c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
if we could tax Americans' cognitive dissonance we could balance the budget. The American people want all kinds of incompatible things, they're human beings, and they want high services, low taxes, and an omnipresent, omniprominent welfare state.
— George F. Will
Look how many of our young are ill prepared to enter adult life today. This was designed by progressives to create government dependency.
— Ziad K. Abdelnour, Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics
Just following orders' is no excuse unless you're in the bedroom.
— Donna Lynn Hope
FORGET FERES DOCTRINE And the military has immunity! Yes! The feres doctrine! It states “the Government is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries to servicemen where injuries arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service” (U.S. Supreme Court 1950). Federal law and our Supreme Court shield acts of rape and sexual brutality in the military as proven by its subsequent ruling on a 2001 case that denied a plaintiffs right to file a civil suit against her accusers. Yet when women report the crime, it is handled internally Commanders are given the discretion to resolve complaints. The report may not go beyond his office. Many times he's part of the problem or a sympathizer with the offender. This certainly was my case! Our Supreme Court ruled as recently as 2001 that rape is an injury incident to the course of activity in the service! THE HEINOUS CRIME OF RAPE IS ACCEPTABLE AND CONDONED BY OUR SUPREME COURT! WOMEN ARE FAIR GAME FOR RAPE AND HARRASSMENT, ACCORDING TO OUR SUPREME COURT! CONGRESS IS NO BETTER! NO LAWS ARE PASSED TO PROTECT US IN THE MILITARY AGAINST THE STATUTE OF LIMITATION FOR THE FELONY OF RAPE!
— Diane Chamberlain, Conduct Unbecoming: Rape, Torture, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Military Commanders
If you do not question everything, you may never find the true answer, you will only find the answer everyone wants to believe.That it called being another sheep in the herd, that is why the people who question things are considered black sheep and the people who give you the answers, Wolves
— Theodore Coldiron
Other nations merely change governments as a lady changes dancing partners: Canada contrives to fall in a dead faint every time the music stops.
— Gordon Donaldson, The Prime Ministers of Canada
I believe Government should encourage competition, NOT prop up the weak when the going gets tough.
— Ziad K. Abdelnour, Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics
I believe Money is too important to leave in the hands of government officials.
— Ziad K. Abdelnour, Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics
Almost all the prosperity of a public society and civil community does, under God, depend on their rulers. They are like the main springs or wheels in a machine that keep every part in their due motion, and are in the body politic, as in the vitals in the body natural, and as the pillars and the foundation in a building.
— Jonathan Edwards, The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader
History is full of religious wars; but, we must take care to observe, it was not the multiplicity of religions that produced these wars, it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.
— Montesquieu, Persian Letters
Housing is a human right. There can be no fairness or justice in a society in which some live in homelessness, or in the shadow of that risk, while others cannot even imagine it.
— Jordan Flaherty, Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six
The more laws that are created, the closer we get to lawlessness.
— J.S.B. Morse, Gods of Ruin: A Political Thriller
Widespread commercial distribution of ice was so new that 300 tons of the precious commodity melted at one port while customs officials tried to figure out how to classify it.
— Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life
I may be Anti-Big Government, but only because I am Pro-Human.
— Gary   Hopkins
It's illegal to forcefully take money from people unless you're the government. It's illegal to take someone's liberty, unless you're the government. It's illegal to kill someone, unless you're the government. Private organizations can do everything that government can do except for legally break the law.
— J.S.B. Morse, Gods of Ruin: A Political Thriller
Supposedly, the government is in the process of saving us from terrorists. No one has quite figured out who is going to save us from the government. It seems it will have to be us. Part of what we built works great. Part of what we built badly needs fixing. It is delusional to think that a few politicians can fix what took several hundred million people to build—and run down.
— Doug "Ten" Rose
Whenever the government is involved, there is an element of coercion.
— Dinesh D'Souza
Government in our democracy, state and national, must be neutral in matters of religious theory, doctrine, and practice. It may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of no-religion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another or even against the militant opposite. The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.[Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 1968.]
— Abe Fortas
For the developing world, the past half-century has been a time of recurring hope and frequent disappointment. Great waves of change have washed over the landscape, from the crumbling of colonial hegemonies in mid-century to the recent collapse of Communist empires. But too often, what rushed in to replace the old order were empty hopes-not only in the false allure of state socialism, non-alignment and single-party rule, but also the false glories of romantic nationalism and narrow tribalism, and the false dawn of runaway individualism.
— Aga Khan, Where Hope Takes Root: Democracy and Pluralism in an Interdependent World
[Paul] has no intention to instruct the Christian community about the task and responsibility of government. His entire concern is with the responsibility of the Christian community towards the State.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
So you don't think the government is responsible for anything?" "Oh, it's responsible," Rafferty says. "It's responsible for the sloppiness and imprecision of the War on Terror, for example. It's responsible for taking people's tax dollars and spending the country into debt on useless wars and pointless pork projects to buy votes. It's responsible for bailing out the banks instead of standing up for the people the banks cheated. It's responsible for plenty,
— Timothy Hallinan, The Fear Artist
This was not uncommon in government-run operations, where a request that someone do their job often induced a catatonic state that might last anywhere from a couple of minutes to an hour.
— Matthew Polly, American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China
It's one thing to stick to your guns. It's quite another to hold those guns to the heads of your citizens.
— Lori Goodwin
And that brings me to one last point. I've got a simple message for all the dedicated and patriotic federal workers who have either worked without pay, or who have been forced off the job without pay for these last few weeks. Including most of my own staff. Thank you. Thanks for your service. Welcome back. What you do is important. It matters. You defend our country overseas, you deliver benefits to our troops who earned them when they come home, you guard our borders, you protect our civil rights, you help businesses grow and gain footholds in overseas markets. You protect the air we breathe, and the water our children drink, and you push the boundaries of science and space, and you guide hundreds of thousands of people each day through the glories of this country. Thank you. What you do is important, and don't let anybody else tell you different.
— Barack Obama
Wouldn't if be nice if our government, could make things beautiful because everybody cares!
— Robert Armstrong
The instatement of the One Religion was surely the Magnates’ most cunning move: a device through which they were able to access and harness the incalculable power of the people’s spiritual fervor… Elijah could imagine the Magnates taking cold pleasure in their handicraft. Where chaos ruled, people both high and low were easy to manipulate.
— J. Valor, Salome
A less well known impact of immigrant populations is the increase that destination states gain in Congress where apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives is calculated on the basis of a state's entire adult population regardless of legal status. And, because each state's electoral college vote is the sum of the number of its representatives in the House and its two senators, high immigration states play a larger role in presidential elections than they might if only adult citizens and legal aliens were counted in population surveys.
— Edward S. Greenberg, The Struggle for Democracy
For the most part, the evidence shows that individual Americans do not care a great deal about politics and are rather poorly informed, unstable in their views, and not much interested in participating in the political process. These findings have led some observers to assert that citizens are ill-equipped for the responsibility of self-governance and that public opinion (the will of the majority) should not be the ultimate determinant of what government does.
— Edward S. Greenberg, The Struggle for Democracy
If the clicker became useless in grown men's hands, no games to watch, no highlights shown, ESPN left with only test patterns and re-runs of Rudy, wouldn't the indignation level be a whole lot higher? If sports, all sports, all levels, were shut down, wouldn't the big clock be ticking a lot louder? Wouldn't John Boehner be calling the President and vice versa? Wouldn't Ted Cruz have to shut up in a hurry?
— Leigh Montville
Government could avoid having opinions about so many things if it would quit subsidizing so many things.
— George F. Will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation
Making universal prosperity a right is the surest way to universal poverty.
— J.S.B. Morse
Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publications, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the spectre of a government agent will look over the shoulder of everyone who reads. The purchase of a book or pamphlet today may result in a subpoena tomorrow. Fear of criticism goes with every person into the bookstall. The subtle, imponderable pressures of the orthodox lay hold. Some will fear to read what is unpopular, what the powers-that-be dislike. When the light of publicity may reach any student, any teacher, inquiry will be discouraged. The books and pamphlets that are critical of the administration, that preach an unpopular policy in domestic or foreign affairs, that are in disrepute in the orthodox school of thought will be suspect and subject to investigation. The press and its readers will pay a heavy price in harassment. But that will be minor in comparison with the menace of the shadow which government will cast over literature that does not follow the dominant party line. If the lady from Toledo can be required to disclose what she read yesterday and what she will read tomorrow, fear will take the place of freedom in the libraries, book stores, and homes of the land. Through the harassment of hearings, investigations, reports, and subpoenas government will hold a club over speech and over the p
— William O. Douglas
No one can take away your Natural Rights, but they can do great damage making you think they can.
— J.S.B. Morse
A hereditary monarch is as absurd a position as a hereditary doctor or mathematician.
— Thomas Paine
If you require force to promote your ideal, there is something wrong with your ideal.
— J.S.B. Morse, Gods of Ruin: A Political Thriller
The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.
— Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
When enough people realize that they are slaves but don't have to be, revolutions happen.
— J.S.B. Morse, Gods of Ruin: A Political Thriller
These examples and many others demonstrate an alarming trend whereby the privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of man's life at 
— William O. Douglas
We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from govern
— William O. Douglas
I don't believe in the Constitution because I'm American, I'm American because I believe in the Constitution.
— J.S.B. Morse
This place does not feel like my country. It feels like countries I have read about where things are very bad. It feels, in fact, like exactly the kind of thing we were protesting against, but we thought it was elsewhere. It is not heartening to find that it has come to us.
— Nick Harkaway, The Gone-Away World
It was an idea that made the crucial difference between British and Iberian America – an idea about the way people should govern themselves. Some people make the mistake of calling that idea ‘democracy’ and imagining that any country can adopt it merely by holding elections. In reality, democracy was the capstone of an edifice that had as its foundation the rule of law – to be precise, the sanctity of individual freedom and the security of private property rights, ensured by representative, constitutional government.
— Niall Ferguson, Civilization: The West and the Rest
Garbage in, garbage out. Or rather more felicitously: the tree of nonsense is watered with error, and from its branches swing the pumpkins of disaster.
— Nick Harkaway, The Gone-Away World
You end up with a machine which knows that by its mildest estimate it must have terrible enemies all around and within it, but it can't find them. It therefore deduces that they are well-concealed and expert, likely professional agitators and terrorists. Thus, more stringent and probing methods are called for. Those who transgress in the slightest, or of whom even small suspicions are harboured, must be treated as terrible foes. A lot of rather ordinary people will get repeatedly investigated with increasing severity until the Government Machine either finds enemies or someone very high up indeed personally turns the tide... And these people under the microscope are in fact just taking up space in the machine's numerical model. In short, innocent people are treated as hellish fiends of ingenuity and bile because there's a gap in the numbers.
— Nick Harkaway, The Gone-Away World
Harming one’s unalienable rights in order to serve justice is injustice.
— J.S.B. Morse, Gods of Ruin: A Political Thriller
It was easy to share when there was enough, even barely enough, to go round. But when there was not enough? Then force entered in; might making right; power, and its tool, violence, and its most devoted ally, the averted eye.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Since when has leadership been a criterion for sanity? Or vice versa. Hitler was a gifted leader, even Nixon. Exhibit leadership qualities as an adolescent, they pack you off to law school for an anus transplant. If it takes, you go into government.
— Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker
To recap: it is possible to put decent information into a Government Machine, have ordinary, good people running the thing, and a reasonable system in place, and still get utter idiocy out of the dispenser?""More than possible. Likely.
— Nick Harkaway
Government in its infancy had no regular and permanent form. For want of a sufficient fund of philosophy and experience, men could see no further than the present inconveniences, and never thought of providing remedies for future ones, but in proportion as they arose.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
The experience taught him [Salvador Allende] too late that a system cannot be changed from the government but from the power.
— Gabriel García Márquez, Chile, el golpe y los gringos
Everything is temporary. Well, except government programs.
— Brooke Bida
And of course the World needs more love, but we need to be clear on what form that love will take. Sometimes love requires killing its object, to put it out of its misery or protect others. Sometimes love requires incarcerating its object to protect it or others. Sometimes love requires taxing and regulating its objects to protect and serve them. Sometimes love requires helping its object to help itself. Sometimes love requires giving its object a gift. But all of these are aspects of love, not merely the last, most popular example. I send love too, and my love takes many forms. My love varies with its objects. Yes, the World needs much more love.
— Robert Peate
Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed
— Harriet Beecher Stowe
If we don't learn from each others experience, we are forced to listen to people who have economic reasons to withhold critical information from us all. The other option is to wait for the government to tell us what their financial supporters want us to know.
— Richard Diaz
But so long as I lived under a system of Government based on force and voluntarily partook of the many facilities and privileges it created for me, I was bound to help that Government to the extent of my ability when it was engaged in a war, unless I non-co-operated with the Government and renounced to the utmost of my capacity the privileges it offered me.
— Mahatma Gandhi, Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
The governments and their policies have failed, the church is the last hope of the common man, I value a church that is a home for all.
— Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
Because widespread participation is so central to popular sovereignty, we can say that the less political participation there is in a society, the weaker the democracy.
— Edward S. Greenberg, The Struggle for Democracy
Imagine the uproar if the Federal government tried to make everyone wear a radio transmitter around their neck so we can keep track of their movements. But people happily carry their cell phones in their purses and pockets.
— Lee Child, A Wanted Man
In the tired hand of a dying man, Theodore Senior had written: "The 'Machine politicians' have shown their colors... I feel sorry for the country however as it shows the power of partisan politicians who think of nothing higher than their own interests, and I feel for your future. We cannot stand so corrupt a government for any great length of time.
— Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
The modern state does not comprehend how anyone can be guided by something other than itself. In its eyes pluralism is treason.
— Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences
It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon the book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do. And yet there are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemnly decide that this is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon the infamous laws of Jehovah.
— Robert G. Ingersoll
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.
— G.K. Chesterton
Government should not be involved in marriage at all, I believe. There’s no reason for it. I don’t get the value of my marriage government, I get it from God. I want the government out of my life. If you want to find a church that marries a gay couple, that’s totally fine. My church does not do that and it will fundamentally change what i believe is the eternal family, the basic building block. And I have a right to believe that, and I have a right to go to a church that believes that and we have a right to practice. As long as I’m not trying to force you to do anything.
— Glenn Beck
Yet the possibility of information storage, beyond what men and governments ever had before, can make available at the touch of a button a man's total history (including remarks put on his record by his kindergarten teacher about his ability and character). And with the computer must be placed the modern scientific technical capability which exists for wholesale monitoring of telephone, cable, Telex and microwave transmissions which carry much of today's spoken and written communications. The combined use of the technical capability of listening in on all these forms of communications with the high-speed computer literally leaves no place to hide and little room for privacy.
— Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture
By making the government a combination of elected officials and citizen-backed initiatives and referenda, there can truly be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
— Victoria Stoklasa, Sign It Into Law: How to Put Your Petition on the Ballot
You know something is wrong when the government declares opening someone else’s mail is a felony but your internet activity is fair game for data collecting.
— E.A. Bucchianeri
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity, especially when it comes to bureaucrats in a government who has no clueabout money matters
— Ziad K. Abdelnour, Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics
Scoundrels will be corrupt and unconcerned citizens apathetic under even the best constitution.
— William Earl Maxwell, Texas Politics Today, 2011-2012 Edition
If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.
— Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts
Funding for the Special Operations Network comes directly from the government. Most work is centralized, but all of the SpecOps divisions have local representatives to keep a watchful eye on any provincial problems. They are administered by local commanders, who liaise with the national offices for information exchange, guidance and policy decisions. Like any other big government department, it looks good on paper but is an utter shambles. Petty infighting and political agendas, arrogance and sheer bloody-mindedness almost guarantees that the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
— Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair
What did “good government” really mean? Langlie and his brotherhood promised an end to political corruption. (There’s no evidence that Langlie ever even took a drink, much less a bribe.) The days of “honest graft” were over, at least for a while. But seen from another perspective—that of ordinary citizens without access to Langlie and Abram’s elite network—Langlie didn’t so much end corruption as legalize it. Langlie wasn’t opposed to a government organized around the interests of the greedy; he just didn’t want to have to break the law to serve them.
— Jeff Sharlet, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
We have to convince people that the handouts – just taking a few little handouts, where you have a subsistent living, where you never grow, just get a little check and a few food stamps, it will keep you on the plantation for the rest of your life, that’s not a life. That’s not living. It is not good enough. It is not acceptable. We have to educate our people that that is no longer good. You have to get off the plantation, off the government plantation,
— Elbert Guillory
The idea that blacks, or anyone for that matter, need the government to get ahead in life is despicable. And even more important, this idea is a failure. Our communities are just as poor as they’ve always been. Our schools continue to fail children. Our prisons are filled with young black men who should be at home being fathers. Our self-initiative and our self-reliance have been sacrificed in exchange for allegiance to our overseers who control us by making us dependent on them.
— Elbert Guillory
The idea of freedom is complex and it is all-encompassing. It’s the idea that the economy must remain free of government persuasion. It’s the idea that the press must operate without government intrusion. And it’s the idea that the emails and phone records of Americans should remain free from government search and seizure. It’s the idea that parents must be the decision makers in regards to their children's education — not some government bureaucrat.But most importantly, it is the idea that the individual must be free to pursue his or her own happiness free from government dependence and free from government control. Because to be truly free is to be reliant on no one other than the author of our destiny. These are the ideas at the core of the Republican Party, and it is why I am a Republican. So my brothers and sisters of the American community, please join with me today in abandoning the government plantation and the Party of disappointment. So that we may all echo the words of one Republican leader who famously said, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.
— Elbert Guillory
Republican theory clearly stated that the people held all political power, and only they could delegate authority to a government. The people were free to change governments at will. They didn't need permission from incumbents.
— James D. Best, Tempest at Dawn
A government which is not liked by the artists is certainly a bad government, because artist sees very well what is behind the masks!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
The challenge has always been that "good people" don't know how to win elections
— Fela Durotoye
Most young people have rebellious, anti-authoritarian impulses. They don't like being told what, when, or how to do something. It's ironic, then, that many of these same people embrace a system in which there would be far more regulations, many more bureaucrats micromanaging their lives, and far more rules and restrictions on how things can be done.
— Glenn Beck, Cowards: What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say
Have you ever found yourself saying, "There ought to be a law against this," or, "Somebody should do something"? Well, here’s the good news - you can be the one to do something. You can be the one to make the law.
— Victoria Stoklasa MA
We must sober up and admit that too many of the Republicans and the Democrats have played us, lied to us and stolen from us, while the getaway car was driven by the media. A media that can no longer claim with a straight face the role of journalist. Journalists print the things the powerful don’t want printed. What they do is public relations. Those PR firms will not print the truth about the average American who finds himself concerned with the direction of our country today. So we must. We are not violent. We are not racist. We are not anti immigrant. We are not anti-government. And we will not be silent anymore.
— Glenn Beck
All the horrors of the reign of terror were based on concern for public tranquility.
— Leo Tolstoy
If you have the right to influence the laws that are made in your community, why not take the opportunity to do something good?
— Victoria Stoklasa, Sign It Into Law: How to Put Your Petition on the Ballot
We have a government of limited power under the Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law.
— William Howard Taft
It may sound reactionary, I know. But we can all feel it. We've changed the way we think of ourselves as citizens. We don't think of ourselves as citizens in the old sense of being small parts of something larger and infinitely more important to which we have serious responsibilities. We do still think of ourselves as citizens in the sense of being beneficiaries--we're actually conscious of our rights as American citizens and the nation's responsibilities to us and ensuring we get our share of the American pie. We think of ourselves now as eaters of the pie instead of makers of the pie. So who makes the pie?...Something has happened where we've decided on a personal level that it's all right to abdicate our individual responsibility to the common good and let government worry about the common good while we all go about our individual self-interested business and struggle to gratify our various appetites.
— David Foster Wallace, The Pale King
You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government.
— Guy de Maupassant, Les dimanches d'un bourgeois de Paris, et autres aventures parisiennes
A leftist government doesn't exist because being on the left has nothing to do with governments.
— Gilles Deleuze
Any government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipw
— Guy de Maupassant, Collected Stories of Guy De Maupassant
Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure “good” government, it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare — most people want to run things, but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the “backseat driver” syndrome.
— Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Since governments take the right of death over their people, it is not astonishing if the people should sometimes take the right of death over governm
— Guy de Maupassant, Collected Stories of Guy De Maupassant
The peoples owe all political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength. One need only study the history of the past three hundred years to understand by what relentless struggles every right has had to be wrested inch by inch from the despots.
— Rudolf Rocker
It was about how men walk into a forest afraid because they know all the things that can happen. They might wake the noisy birds and cause chaos. But kids come into the trees and see the magic. They climb them and see stars that the men were too afraid to see.
— Laura Anderson Kurk
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
— Thomas Jefferson
If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don’t have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is going on, and therefore, generally speaking, you don’t. Hence the sure-fire way to simplify social arrangements, to ignore the incredibly complex play of perspectives, passions, insights, desires, and mutual understandings that human life is really made of, is to make a rule and threaten to attack anyone who breaks it. This is why violence has always been the favored recourse of the stupid: it is the one form of stupidity to which it is almost impossible to come up with an intelligent response. It is also of course the basis of the state.
— David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
For forms of Government let fools contest. Whate'er is best administered is best.
— Alexander Pope
In a democracy we sometimes have to put up with things we don't life or approve of.
— Stephen King, Needful Things
The State is like a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has given the State and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find another like me.
— Plato, Apology
The triune God exercises total government over all things, and He requires us as His image-bearers to exercise government in Christ in our own spheres in terms of His law.
— Rousas John Rushdoony
For if there were a list of cosmic things that unite us, reader and writer, visible as it scrolled up into the distance, like the introduction to some epic science-fiction film, then shining brightly on that list would be the fact that we exist in a financial universe that is subject to massive gravitational pulls from states. States tug at us. States bend us. And, tirelessly, states seek to determine our orbits.
— Mohsin Hamid
The best one can hope for is a government favorable to certain claims and demands from the Left.
— Gilles Deleuze
The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.
— Glenn Reynolds
The vast majority of administrators, at all times and in all societies, are prone to commit grievous errors if left entirely to their own devices. Hence, they should not be left to their own devices, and should be allowed to govern only in consultation with the accredited representatives of the whole community, which is one of the classical lessons of history that no nation may neglect except at its own peril.
— Muhammad Asad, The Principles of State and Government in Islam
There could be nothing, he reflected, to equal a government which was simply the honest enforcement, by means of the sword, of the laws of Islam.
— Paul Bowles, The Spider's House
An honest government is the childish dream of the gullible men!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
The path to a sustained victory in Afghanistan lies in improving their economy, creating jobs for the Afghanis, strengthening their government and national services, getting the provinces to trust each other and work together, and eliminating the opium trade. Previously, the United States' policy was to not get deeply involved in internal Afghani drug issues; now we've changed the policy and are actively working to eradicate the drugs. But nobody has yet to come up with a way to shut down the poppy fields and get the Afghani people back to work. Until that happens, the Taliban will inevitable creep back in.
— Michael DeLong, A General Speaks Out: The Truth About the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Moralistic culture views government as a positive force, one that values the individual but functions to the benefit of the general public. Discussion of public issues and voting are not only rights but also opportunities to better the individual and society alike. Furthermore, politicians should not profit from their public service.
— William Earl Maxwell, Texas Politics Today, 2011-2012 Edition
The U.S. government needs to learn from successful private businesses that run an effective and efficient operation in serving their customers and outwitting their competitors.
— Newton Lee, Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness
Our Press and our schools cultivate Chauvinism, militarism, dogmatism, conformism and ignorance. The arbitrary power of the Government is unlimited, and unexampled in history; freedom of the Press, of opinion and of movement are as thoroughly exterminated as though the proclamation of the Rights of Man had never been. We have built up the most gigantic police apparatus, with informers made a national institution, and the most refined scientific system of political and mental torture. We whip the groaning masses of the country towards a theoretical future happiness, which only we can.
— Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon
It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.
— P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered." (Bk2:8)
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is; the people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived..." (Bk2:3)
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
Plato argued that good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will always find a way around law. By pretending that procedure will get rid of corruption, we have succeeded only in humiliating honest people and provided a cover of darkness and complexity for the bad people. There is a scandal here, but it's not the result of venal bureaucrats. (1994) p. 99
— Philip K. Howard, The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America
Fit to govern? No, not fit to live.
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Money equals power
—  power makes the law
The world is ruled by cowards and cravens
—  brave men have put them there.
He’s always complaining about the fucking recession and how the government is working against people like him. He calls himself working class, which I think is a bit ironic since he doesn’t work.
— Ida Løkås, Det fine som flyter forbi
Uniformity in the common law, consisting of broad principles like the "reasonable person" standard, generally permits adjustment for the circumstances. This type of uniform principle is almost synonymous with fairness. Uniform application of a detailed rule, on the other hand, will almost always favor one group over another. p. 34
— Philip K. Howard, The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.
— James Madison
The sense that just about anything goes with the collection of public revenues and the making of public expenditure has contributed mightily to the current malaise.
— Richard A. Epstein, Why Progressive Institutions Are Unsustainable
The pillars of classical liberalism call for flat taxes, with revenues put to limited uses; strong property rights; and free markets.
— Richard A. Epstein, Why Progressive Institutions Are Unsustainable
For an entire wing of the G.O.P., a dysfunctional government, whose only visible activity is mismanaging crises, is not an embarrassment but the vindication of a worldview.
— Amy Davidson
Because we live in a democracy, and the people can't govern themselves well if they don't know the truth about the world we live in. What if our rich citizens never hear of the poverty and suffering of the rest of the city? Why should they ever give to charity or vote for reform?
— Rosslyn Elliott, Lovelier Than Daylight
The desire to avoid short-term hardships leads to major dislocations in [housing] markets.
— Richard A. Epstein, Why Progressive Institutions Are Unsustainable
That effort to undermine competitive markets is no better in the market for labor than it is for goods and services.
— Richard A. Epstein, Why Progressive Institutions Are Unsustainable
This revolutionary idea of Western citizenship—replete with ever more rights and responsibilities—would provide superb manpower for growing legions and a legal framework that would guarantee that the men who fought felt that they themselves in a formal and contractual sense had ratified the conditions of their own battle service. The ancient Western world would soon come to define itself by culture rather than by race, skin color, or language. That idea alone would eventually bring enormous advantages to its armies on the battlefield. (p. 122)
— Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power
...men unite against none so readily as against those whom theysee attempting to rule over them.
— Xenophon, Cyropaedia Volume 1, books 1-4
Securing, not prohibiting, the orderly transfer of wealth from A to B, based on wealth differentials, is the raison d'être of the [New Deal programs]. The contrast between the modern progressive and classical liberal agendas could not be more explicit.
— Richard A. Epstein, Why Progressive Institutions Are Unsustainable
Human nature turns out to be more complicated than the idea that people will get along if only the rules are clear enough. Uncertainty, the ultimate evil that modern law seeks to eradicate, generally fosters cooperation, not the opposite.
— Philip K. Howard, The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America
Even if these researchers do see the need to address the problem immediately, though they have obligations and legitimate interests elsewhere, including being funded for other research. With luck, the ideas discussed in Good Calories, Bad Calories may be rigorously tested in the next twenty years. If confirmed, it will be another decade or so after that, at least, before our public health authorities actively change their official explanation for why we get fat, how that leads to illness, and what we have to do to avoid or reverse those fates. As I was told by a professor of nutrition at New York University after on of my lectures, the kind of change I'm advocating could take a lifetime to be accepted.
— Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
What I tried to make clear in Good Calories, Bad Calories was that nutrition and obesity research lost its way after the Second World War with the evaporation of the European community of scientists and physicians that did pioneering work in those disciplines. It has since resisted all attempts to correct it. As a result, the individuals involved in this research have not only wasted decades of time, and effort, and money but have done incalculable damage along the way. Their beliefs have remained imperious to an ever-growing body of evidence that refutes them while being embraced by public-health authorities and translated into precisely the wrong advice about what to eat and, more important, what not to eat if we want to maintain a healthy weight and live a long and healthy life.
— Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
While the Christian faith clearly teaches that believers are to be involved as good citizens in the state, nevertheless, it is obvious why so many secularists are addicted to politics because political power is a surrogate for a Higher Power.
— J.P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul
The creators of the Constitution were not purple-robed scholars, sitting in their ivory towers attempting to put abstract theories into play, but men who had come to realize that their system of government was broken. These men desired desperately to repair it.
— C.L. Gammon, The Preamble to the United States Constitution
I was born unworthy. - X-10
— Donna Galanti, The Dark Inside
It seems that the rebels found the chaos of transition more difficult to accept than the tyranny they had known before. They joyfully welcomed back authority-even oppressive authority-for it was less painful for them than uncertainty.
— Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension
Let me speak plainly: The United States of America is and must remain a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. Our very unity has been strengthened by this pluralism. That's how we began; this is how we must always be. The ideals of our country leave no room whatsoever for intolerance, anti-Semitism, or bigotry of any kind -- none. The unique thing about America is a wall in our Constitution separating church and state. It guarantees there will never be a state religion in this land, but at the same time it makes sure that every single American is free to choose and practice his or her religious beliefs or to choose no religion at all. Their rights shall not be questioned or violated by the state.-- Remarks at the International Convention of B'nai B'rith, 6 September 1984
— Ronald Reagan
In the first place, most princes apply themselves to the arts of war, in which I have neither ability nor interest, instead of to the good arts of peace. They are generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms by hook or by crook than on governing well those that they already have.
— Thomas More, Utopia
Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
— Cory Doctorow, Little Brother
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
— Barack Obama
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law. - Romeo
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
the ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, but to free every man from fear that he may live in all possible security... In fact the true aim of government is liberty.
— Baruch Spinoza
People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well
— Charles W. Colson, How Now Shall We Live?
Is that all, sir? Only we've got stuff to finish before our knocking-off time, you see, and if we stay late we have to make more money to pay our overtime, and if the lads is a bit tired we ends up earning the money faster'n we can make it, which leads to a bit of what I can only call a conundrum—""You mean that if you do overtime you have to do more overtime to pay for it?" said Moist, still pondering how illogical logical thinking can be if a big enough committee is doing it."That's right, sir," said Shady. "And down that road madness lies.""It's a very short road," said Moist, nodding.
— Terry Pratchett, Making Money
We just can't trust the American people to make those types of choices.... Government has to make those choices for people.
— Hillary Rodham Clinton
The world is not sliding, but galloping into a new transnational dystopia. This development has not been properly recognized outside of national security circles. It has been hidden by secrecy, complexity and scale. The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization.These transformations have come about silently, because those who know what is going on work in the global surveillance industry and have no incentives to speak out. Left to its own trajectory, within a few years, global civilization will be a postmodern surveillance dystopia, from which escape for all but the most skilled individuals will be impossible. In fact, we may already be there.While many writers have considered what the internet means for global civilization, they are wrong. They are wrong because they do not have the sense of perspective that direct experience brings. They are wrong because they have never met the enemy.
— Julian Assange, Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet
The only way to make a difference is to acquire power.
— Hillary Rodham Clinton