Fleming > Fleming's Quotes

“The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.”
― Frederic Bastiat

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable...”
― H.L. Mencken, Prejudices: Third Series

“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”
― Mark Twain

“I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.”
― Paul Krugman

“Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.”
― Herbert Marcuse

“Dennis the Peasant: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Arthur: Be quiet!
Dennis: You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!”
― Graham Chapman, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Book): Mønti Pythøn Ik Den Hølie Gräilen

“Total paranoia is just total awareness.”
― Charles Manson

“Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. Next time, go all out and write in Lucifer on the ballot.”
― Jarod Kintz, 99 Cents For Some Nonsense

“Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class - whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.
- Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual”
― Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

“Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments – and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.”
― J. Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life

“The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

“Listen, Peaches, trickery is what humans are all about," said the voice of Maurice. "They're so keen on tricking one another all the time that they elect governments to do it for them.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
― Edward R. Murrow

“Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy.”
― Daniel Webster

“To the people who are upset about their hard-earned tax money going to things they don’t like: welcome to the f*cking club. Reimburse me for the Iraq war and oil subsidies, and diaphragms are on me!”
― Jon Stewart

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a disgrace, that two become a lawfirm, and that three or more become a congress. -John Adams”
― Sherman Edwards, 1776

“You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”
― Ronald Reagan

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
― Gerald R. Ford

“Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.”
― Honore de Balzac

“I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.”
― Ron Paul

“I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.”
― H.L. Mencken, Minority Report

“The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced”
― Albert Einstein

“Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth Stupid fumbling.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land