Quotes about state
page 71

Robert Costanza photo
Henry Clay photo

“From the physical point of view the characteristic state of the living organism is that of an open system. A system is closed if no material enters or leaves it; it is open if there is import and export and, therefore, change of the components. Living systems are open systems, maintaining themselves in exchange of materials with environment, and in continuous building up and breaking down of their components.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

Von Bertalanffy (1950) " The Theory of Open Systems in Physics and Biology http://vhpark.hyperbody.nl/images/a/aa/Bertalanffy-The_Theory_of_Open_Systems_in_Physics_and_Biology.pdf" In: Science, January 13, 1950, Vol. 111. p. 23
1950s

Salvador Dalí photo
Francis Bacon photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Hugo Chávez photo

“You should resign. It's the least you can do: Resign, along with those other spies and delinquents working in the State Department.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Chavez told Hillary Clinton in a televised speech on December 9, 2010 http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46373
2010

Benjamín Netanyahu photo

“You don't need to do nation building in Israel, we're already built. You don't need to export democracy to Israel, we've already got it. You don't need to send American troops to Israel, we defend ourselves… Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East, Israel is what is right about the Middle East… The tyranny in Tehran brutalizes its own people. It supports attacks against American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It subjugates Lebanon and Gaza. It sponsors terror worldwide… A nuclear-armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It would give terrorists a nuclear umbrella. It would make the nightmare of nuclear terrorism a clear and present danger throughout the world. I want you to understand what this means. They could put the bomb anywhere. They could put it on a missile. It could be on a container ship in a port, or in a suitcase on a subway… Now the threat to my country cannot be overstated. Those who dismiss it are sticking their heads in the sand. Less than seven decades after six million Jews were murdered, Iran's leaders deny the Holocaust of the Jewish people, while calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state. Leaders who spew such venom, should be banned from every respectable forum on the planet. But there is something that makes the outrage even greater: The lack of outrage. In much of the international community, the calls for our destruction are met with utter silence. It is even worse because there are many who rush to condemn Israel for defending itself against Iran's terror proxies… When we say never again, we mean never again! Israel always reserves the right to defend itself… In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We are not the British in India. We are not the Belgians in the Congo. This is the land of our forefathers, the Land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace… No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond, between the Jewish people and the Jewish land… Peace cannot be imposed. It must be negotiated. But it can only be negotiated with partners committed to peace.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

Address to joint meeting of the U.S. Congress http://www.c-span.org/video/?299666-1/israeli-prime-minister-netanyahu-address-joint-meeting-congress (24 May 2011).
2010s, 2011, Address to joint meeting of the U.S. Congress (May 2011)

Rajnath Singh photo

“We will state (at an all-party meeting if it is called) that we support Section 377 because we believe that homosexuality is an unnatural act and cannot be supported.”

Rajnath Singh (1951) Indian politician

On homosexuality, as quoted in " BJP comes out, vows to oppose homosexuality http://www.telegraphindia.com/1131214/jsp/nation/story_17679913.jsp", The Telegraph (India) (14 December 2013)

Jeffrey D. Sachs photo
Vernon L. Smith photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo
Camille Paglia photo
John Gray photo
Jimmy Carter photo
Koichi Tohei photo
Jacques Ellul photo
Benjamin N. Cardozo photo
Ralph Steadman photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Harold Innis photo

“Public administration is the management of men and materials in the accomplishment of the purposes of the state.”

Leonard D. White (1891–1958) American historian

Source: Introduction to the Study of Public Administration, 1926, p. 5

Vasily Grossman photo

“We would only multiply the number of victims. Our duty is to strengthen the state and defend the people, why, then, should we publish your book.”

Vasily Grossman (1905–1964) Soviet writer and journalist who originally trained as an engineer

1960s

George W. Bush photo
Benjamín Netanyahu photo
Gore Vidal photo
Bob Dylan photo

“Even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Owen Lovejoy photo

“The testimony of all religious societies in the slave states is that the slaves are heathen and it is an utter impossibility to Christianize them and civilize them by this process.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA193&lpg=PA198 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 198
1860s, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (April 1860)

Patrick Matthew photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo
Joseph Massad photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
Wyndham Lewis photo

“Most people in the West, certainly everyone in Israel, would agree that the Palestinian suicide bombers, who kill women and children, are terrorists. Not many people remember when Palestine, as the land of Israel was once called, was in that obscure state, a British Protectorate. Were the Jewish members of the Stern Gang, those who hanged a British sergeant with piano wire or organized the bomb in the King David Hotel with murderous results (the organization in which Prime Minister Begin started his political career), ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘terrorists’? What, looking at the matter from an entirely neutral standpoint, would we call them now?
A terrorist, the dictionary tells us, is ‘one who favours or uses terror-inspiring methods of governing or of coercing government or community’. This would certainly cover Russian activities in Chechnya and Israeli invasions into Palestinian territory, killing innocent men, women and children and even employees of the United Nations, in a prolonged attempt to fight ruthless terrorism with ruthless terrorism. The word ‘terrorist’ could certainly have been applied to Nelson Mandela before his trial. If it means the calculated mass killing of civilians to obtain an end, it must be applied to the destruction of Hamburg and Düsseldorf and, of course, to the dropping of H-bombs. So all these activities can be defined as ‘terrorism’ if they are committed by an enemy or ‘freedom-fighting’ if by a friend. If so, the conception of a ‘war’ against it calls for the most careful thought.”

John Mortimer (1923–2009) English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author

Source: Where There's a Will: Thoughts on the Good Life (2003), Ch. 15 : Interesting Times

Richard Blackmore photo

“The Inclinations of Men, in this their degenerate State, carry them with great Force to those voluptuous Objects, that please their Appetites and gratify their Senses; and which not only by their early Acquaintance and Familiarity, but as they are adapted to the prevailing Instincts of Nature, are more esteem'd and pursu'd than all other Satisfactions. As those inferior Enjoyments, that only affect the Organs of the Body are chiefly coveted, so next to these, that light and facetious Qualification of the Mind, that diverts the Hearers and is proper to produce Mirth and Alacrity, has, in all Ages, by the greatest Part of Mankind, been admir'd and applauded. No Productions of Human Understanding are receiv'd with such a general Pleasure and Approbation, as those that abound with Wit and Humour, on which the People set a greater Value, than on the wisest and most instructive Discourses. Hence a pleasant Man is always caress'd above a wise one, and Ridicule and Satyr, that entertain the Laughers, often put solid Reason and useful Science out of Countenance. The wanton Temper of the Nation has been gratify'd so long with the high Seasonings of Wit and Raillery in Writing and Conversation, that now almost all Things that are not accommodated to their Relish by a strong Infusion of those Ingredients, are rejected as the heavy and insipid Performances of Men of a plain Understanding and meer Masters of Sense.”

Richard Blackmore (1654–1729) English poet and physician

Essay upon Wit http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13484/13484-8.txt (1711)

Enoch Powell photo
Harry Turtledove photo

“"Let's dicker, Lord Lyons," Lincoln said; the British minister needed a moment to understand he meant bargain. Lincoln gave him that moment, reaching into a desk drawer and drawing out a folded sheet of paper that he set on top of the desk. "I have here, sir, a proclamation declaring all Negroes held in bondage in those areas now in rebellion against the lawful government of the United States to be freed as of next January first. I had been saving this proclamation against a Union victory, but circumstances being as they are-" Lord Lyons spread his hands with genuine regret. "Had you won such a victory, Mr. President, I should not be visiting you today with the melancholy message I bear from my government. You know, sir, that I personally despise the institution of chattel slavery and everything associated with it." He waited for Lincoln to nod before continuing. "That said, however, I must tell you that an emancipation proclamation issued after the series of defeats Federal forces have suffered would be perceived as a cri de coeur, a call for servile insurrection to aid your flagging cause, and as such would not be favorably received in either London or Paris, to say nothing of its probable effect in Richmond. I am sorry, Mr. President, but this is not the way out of your dilemma." Lincoln unfolded the paper on which he'd written the decree abolishing slavery in the seceding states, put on a pair of spectacles to read it, sighed, folded it again, and returned it to its drawer without offering to show it to Lord Lyons. "If that doesn't help us, sir, I don't know what will," he said. His long, narrow face twisted, as if he were in physical pain. "Of course, what you're telling me is that nothing helps us, nothing at all."”

Source: The Great War: American Front (1998), p. 7

Joseph Massad photo
Theodor Mommsen photo

“.. As Salmanezer and Nebuchadnezzar had formerly carried the Jews to Babylon, so now from all the frontier provinces of the new kingdom (of Armenia) - from Corduene, Adiabene, Assyria, Cilicia, Cappadocia - the inhabitants, especially the Greek or half-Greek citizens of the towns, were compelled to settle with their whole goods and chattels in the new capital, one of those gigantic cities proclaiming rather the nothingness of the people than the greatness of the rulers, which sprang up in the countries of the Euphrates on every change in the supreme sovereignty at the fiat of the new grant Sultan. the new 'city of Tigranes", Tigranocerta, situated in in the most southern province of Armenia, not far from the Mesopotamian frontier, was a city like Nineveh and Babylon, with walls fifty yards high, and the appendages of palace, garden and park that were appropriate to sultanism In other respects, too, the new great king proved faithful to his part. As amidst the perpetual childhood of the East the childlike conceptions of kings with real crowns on their heads have never disappeared, Tigranes, when he showed himself in public, appeared in the state and costume of a successor of Darius and Xerxes, with the purple fagtan, the half white half-purple tunic, the long plaited trousers, the high turban, and the royal diadem - attended moreover and served in slavish fashion, wherever he went or stoood, by four "kings."”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, Part: 1. Chapter 2 Pg. 47 - "Rule of the Sullan Restoration" Translated by W.P. Dickson.
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 1

Hillary Clinton photo

“We are not going to sit idly by and permit state actors to go after our information, our private-sector information or our public-sector information.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Hillary Clinton photo
David Dixon Porter photo
William H. Pryor Jr. photo
Theo van Doesburg photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“Ultimately, the State has overwhelming power when compared to the limited resources and power of an accused.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Flynn's Sin Was Lying To Liars, Not Colluding With Russia," http://www.wnd.com/2017/12/flynns-sin-was-lying-to-liars-not-colluding-with-russia/ WND.COM, December 7, 2017
2010s, 2017

Vladimir Putin photo

“They do not represent the interests of the Russian state
Maybe they’re not even Russians,
Maybe they’re Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, just with Russian citizenship, even that needs to be checked.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

The Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/printarticle.aspx?id=544708 (10 March 2018)
2016 - 2018

Jerry Fodor photo
George William Curtis photo
Bernie Sanders photo
Leonid Brezhnev photo
Ha-Joon Chang photo
Yvette Cooper photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo
Victoria of the United Kingdom photo

“All marriage is such a lottery -- the happiness is always an exchange -- though it may be a very happy one -- still the poor woman is bodily and morally the husband's slave. That always sticks in my throat. When I think of a merry, happy, and free young girl -- and look at the ailing aching state a young wife is generally doomed to -- which you can't deny is the penalty of marriage.”

Victoria of the United Kingdom (1819–1901) British monarch who reigned 1837–1901

Source: Letter (16 May 1860), published in Dearest Child: Letters Between Queen Victoria and the Princess Royal Previously Unpublished edited by Roger Fulfold (1964), p. 254. Also quoted in the article "Queen Victoria's Not So Victorian Writings" http://www.victoriana.com/doors/queenvictoria.htm by Heather Palmer (1997).

James K. Polk photo

“Thank God, under our Constitution there was no connection between church and state.”

James K. Polk (1795–1849) American politician, 11th President of the United States (in office from 1845 to 1849)

Diary entry (14 October 1846).

Michael Mullen photo
Nathanael Greene photo

“I find, by your Excellency's letter to General Sullivan, that you expect the enemy are going to evacuate New York, and that it is probable they are coming eastward. I can hardly think they mean to make an attempt upon Boston, notwithstanding the object is important; and, unless they attack Boston, there is no other object worthy their attention in New England. I am rather inclined to think they mean to leave the United States altogether. What they hold here now, they hold at a great risk and expense. But, suppose they actually intend to quit the Continent, they will endeavour to mislead our attention, and that of our allies, until they can get clear of the coast. The Admiral is fortifying for the security of his fleet; but I am told his batteries are all open in the rear, which will be but a poor security against a land force. General Heath thinks there ought to be some Continental troops sent here : but the Council will not turn out the militia; they are so confident the enemy are not coming here. If your Excellency thinks the enemy really design an attack upon Boston, it may not be useless for you to write your opinion to the Council Board, for I suspect they think the General here has taken the alarm without sufficient reasons. The fortifications round this place are very incomplete, and little or nothing doing upon them. I have given General Heath my opinion what parts to take possession of, if the enemy should attempt the place before the Continental army gets up. From four to five hundred troops have arrived at Halifax; their collective strength will make a formidable army.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (September 1778)

David Morrison photo
Rudolph Rummel photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Alauddin Khalji photo

“Values are a broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others.”

Geert Hofstede (1928) Dutch psychologist

Source: Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values (1980), p. 19.

Roderick Long photo

“The experienced Stewart with the corner here for the United States. Here's Brian McBride, it's not away on O'Brien! Gives the United States the lead inside four minutes!”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

United States v. Portugal http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=21CuiSWJ4iY (5 June 2002)
2000s, 2002, 2002 FIFA World Cup

George W. Bush photo
Bernie Sanders photo

“I find it remarkable that Saudi Arabia, which borders Iraq and is controlled by a multi-billion dollar family, is demanding that U. S. combat troops have ‘boots on the ground’ against ISIS. Where are the Saudi troops? With the third largest military budget in the world and an army far larger than ISIS, the Saudi government must accept its full responsibility for stability in their own region of the world. Ultimately, this is a profound struggle for the soul of Islam, and the anti-ISIS Muslim nations must lead that fight. While the United States and other western nations should be supportive, the Muslim nations must lead.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

[Piccoli, Sean, Sen. Bernie Sanders Rips Saudis for Demanding US Troops Fight ISIS, http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Bernie-Sanders-ISIS-US-troops/2015/03/06/id/628788/, 6 March 2015, NewsMax, 17 March 2015]
[Diamond, Jeremy, Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'I'll be damned' if Americans lead ISIS fight, http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/30/politics/bernie-sanders-middle-east-quagmire/, 6 March 2015, CNN News, 17 March 2015]
[Sanders, Bernie, Sanders Calls Saudi Demand for U.S. Ground Troops ‘Offensive’, http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-calls-saudi-demand-for-us-ground-troops-offensive, March 6, 2015, US Senate, March 17, 2015]
2010s, 2015

Matt Mullenweg photo
Alfred de Zayas photo

“States have the sacred duty to ensure peace, while individuals and peoples have the right to peace.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order on the right of self determination http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx.
2015, Report submitted to the UN General Assembly

John Maynard Keynes photo
George Mason photo
William O. Douglas photo

“Christianity has sufficient inner strength to survive and flourish on its own. It does not need state subsidies, nor state privileges, nor state prestige. The more it obtains state support the greater it curtails human freedom.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

The Bible and the Schools‎ (1966), p. 58
Other speeches and writings

Benjamin R. Barber photo
Jane Roberts photo
Hyman George Rickover photo
George W. Bush photo
Tom Clancy photo
Marcel Duchamp photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Cindy Sheehan photo

“Iraq was not involved in 9-11, Iraq was not a terrorist state. But now that we have decimated the country, the borders are open, freedom fighters from other countries are going in, and they [the U. S. government] have created more terrorism by going to an Islamic country…”

Cindy Sheehan (1957) American antiwar activist

Interview http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45938 http://images.indymedia.org/imc/washingtondc/media/video/2/cindyonbus.mov with CBS News' Mark Knoller, upon her arrival in Crawford, Texas on August 6, 2005
Sourced - August 6, 2005 to present

Theodor Mommsen photo

“Caesar did not confine himself to helping the debtor for the moment; he did what as legislator he could, permanently to keep down the fearful omnipotence of capital. First of all the great legal maxim was proclaimed, that freedom is not a possession commensurable with property, but an eternal right of man, of which the state is entitled judicially to deprive the criminal alone, not the debtor. It was Caesar, who, perhaps stimulated in this case also by the more humane Egyptian and Greek legislation, especially that of Solon,(68) introduced this principle--diametrically opposed to the maxims of the earlier ordinances as to bankruptcy-- into the common law, where it has since retained its place undisputed. According to Roman law the debtor unable to pay became the serf of his creditor.(69) The Poetelian law no doubt had allowed a debtor, who had become unable to pay only through temporary embarrassments, not through genuine insolvency, to save his personal freedom by the cession of his property;(70) nevertheless for the really insolvent that principle of law, though doubtless modified in secondary points, had been in substance retained unaltered for five hundred years; a direct recourse to the debtor's estate only occurred exceptionally, when the debtor had died or had forfeited his burgess-rights or could not be found. It was Caesar who first gave an insolvent the right--on which our modern bankruptcy regulations are based-- of formally ceding his estate to his creditors, whether it might suffice to satisfy them or not, so as to save at all events his personal freedom although with diminished honorary and political rights, and to begin a new financial existence, in which he could only be sued on account of claims proceeding from the earlier period and not protected in the liquidation, if he could pay them without renewed financial ruin.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Restriction on 'usury' or restrictions on the laws in relation to the collection of interest
Vol. 4, pt. 2, translated by W.P. Dickson.
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2

Sung-Yoon Lee photo
George Shultz photo

“Many of today's trading relationships actually make America more globally competitive.... Raising tariffs among the United States, Canada and Mexico will only weaken a well-oiled manufacturing machine that is driven by the high level of integration the three economies have in their supply chains. This integration makes the region as a whole more competitive vis-à-vis the world.”

George Shultz (1920) American economist, statesman, and businessman

A better way than tariffs to improve America's trade picture. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/01/opinions/a-better-way-than-tariffs-to-improve-americas-trade-picture/index.html CNN opinion article written jointly with Pedro Aspe, Mexico's former secretary of finance, published June 1, 2018.

Nikolai Bukharin photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters "U. S.", let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.”

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

Source: https://frederickdouglass.infoset.io/islandora/object/islandora%3A2333 "Negroes and the National War Effort"]

speech in Philadelphia (6 July 1863): Should the Negro Enlist in the Union Army? (1863)

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Phillis Wheatley photo
Bruce Hawker photo

“[The administrative state is legitimate because it] is consistent with the Constitution, fulfills its design, and heals a longstanding major defect.”

John Rohr (1934–2011) American political scientist

Source: To run a constitution, 1986, p. 13

Nigel Lawson photo