Quotes about state
page 37

James P. Cannon photo
Michael Bloomberg photo

“Government by three men in a room has turned New York State into a national symbol of governmental dysfunction. Enough is enough!”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/searchlight/20070117/203/2080
Election Reform

Ilya Prigogine photo

“In an isolated system, which cannot exchange energy and matter with the surroundings, this tendency is expressed in terms of a function of the macroscopic state of the system: the entropy.”

Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003) physical chemist

Part 2; Cited in: Evgenii Rudnyi (2013).
Thermodynamics of Evolution (1972)

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
George Soros photo
Jeffrey Tucker photo
Muhammad photo

“Whoever killed "Muaahadan" a confederate (a term used in Islamic state to refer to non-Muslim citizens), will not smell Paradise. And its scent can be smelled from a distance of forty years”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

a term in Arabic means "far distance"
Narrated By An-Nasaie [citation needed]
Sunni Hadith

Aurangzeb photo

“The temple of Somnath was demolished early in my reign and idol worship (there) put down. It is not known what the state of things there is at present. If the idolaters have again taken to the worship of images at the place, then destroy the temple in such a way that no trace of the building may be left, and also expel them (the worshippers) from the place.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Somnath (Gujarat) Kalimat-i-Tayyibat, quoted in Sarkar, Jadu Nath, History of Aurangzeb, Vol. III, pp. 185-86. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.62677/page/n295
Quotes from late medieval histories

Samuel Alito photo

“The separation of church and state has been a cornerstone of American democracy for over two hundred years. Getting rid of it was long overdue.”

Samuel Alito (1950) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Invented in * 2014-05-06
In Landmark Decision, Supreme Court Strikes Down Main Reason Country Was Started
Andy Borowitz
The Borowitz Report
The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/05/in-landmark-decision-supreme-court-strikes-down-main-reason-country-was-started.html
2014-05-18.
Satirizing his decision in Greece v. Galloway.
Misattributed

Nigel Lawson photo

“No industry should remain under State ownership unless there is a positive and overwhelming case for it so doing. Inertia is not enough. As a nation, we simply cannot afford it.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1981/nov/10/nationalised-industries in the House of Commons (10 November 1981)

François Bernier photo
Robert Seymour Bridges photo

“Simple and brave, his faith awoke
Ploughmen to struggle with their fate;
Armies won battles when he spoke,
And out of Chaos sprang the state.”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

Washington by Robert Bridges (1858 - 1941), American journalist and poet, who wrote under the pen name "Droch".
Misattributed

Joseph Massad photo
William Gibson photo

“It will bring about the extinction of the nation-state as we know it… I think it will be as big a deal as the creation of cities.”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

Referring to the Internet
No Maps for These Territories (2000)

David Dixon Porter photo

“I was much disappointed at seeing those who had once belonged to the United States navy excelled in matters of honor and propriety by the officers of another corps.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 56

Theodor Mommsen photo
Paul von Hindenburg photo
Enver Hoxha photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
Mohamed Azmin Ali photo

“Based on the approved development allocation for 2018 (by the central government), MYR4.1 billion was earmarked for Sabah and we want to ensure that it is fully spent for the sake of development in the state. Priority has been given to the education sector so that the dilapidated schools that exist in Sabah are promptly developed.”

Mohamed Azmin Ali (1964) Malaysian politician

Mohamed Azmin Ali (2018) cited in " Azmin wants to ensure that allocation is properly spent for upgrading of rundown schools in Sabah https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2018/09/15/azmin-wants-to-ensure-that-allocation-is-properly-spent-for-upgrading-of-rundown-schools-in-sabah/" on The Star Online, 15 September 2018

Sarah Palin photo

“This is Reagan country, and perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California's Eureka College would become so woven within and interlinked to the Golden State.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Speaking at a fundraiser at California State University - Stanislaus on June 25, 2010, she mistakenly assumed that Eureka College was in California, when it is, in fact, in Eureka, Illinois. https://archive.is/20130628212450/www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-talk-sarah-palin-eureka-college-0720100630,0,4918561.story
2010

Norman Tebbit photo
Hugh Montefiore photo
Dana Milbank photo
Aldo Leopold photo
Dean Winslow photo

“I’d also like to, I may get in trouble with other members of the committee, just say how insane it is that in the United States of America a civilian can go out and buy a semiautomatic assault rifle like an AR-15.”

Dean Winslow (1953)

November 7, 2017 in his confirmation hearing before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services ([Pentagon health nominee: It's 'insane' civilians can purchase assault weapons, Conner, O’Brien, November 7, 2017, August 29, 2018, Politico, https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/07/trump-pentagon-nominee-insane-civilians-can-purchase-assault-weapons-244651]; [Trump DoD nominee: 'Insane' that civilians can buy assault rifles, Zachary, Cohen, November 7, 2017, August 29, 2018, CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/politics/trump-pentagon-nominee-assault-rifles/index.html]; [Top Trump Pentagon nominee: It's 'insane' that civilians can buy semiautomatic assault rifles, Elizabeth, McLaughlin, November 7, 2017, August 29, 2018, ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/US/top-trump-pentagon-nominee-insane-civilians-buy-semi/story?id=50996546]; [w:James Fallows, James, Fallows, November 12, 2017, More on the Military and Civilian History of the AR-15, The Atlantic, August 29, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/11/on-the-military-and-civilian-history-of-the-ar-15/545660/]; [I spoke my mind on guns. Then my Senate confirmation was put on hold, w:Dean Winslow, Dean, Winslow, December 20, 2017, September 6, 2018, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-spoke-my-mind-on-guns-it-torpedoed-my-appointment-in-the-trump-administration/2017/12/20/8f708f6c-e50d-11e7-833f-155031558ff4_story.html]).

Noam Chomsky photo

“We might add now that we do have an authoritative account of why the United States bombed Serbia in 1999. It comes from Strobe Talbott, now the director of the Brookings Institution, but in 1999 he was in charge of the State Department-Pentagon team that supervised the diplomacy in the affair. He wrote the introduction to a recent book by his Director of Communications, John Norris, which presents the position of the Clinton administration at the time of the bombing. Norris writes that "it was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform - not the plight of Kosovar Albanians - that best explains NATO's war". In brief, they were resisting absorption into the U. S. dominated international socioeconomic system. Talbott adds that thanks to John Norris, anyone interested in the war in Kosovo "will know … how events looked and felt at the time to those of us who were involved" in the war, actually directing it. This authoritative explanation will come as no surprise at all to students of international affairs who are more interested in fact than rhetoric. And it will also come as no surprise, to those familiar with intellectual life, that the attack continues to be hailed as a grand achievement of humanitarian intervention, despite massive Western documentation to the contrary, and now an explicit denial at the highest level; which will change nothing, it's not the way intellectual life works.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk at the Englert Theatre in Iowa, April 10, 2006 http://www.greenteaphd.com/greenteablog/?p=252
Quotes 2000s, 2006

Otto von Bismarck photo

“There is a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

This saying appears as early as 1849 in the form "the special providence over the United States and little children", attributed to Abbé Correa. There is no good evidence that Bismarck ever repeated it. See talk page for more details.
Misattributed

Ram Dass photo
Iltutmish photo
Emil M. Cioran photo

“The state of health is a state of nonsensation, even of nonreality. As soon as we cease to suffer, we cease to exist.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

Joseph Massad photo
Osama bin Laden photo

“As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.
Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/11/200849163336457223.html Aljazeera, (01 Nov 2004)
2000s, 2004

Bill Whittle photo
André Gide photo

“We call “happiness” a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

“An Unprejudiced Mind,” p. 326
Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality (1964)

Jane Roberts photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Murray N. Rothbard photo

“Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion.”

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) American economist of the Austrian School, libertarian political theorist, and historian

Murray Rothbard, The Anatomy of the State, Auburn, Alabama, Mises Institute (2009) p.11, first published in 1974 https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state

John Reed (novelist) photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Kurt Schuschnigg photo
Thomas Young (scientist) photo
James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce photo
F. R. Leavis photo
Curtis LeMay photo

“I'd like to see a more aggressive attitude on the part of the United States. That doesn't mean launching an immediate preventive war…”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

Mission with LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 559.

Roberto Clemente photo
Everett Dean Martin photo
Oliver North photo

“I haven't, in the 23 years that I have been in the uniformed services of the United States of America ever violated an order - not one.”

Oliver North (1943) US Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, claimed partial responsibility for clandestinely selling weapons to Iran and…
David Morrison photo
Montesquieu photo
James Clerk Maxwell photo
Antonio Sabàto Jr. photo
Louis Agassiz photo
David Graeber photo
Roger Manganelli photo
Will Eisner photo
Richard Pipes photo
William the Silent photo
Peter F. Drucker photo
William H. Seward photo

“Remember always that the cause of the United States is the cause of human nature.”

William H. Seward (1801–1872) American lawyer and politician

Letter to Charles F. Adams (1863), as quoted in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume 2 https://books.google.com/books?id=xe9TAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=%22the+cause+of+the+United+States+is+the+cause+of+human%22&source=bl&ots=WHM-9fK5zZ&sig=3aspBI67n5cNTU2ARF6OaNTyCDQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMIt7WJl9msxwIViDI-Ch3mpgBq#v=onepage&q=%22the%20cause%20of%20the%20United%20States%20is%20the%20cause%20of%20human%22&f=false, p. 150.

Aron Ra photo
Konstantin Chernenko photo

“During the 1980's, the top statutory marginal income tax rate in the United States fell from 70 percent to 28 percent.”

Harvey S. Rosen (1949) American economist

Source: Public Finance - International Edition - Sixth Edition, Chapter 16, Personal Taxation and Behavior, p. 373

“THe engaged Party have laid the Axe to the very root of Monarchy and Parliaments; they have caſt all the Myſteries and ſecrets of Government, both by Kings and Parliaments, before the vulgar, (like Pearl before Swine) and have taught both the Souldiery and People to look ſo far into them as to ravel back all Governments, to the firſt principles of nature: He that ſhakes Fundamentals, means to take down the Fabrick. Nor have they been careful to ſave the materials for Poſterity. What theſe negative Statiſts will ſet up in the room of theſe ruined buildings, doth not appear, only I will ſay, They have made the People thereby ſo curious and ſo arrogant, that they will never find humility enough to ſubmit to a civil rule; their aim therefore from the beginning was to rule them by the power of the Sword, a military Ariſtocracy or Oligarchy, as now they do. Amongſt the ancient Romans, Tentare arcana Imperii, to prophane the Myſteries of State, was Treaſon; becauſe there can be no form of Government without its proper Myſteries, which are no longer Myſteries than while they are concealed. Ignorance, and Admiration ariſing from Ignorance are the Parents of civil devotion and obedience, though not of Theological.”

Clement Walker (1595–1651) English politician

[Walker, Clement, Relation and Observations, Historical and Politick, upon the Parliament Begun Anno Dom. 1640., 1648, 140–141, The Hiſtory of Independency, http://books.google.ca/books?id=Aes_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PP147]

Slobodan Milošević photo
Fortunato Depero photo

“The Futurists were the first painters, poets, and architects who exalted modern work with their art—
they painted speeding automobiles—
they painted lamps bursting with light—
they painted steaming locomotives and swift bicyclists—
the Futurists stylized their compositions, adopting a violently colored look; with synoptic and geometric shapes they multiplied and decomposed the rhythms of objects and landscapes in order to increase their dynamic qualities and to give an effective rendering of their swift ideas, the states of mind, their conceptions.”

Fortunato Depero (1892–1960) Italian painter, writer, sculptor and graphic designer

Depero (1931) "Futurism and Adverticing Art"; Republished in: Futurism : an anthology http://modernistarchitecture.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/ebooksclub-org__futurism__an_anthology__henry_mcbride_series_in_modernism_.pdf. edited by Lawrence Rainey, Christine Poggi, and Laura Wittman, (2011), p. 290

Harlan F. Stone photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Mitt Romney photo

“I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China. I will fight for every good job in America, I'm going to fight to make sure trade is fair.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Campaign rally, Defiance High School, Toledo, Ohio, , quoted in * 2012-10-30
4 Pinocchios for Mitt Romney’s misleading ad on Chrysler and China
Glenn
Kessler
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/4-pinocchios-for-mitt-romneys-misleading-ad-on-chrysler-and-china/2012/10/29/2a153a04-21d7-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_blog.html
The Washington Post
2012

Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“Born under another sky, placed in the middle of an always-moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which sweeps along everything that surrounds him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything; he grows accustomed to naught but change, and concludes by viewing it as the natural state of man; he feels a need for it; even more, he loves it: for instability, instead of occurring to him in the form of disasters, seems to give birth to nothing around him but wonders…”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

National Character of Americans—first impressions (1831) Oeuvres complètes, vol. VIII, p. 233 https://books.google.de/books?id=x9pnAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA233&q=ciel.
Original text:
Né sous un autre ciel, placé au milieu d'un tableau toujours mouvant, poussé lui-même par le torrent irrésistible qui entraîne tout ce qui l'environne, l'Américain n'a le temps de s'attacher à rien; il ne s'accoutume qu'au changement, et finit par le regarder comme l'état naturel à l'homme; il en sent le besoin; bien plus, il l'aime : car l'instabilité, au lieu de se produire à lui par des désastres, semble n'enfanter autour de lui que des prodiges...
1830s

Francis Escudero photo

“Most business executives accept that bribes and grease money are costs of doing business in "soft "states.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

George W. Bush photo
Adolf A. Berle photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo
Maureen Dowd photo
Arianna Huffington photo
Eduardo Torroja photo
Charles Darwin photo

“The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, convinced by general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks incessantly occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies—between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridæ—between the elephant and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and other mammals. But all these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

volume I, chapter VI: "On the Affinities and Genealogy of Man", pages 200-201 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=213&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image
The sentence "At some future period … the savage races" is often quoted out of context to suggest that Darwin desired this outcome, whereas in fact Darwin simply held that it would occur.
The Descent of Man (1871)

Eugene Rotberg photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Our nation is becoming a totalitarian state and unless we rise up to defend our rights, they will be lost forever.”

Jayda Fransen (1986) British political activist

Islamists who want to behead gays are fine, Polish citizens are deported! · Jayda's Soapbox (27 February 2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gerFRHjJizE

David Attenborough photo
William Hazlitt photo

“Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On the Pleasure of Painting"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

George William Curtis photo

“For what do we now see in the country? We see a man who, as Senator of the United States, voted to tamper with the public mails for the benefit of slavery, sitting in the President's chair. Two days after he is seated we see a judge rising in the place of John Jay — who said, 'Slaves, though held by the laws of men, are free by the laws of God' — to declare that a seventh of the population not only have no original rights as men, but no legal rights as citizens. We see every great office of State held by ministers of slavery; our foreign ambassadors not the representatives of our distinctive principle, but the eager advocates of the bitter anomaly in our system, so that the world sneers as it listens and laughs at liberty. We see the majority of every important committee of each house of Congress carefully devoted to slavery. We see throughout the vast ramification of the Federal system every little postmaster in every little town professing loyalty to slavery or sadly holding his tongue as the price of his salary, which is taxed to propagate the faith. We see every small Custom-House officer expected to carry primary meetings in his pocket and to insult at Fourth-of-July dinners men who quote the Declaration of Independence. We see the slave-trade in fact, though not yet in law, reopened — the slave-law of Virginia contesting the freedom of the soil of New York We see slave-holders in South Carolina and Louisiana enacting laws to imprison and sell the free citizens of other States. Yes, and on the way to these results, at once symptoms and causes, we have seen the public mails robbed — the right of petition denied — the appeal to the public conscience made by the abolitionists in 1833 and onward derided and denounced, and their very name become a byword and a hissing. We have seen free speech in public and in private suppressed, and a Senator of the United States struck down in his place for defending liberty. We have heard Mr. Edward Everett, succeeding brave John Hancock and grand old Samuel Adams as governor of the freest State in history, say in his inaugural address in 1836 that all discussion of the subject which tends to excite insurrection among the slaves, as if all discussion of it would not be so construed, 'has been held by highly respectable legal authorities an offence against the peace of the commonwealth, which may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law'. We have heard Daniel Webster, who had once declared that the future of the slave was 'a widespread prospect of suffering, anguish, and death', now declaring it to be 'an affair of high morals' to drive back into that doom any innocent victim appealing to God and man, and flying for life and liberty. We have heard clergymen in their pulpits preaching implicit obedience to the powers that be, whether they are of God or the Devil — insisting that God's tribute should be paid to Caesar, and, by sneering at the scruples of the private conscience, denouncing every mother of Judea who saved her child from the sword of Herod's soldiers.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

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

Salvador Dalí photo
A.C. Cuza photo
Anu Partanen photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“This civil rights program about which you have heard so much is a farce and a sham; an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I fought it in the Congress. It is the province of the state to run its own elections. I am opposed to the anti-lynching bill because the federal government has no business enacting a law against one kind of murder than another … If a man can tell you who you must hire, he can tell you who not to employ. I have met this head on.”

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

Speech in Austin, Texas http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/190562-best-and-worst-president-of-the-century/page__st__20 (22 May 1948), as quoted in Quotations from Chairman LBJ http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/190562-best-and-worst-president-of-the-century/page__st__20 (1968), New York: Simon and Schuster.
1940s