Quotations
Whose Publication May Cause My Arrest For
"Sedition" Under GW Bush's Misnamed
"Patriot" Act, Indefinite Detention, Secret Trial
In A Foreign Land Before A Military Tribunal, And Execution
Selected
by Ronald Bradley
The
following quotations about the nature of government were
extracted from HL Mencken's masterful (and enormous)
A
New Dictionary Of Quotations On Historical Principles.
Interestingly, the book was published in 1942 – during an
earlier (and Constitutionally declared) war.
"When
good government prevails men of little worth submit to men
of great worth. When bad government prevails men of little
power submit to men of great power."
~ Mencius, c. 300 BC
"Monarchy
degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and
democracy into savage violence and chaos." ~
Polybius, c. 125 BC
"A
good government produces citizens distinguished for courage,
love of justice, and every other good quality; a bad
government makes them cowardly, rapacious, and the slave of
every foul desire." ~
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, c. 20 BC
"He
who wishes to be a tyrant, and does not slay Brutus, and he
who wishes to establish a free state, and does not slay the
sons of Brutus, maintains his work for only a short
time." ~
Machiavelli, 1531
"The
world is ruled by a certain few, even as a little boy of
twelve years old rules, governs and keeps a hundred great
and strong oxen upon a pasture." ~
Luther, 1569
"I
will govern according to the common weal, but not according
to the common will." ~
King James I, 1621
"When
a government lasts a long while it deteriorates by
insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies
through poverty." ~
Montesquieu, 1748
"In
rivers and bad governments the lightest things swim at the
top." ~ Franklin,
1754
"In
all sorts of government man is made to believe himself free,
and to be in chains." ~
King Stanislaus of Poland, 1763
"Society
in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its
best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst stage, an
intolerable one." ~
Paine, 1776
"Government
is, abstractedly taken, an evil, a usurpation upon the
private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.
Society is produced by our wants, and government by our
wickedness." ~
Jefferson, 1796
"Every
nation has the government it deserves." ~
de Maistre, 1811
"Whatever
government is not a government of laws is a despotism, be it
called what it may." ~
Webster, 1835
"The
less government we have the better."
~ Emerson, 1841
"The
object of the state is always the same: to limit the
individual, to tame him, to subordinate him, to subjugate
him." ~ Stirner,
1845
"Whoever
lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and tyrant,
and I declare him my enemy." ~ Proudhon, 1849
"The
authority of government can have no pure right over my
person or property but what I concede to it." ~
Thoreau, 1849
"No
man is good enough to govern another man without that
other's consent." ~
Lincoln, 1854
"All
government is evil." ~
Haydon, 1876
"Government
is an association of men who do violence to the rest of
us." ~ Tolstoi,
1893
"Experience
teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when
the government's purposes are beneficient." ~
Brandeis, 1928
"For
three long years I have been going up and down this country
preaching that government costs too much. I shall not stop
that preaching." ~
FDR, 1932
And
from Mencken himself…..
"A
good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest
burglar."
"There’s
no underestimating the intelligence of the American
public."
"Wars
will never cease until babies come into the world with
larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands."
"To
wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to
ravish a woman for a purely moral reason."
"All
government is organized exploitation, and in virtually all
of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every
industrious and well-disposed man."
"We
suffer most when the White House is bursting with
ideas."
December
4, 2001
Ronald
Bradley [send him
mail] is director of the Hippocrates
Health Centre of Australia.
Copyright
© 2001 LewRockwell.com
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