Politics & Power Quotes — page 168

or the rights of property

They are condemned by the traditions, and by the moral obligations, of the Court of Rome, whose system is one of charity and of liberty, and which knows no public consideration which is superior to the salvation of souls.

Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue. Pity, benevolence, friendship, are things almost unknown in high stations.

In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. … In short, a law everywhere and for everything!

Don't let anyone impose on you. Don't be quarrelsome, but stand up for your rights. If you've got to fight, fight hard and well. To my mind, a coward is the only thing meaner than a liar.

I regard reduction in Federal spending as one of the most important issues in this campaign. In my opinion it is the most direct and effective contribution that Government can make to business.

We, the Great-Russian proletarians, who defend no privileges whatever, do not defend this privilege either. We are fighting on the ground of a definite state; we unite the workers of all nations living in this state; we cannot vouch for …

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.

To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.

All these principles of despotism are incompatible with the Catholic ideas

In a state of nature, it is an invariable law, that a man's acquisitions are in proportion to his labours. In a state of artificial society, it is a law as constant and as invariable, that those who labour most enjoy the fewest things; and …

Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle.

If we lose the virile, manly qualities, and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain over national honor, and subordinating everything to mere ease of life, then we shall indeed reach a condition worse than that of the ancient …

The United States Constitution has proven itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

The bourgeoisie incites the workers of one nation against those of another in the endeavor to keep them disunited. Class-conscious workers, realising that the break-down of all the national barriers by capitalism is inevitable and …

There seems to be a direct and formal design on foot, to enslave all America. This, however, must be done by degrees. The first step that is intended, seems to be an entire subversion of the whole system of our fathers, by the introduction …

A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of Government.

the state has been absolute on the Continent of Europe for the last 300 years.

A good parson once said, that where mystery begins, religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends?

When men are reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts, they will unite across the frontiers and constitute the Cosmos.

There is much talk about "jingoism". If by "jingoism" they mean a policy in pursuance of which Americans will with resolution and common sense insist upon our rights being respected by foreign powers, then we are "jingoes".

People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social …