Government
The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number.
That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy people.
Wherever we are content, that is our country.
The best is to consider that we have a home somewhere, and only then does one really love the world.
The great society rests on the abundance and liberty for all.
The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity, and to promote the happiness of all, and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, etc., without injury or abuse done to any.
Our object in the construction of the State is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.
The immediate object of government is security.
Freedom of the press, freedom of association, the inviolability of domicile
The most desirable state of mankind, is that which maintains general security, with the smallest encroachment upon individual independence.
We desire to substitute self-esteem for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity, merit for intrigue, integrity for fame. We wish a magnanimous people, powerful, and happy.
The political doctrine which has represented the loftiest endeavor toward common life is liberal democracy. Liberalism is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded in the planet.
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
Political power means capacity to regulate national life through national representatives. If national life becomes so perfect as to become self-regulated, no representation becomes necessary. There is then a state of enlightened anarchy. In such a state everyone is his own ruler. He rules himself in such a manner that he is never a hindrance to his neighbor. In the Ideal State there is no political power because there is no state.
Anarchism is the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.
You will find an ever increasing irreverence toward rulers, when some of the more advanced spirits look forward to the time when there shall be no government.
The more perfect civilization is, the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and governs itself. All the great laws of society are the laws of nature.
You will find an ever increasing irreverence toward rulers, when some of the more advanced spirits look forward to the time when there shall be no government.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
Here, then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world. Here too is the design and end of government: Freedom and Security.
Government by the people is possible, but highly improbable.
The injustice and violence of man in a state of society, produced the demand for government.
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where Government has gone beyond the limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.
Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing another human being to a purpose.
There is nothing nobler than humanity.
Those who contend for a simple Democracy, or a pure republic, actuated by the sense of majority and operating within narrow limits, assume or suppose a case which is altogether fictitious.
The road from political idealism to political realism is strewn with the corpses of our dead selves.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world.
Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires the widest spread of intelligence.
The end of democracy, and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations. - Thomas Jefferson
The earth is the common property of the human race, and of every living thing.
United we stand, divided we fall.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Politics divides us but humanity unites us.
The people own the government.
All power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the People.
That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government. - Aristotle
There will never be a free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.
Democracy by definition requires the active participation of all the people.
Our country, right or wrong! When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.
A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy.
The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable: that all men are created equal and independent, that from that creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.
Government is, or ought to be , instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community. Whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community has an indubitable, unalienable, indefeasible right, to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.
That the people have an original right to establish for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis, on which the whole American fabric has been erected.
Among democratic nations, each new generation is a new people.
Every nation has the government it deserves.
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
I now understand that my welfare is only possible if I acknowlege my unity with all the people of the world without exception.
No nation has a right to intermeddle in the internal concerns of another, that every one had a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best to live under themselves; and that if this country could, consistently with its engagements, maintain a strict neutrality and thereby preserve peace, it was bound to do so by motives of policy, interest, and every other consideration. - George Washington
It is a maxim founded on the universal experiences of mankind that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interests.
No nation is wise enough to rule another.
I believe in property rights, I believe that normally the right of property and humanity coincide, but sometimes they conflict, and when this is so, I put human rights above property rights.
Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.
A Conservative is a man with two good legs who has not learned to walk forward. A Liberal is a man who walks forward as commanded by his beliefs. A Moderate is a man who stands and walks forward as guided by reason and experience.
The existence of classes is connected only with certain historical struggles which arise out of the development of production.
Inasmuch as most good things are produced by labor, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labor has produced them. But it has so happened an all the ages of the world, that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.
Equal division of unequal earnings.
the total annihilation of the prejudices which have established between the sexes an inequality of rights.
Empiricist Liberalism ( which is not incompatible with democratic socialism ) is the only philosophy which can be adopted by a man who, on the one hand, demands some scientific evidence for his beliefs, and on the other hand, desires human happiness more than the prevalence of this or that party or creed.
A real leader, a leader of real moment, will make his tactics dependent, not on the temporary spirit of the masses, but on the inexorable laws of historical development. He will steer his course by these laws in defiance of all disappointments and he will rely on history to bring about the gradual maturing of his actions.
As long as women consent to be unjustly governed, they will be; but directly women say: "We withhold our consent," we will not be governed any longer as long as government is unjust. Not by
Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other.
society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable.
the property of one belongs to the other.
You rich men remember that your riches are not your own, but you are but a steward over them.
If mankind had wished for what is right, he might have had it long ago.
Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.
A government of laws and not men.
for it is the solecism of power, to think to command the end, and yet not endure the means.
the exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.
a power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many, and various, and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.
society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable.
the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
that, as the object to be obtained is mutual benefit, so ought the enactment of laws to be by mutual consent.
the inherent vice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolt.
he mocks the people who proposes that the government shall protect the rich and they in turn will care for the laboring poor.
a man's house is his castle and fortress.
the total annihilation of the prejudices which have established between the sexes an inequality of rights.
our hopes for the condition of the human race can be subsumed under three important heads: the abolition in inequalities between nations, the progress of equality within each nation, and the true perfection of mankind.
Individuality is the aim of political liberty.
law for rulers and people, equally in war and peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances.
there is nothing, absolutely nothing, which needs to be more carefully guarded against than that one man should be allowed to become more powerful than the people.
it is demonstrable that many of the obstacles for change which have been attributed to human nature are in fact due to the inertia of institutions and to the voluntary desire of powerful classes to maintain existing status.
conservation stands on man's confessed limitations; reform on his indisputable infinitude.
all wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.
the aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
Democracy + Private Ownership = Capitalism
Democracy + Public Ownership = Socialism
Dictatorship + Private Ownership = Fascism
Dictatorship + Public Ownership = Communism
in a democracy dissent is an act of faith.
my question is whether America can overcome the fatal arrogance of power.
the ideal of Socialism is grand and noble and can be realized, but such a society cannot be manufactured; it must grow. Society is an organism, not a machine.
collectively owned and in which they are democratically controlled; a society requiring as its absolute prerequisite the preservation and extension of democracy. Without socialism, democracy tends to whither. But without democracy, socialism is impossible.
If you truly wished to find out what is best for the country you would listen more to those who oppose you than to those who try to please you.
true democracy is the renunciation of the struggle for power.
woman is the companion of man gifted with equal mental capacities. She has the right to participate in the minutest detail of the activities of man, and has the same right of freedom and liberty as he. She is entitled to a supreme place in her own sphere of activity as man is in his. This ought to be the natural condition of things.
We would have every path laid open to Women as freely as to Man.
to secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work.
mere precedent is a dangerous source of power.
The whole of government consists in the art of being honest.
there are three ways by which an individual can get wealthy - by work, by gift, and by theft. And clearly the reason the workers get so little is that the beggars and the thieves get so much.
The state was, and continues to be, the chief instrument for permitting the few to monopolize the land, and the capitalists to appropriate for themselves a quite disproportionate share of the yearly accumulated surplus of production.
Inasmuch as most good things are produced by labor, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labor has produced them. But it has so happened an all the ages of the world, that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.
No business which depends for existence by paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.
The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights.
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.
All I ask for the Negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but a little, that little let him enjoy.
This nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people , and for the people, shall not perish from this earth.
Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of the press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element.
Insolence of authorities is endeavoring to substitute money for ideas.
The desire for security stands against every great and noble enterprise.
If you truly wished to find out what is best for the country you would listen more to those who oppose you than to those who try to please you.
The whole of government consists in the art of being honest.
Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of the press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element.
Since a group is in no doubt as to what constitutes truth or error, and is conscious moreover, of its great strength, it is as intolerant as it is obedient to authority. It respects force and can only be slightly influenced by kindness, which it regards as a form of weakness.
It is never possible to rule innocently
Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.
Whoever is careless with the truth cannot be trusted with important matters.
All men who deliberate on controversial matters, should be free from hate, friendship, anger, and pity.
To manipulate men, to propel them towards goals which you as social reformers see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore degrade them.
A sound leader's aim is to open people's hearts, fill their stomachs, calm their wills, brace their bones, and so to clarify their thoughts and cleanse their needs that no cunning meddler could touch them. Without being forced, without strain or constraint, good government comes of itself.
Those who sit in the seats of the high and mighty are selected and formed by means of power, their sources of wealth, the mechanics of celebrity which prevail in our society.
On the most exalted throne in the world, we are still only seated on our ass.
Whoever is careless with the truth cannot be trusted with important matters.
No man has any right to rule who is not better than the people over whom he rules.
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