"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

Paine, Thomas on government
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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."

Voltaire on government
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"The authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizen's skin."

Steinem, Gloria on body   

"The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor."

Humphrey, Hubert H. on neighbors
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"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time."

Churchill, Winston on government
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"I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone."

Updike, John on government
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"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

Jefferson, Thomas on truth   

"Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave."

Bradley, Omar Nelson on education
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"A Government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Lincoln, Abraham on government
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"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."

Thoreau, Henry David on prison   

"Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."

Shaw, George Bernard on voting
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"Every country has the government it deserves."

Maistre, Joseph De on government
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"The less government we have the better."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on government
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"The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government."

Beecher, Henry Ward on government
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"Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil it to their turn. "

Penn, William on uncategorised   

"The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves."

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von on government
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"Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government."

Thoreau, Henry David on government   

"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern."

Acton, Lord on society
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"People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all."

Wilde, Oscar on anarchism
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"The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men."

Plato on government
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"The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature -- a type nowhere at present existing."

Spencer, Herbert on republican   

"Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay."

Shelley, Percy Bysshe on government
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"There is no shame in taking orders from those who themselves have learned to obey."

Forster, William Edward on obedience
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"There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion."

Acton, Lord on argument
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"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Edison, Thomas A. on genius
15 fans of this quote