanding , Future , Hope , World

“The issue here really is not whether international trade shall be free but whether or not it makes any sense for a country — or, for that matter, a region — to destroy its own capacity to produce its own food. How can a government, entrusted with the safety and health of its people, conscientiously barter away in the name of an economic idea that people’s ability to feed itself? And if people lose their ability to feed themselves, how can they be said to be free?”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"A Bad Big Idea"
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community (1993)

Food , Country , People , Health

“The 1918 flu almost certainly didn’t originate in Spain. One popular theory for how it acquired the “Spanish” name posits that Spain was the only country where you could read about the disease. That’s because Spain remained neutral during World War I, and therefore its newspapers weren’t censoring any information deemed harmful to national morale. The disease was also rampaging through other countries, including France, Germany, Britain, and the United States, but those governments suppressed or downplayed reports on the extent of the damage. Accurate and timely information is vital to combating a pandemic, but still, some countries’ first impulses are to cover up the spread of the disease.”

Joshua Keating American journalist

Strongman Medicine: Suspicious Numbers and Brutal Quarantines (April 02, 2020)

Time , Reading , Country , War

“Today, for many in the profession, praise from the government for "responsible" reporting—for taking its direction about what should and should not be published—is a badge of honor. That this is the case is the true measure of how far adversarial journalism in the United States has fallen.”

Glenn Greenwald book No Place to Hide

Picador 2015 edition, p. 247
No Place to Hide (2014)

“It is very difficult for one person to change the actions of a government, but for one person to have a strong impact on a group at the local level is not impossible. This is happening all the time. People with something to say, with ideas that the community thinks are good and practical, are changing life in every country in the world. It is happening whether we are aware of it or not.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: The World Teacher for All Humanity (2007)

Time , Country , Strong , Personality

“Local participation is the number one need. That is democracy. Politicians talk about democracy, but there really is not much democracy. They are the ones who make the decisions, and they are the government. In this way, your democracy is diminished. Democracy is democracy not only through voting but through participation. The more participation there is, the more democracy is a reality. Until that pertains we can only say there is a move towards democracy, no real democracy in the world.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The World Teacher for All Humanity (2007)

Democracy , Way , Reality , Decision

“Complacency results from separation — the sense that we are separate and that by competition we become superior — and that superiority allows us to live what we call ‘well’. But we cannot live ‘well’ when two-thirds of the world are living and dying in absolute poverty. It is not possible to do so with impunity, and we do not. The result is crime. The result is catastrophe of one kind or another — governments which create wars for oil, for example. That is a catastrophe, and it is only possible because we are complacent, because we do not acknowledge the needs of millions of people who cannot take for granted what we take for granted: regular food, leisure, education and healthcare.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The World Teacher for All Humanity (2007)

Food , War , People , World

“[I]t is nevertheless proper to make men aware that the price they pay for attempting to uphold the artificial right of property, is nothing less than the enormous sum of misery inflicted in the name of law and government.”

Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer

Source: The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832), p. 157

Making love , Law , Men

“The natural right of property far from being protected, is systematically violated, and both government and law seem to exist chiefly or solely, in order to protect and organize the most efficacious means of protecting the violation….”

Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer

Source: The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832), p. 53

Law , Nature

“Among the legislative classes embodied into, and constituting the government, we must place the landed aristocracy. In fact, the landed aristocracy and the government are one—the latter being nothing more than the organized means of preserving the power and privileges of the former.”

Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer

Source: The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted (1832), p. 51

“Governments have meddled incessantly with money, which in our time has been the fruitful parent of intricate discussions and painful changes.”

Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer

Source: Popular Political Economy: Four lectures delivered at the London Mechanics Institution (1827), p. 179

Money , Pain , Time , Parent

“[T]he real business of men, what promotes their prosperity, is always better done by themselves than by any few separate and distinct individuals, acting as a government in the name of the whole.”

Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869) British writer

Source: Travels in the North of Germany (1820), p. 292, Vol. 1

Business , Men

“A government which cannot be reformed does not merit to be preserved.”

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

Private notes, quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952), p. 74
Undated

“Democracy is government of the strongest, just as military despotism is. This is a bond of connection between the two. They are the brutal forms of government and as strength and authority go together, necessarily arbitrarily.”

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

Private notes, quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952), p. 72
Undated

Democracy

“The English constitution was excellent until removed by foreign writers into the domain of theory, when in direct contradiction with its nature and origin it came to be admired as a common representative government.”

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

Private journal (1858), quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952), p. 70

Nature

“It hardly makes any difference who will be the next president. The world is governed by market forces.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/29/city-of-london-desperate-gamble-china-vulnerable-economy when asked by the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger who, in his view, would be the next president of the United States
2000s

World , Making love

“Germany is the power in whose strength, prosperity, and vigorous government, Europe has the most vital interest, because she is the Power best able from her position to deal with Russia.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Fortnightly Review (January 1877), p. 139
1870s

“There was no time during the rebellion when I did not think, and often say, that the South was more to be benefited by its defeat than the North. The latter had the people, the institutions, and the territory to make a great and prosperous nation. The former was burdened with an institution abhorrent to all civilized people not brought up under it, and one which degraded labor, kept it in ignorance, and enervated the governing class. With the outside world at war with this institution, they could not have extended their territory. The labor of the country was not skilled, nor allowed to become so. The whites could not toil without becoming degraded, and those who did were denominated 'poor white trash.'”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

The system of labor would have soon exhausted the soil and left the people poor. The non-slaveholders would have left the country, and the small slaveholder must have sold out to his more fortunate neighbor. Soon the slaves would have outnumbered the masters, and, not being in sympathy with them, would have risen in their might and exterminated them. The war was expensive to the South as well as to the North, both in blood and treasure, but it was worth all it cost.

Ch. 41
1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885)

Time , Country , War , People

“The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable. But any people or part of a people who resort to this remedy, stake their lives, their property, and every claim for protection given by citizenship — on the issue. Victory, or the conditions imposed by the conqueror — must be the result.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Source: 1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), Ch. 16

Strong , Victory , People , Nature

“Censorship...ought to be confined to the temporary suppression of military and naval news which might assist the enemy. ... Public opinion might be fallible, but it was not half as fallible as individual opinion, and, good or bad, the Government had to lean upon it; how could they do that unless public opinion had full, free, and correct information as to facts?”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Speech in the House of Lords (3 November 1915), quoted in The Times (4 November 1915), p. 9
1910s

Bad luck

“But are you so sure...that when Ulster, or the corner of Ulster knows that Great Britain has made up its mind that there is to be an effective, a real self-government in Ireland—are you so sure Ulster will turn its back upon Ireland and claim to be excluded from such Government? (“No.”) I do not believe it. ... I say that a good deal of this zeal for Ulster is artificial.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Speech to the National Reform Union in Manchester (6 July 1887), quoted in The Times (7 July 1887), p. 7
1880s

Self-confidence

“In view of this grave and unprecedented outrage, the House may be assured that his Majesty's Government will take without delay appropriate steps to vindicate the authority of the law and to protect officers and servants of the King and his Majesty's subjects in the exercise of their duties and in the enjoyment of their legal rights.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons on the gun-running at Larne, Ireland (27 April 1914), quoted in The Times (28 April 1914), p. 8
Prime Minister

Housing , Law , Exercises

“I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind — that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty; and the democratic form is as bad as any of the other forms.
I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech — alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organized society.
I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
I believe in the reality of progress.
I —But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.”

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

"What I Believe" in The Forum 84 (September 1930), p. 139; some of these expressions were also used separately in other Mencken essays.
1930s

Religion , Freedom , War , Bad luck

“Democracy is a system of government according to which every member of society is considered as a man and nothing more.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

Book V, Chapter 13, "General Features of Democracy"

Massacre is the too possible attendant upon revolution , and massacre is perhaps the most hateful scene, alllowing for its omentary duration, that any imagination can suggest, The fearful, hopeless, expectation of the defeated, and the blood-hound fury of their conquerors, is a complication of mischief that all which has been told of internal regions can scarcely surpass. The cold-blooded massacres that are perpetrated under the naem of criminal justice fall short of these in some of their most frightful aggravations. The ministers and instruments of law have by perform, and often bear their parts in the most shocking enormities without being sensible to the passions allied murders with the rudeness of an insulting triumph ; and, as the conduct themselves , in a certain sort, by known principles of injustice, the evil we have reason to apprehend has its limits. But the instruments of massacre are discharged from every restraint.

Book VIII, Ch.
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Democracy

“The benefit of the governed is made to lie on one side and the benefit of the governors on the other.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

Book III, Chapter 9
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Lie

“...a return to more thrifty and economical administration [is] the first and paramount duty of the Government.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Budget speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1906/apr/30/expenditure in the House of Commons (30 April 1906)
Chancellor of the Exchequer

“...where we were obliged to part company with our friends was here—that we held and still hold that war was neither intended nor desired by the Government and the people of Great Britain, but that it was forced upon us without adequate reason, entirely against our will.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the Liverpool Street Station Hotel, London (20 June 1901) on the Boer War, quoted in Speeches by The Earl of Oxford and Asquith, K.G. (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1927), p. 40
Opposition MP

War , People , Parting

“Governments can be democratic or not, more or less corrupt, but they will still pursue the same basic goals, and they will still be controlled by an elite. Government by its very nature concentrates power and excludes people from making decisions over their own lives.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 4. The Color Revolutions

Decision , Making love , People , Nature

“Maitreya will present the nations with an alternative way of living, of conducting economic and political affairs... The new government which will emerge after the stock market crash will reflect the will of the people and stand for the people.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: Maitreya's Mission Vol. II (1993), After the stock markets collapse, Chapter 4, Economic Change

Way , People

“My feeling is that we will not be able to take all the decisions which will be necessary from now until 1995 unless there is the embryo of a European government in one form or another.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

Speech to the European Parliament (6 July 1988), quoted in The Times (7 July 1988), p. 1
President of the European Commission

Feeling , Decision

“I'm in opposition against to both the government and the opposition.”

Paavo Väyrynen (1946) Finnish politician

When he returned to Parliament 2018 and left from the Center Party.

“If men are capable of committing evil actions, granting them power over others makes evil actions certain. But there is a difference. When men in government commit and evil act, they are legally shielded from their consequences of the act.”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

Source: A Way to Be Free: The Autobiography of Robert LeFevre, Volume II, (1999), p. 487

Making love , Evil , Men

“The type of people who gravitate to the government system are doing this out of desperation and they don't really have the answers, and eventually... [will] fail.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

2019

People

“Now, where did we ever get the idea that there is such a thing as 'good government?'”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

That is a contradiction in terms as ridiculous as 'constructive rape.'

p. 14
Good Government: Hope or Illusion? (1978)

Idea

“Are democratic governments accountable to the people who elected them? And, critically, is the public in democratic countries responsible for the actions...?”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Arundhati Roy: Tide? Or Ivory Snow? Public Power in the Age of Empire, Speech, San Francisco, California https://www.democracynow.org/2004/8/23/public_power_in_the_age_of (16 August 2004)
Speeches

People , Country

“Recently, those who have criticized the actions of the U.S. government... have been called “anti-American.””

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

..The term “anti-American” is usually used by the American establishment to discredit...its critics. Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they are heard, and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised national pride.<BR>But what does the term “anti-American” mean? Does it mean you are anti-jazz? Or... opposed to freedom of speech?...That you have a quarrel with giant sequoias? Does it mean that you don’t admire the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who marched against nuclear weapons, or the thousands... who forced their government to withdraw from Vietnam? Does it mean that you hate all Americans?<BR> This sly conflation of America’s culture, music, literature, the breathtaking physical beauty of the land, the ordinary pleasures of ordinary people with criticism of the U.S. government’s foreign policy (about which, thanks to America’s “free press”, sadly most Americans know very little) is... extremely effective strategy.<BR>To call someone “anti-American”, indeed to be anti-American, (or for that matter, anti-Indian or anti-Timbuktuan) is not just racist, it’s a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those the establishment has set out for you... If you don’t love us, you hate us... If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.

Come September, given at the Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe, NM, USA http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/politics/comeSeptember.pdf (29 Sep 2002).
Speeches

“In facing this disaster, we admit we have not done enough, there is space for improvement. Here I represent the Macau government in expressing our apologies to the residents.”

Fernando Chui (1957) Chief Executive of Macau (2009-2019)

Fernando Chui (2017) cited in " Macau leader Fernando Chui apologises to residents over Typhoon Hato havoc https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/battered-macau-and-hong-kong-clean-up-after-typhoon-hato-pounds-region-leaving-trail" on The Straits Times, 24 August 2017

“I think it’s become clear to people what my motivation is. I am not simply anti-government, and I’m not in opposition to any one person; I want to write about all the things that I think are making us into an unkind society…”

Petina Gappah (1971) Zimbabwean writer, journalist and business lawyer

On her motivations as a writer in “Petina Gappah: ‘I want to write about what makes us into an unkind society’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/13/petina-gappah-zimbabwe-writer-interview in The Guardian (2016 Nov 13)

Personality , People , Thinking , Motivation