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Quotes About Government

I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.
~ Aldous Huxley
Only the most ingeniously optimistic, the most wilfully blind to the facts of history and psychology, can believe that paper guarantees of liberty - guarantees wholly unsupported by the realities of political and economic power - will be scrupulously respected by those who have known only the facts of governmental omnipotence on the one hand and, on the other, of mass dependence upon, and consequently subservience to, the state and its representatives.
~ Aldous Huxley
But how practical, how eminently realistic! said Mr. Scogan. In this farm we have a model of sound paternal government. Make them breed, make them work, and when they're past working or breeding or begetting, slaughter them. Farming seems to be mostly indecency and cruelty, said Anne.
~ Aldous Huxley
Infant-conditioning and narco-hypnosis are far more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.
~ Aldous Huxley
Political liberty's a swindle because a man doesn't spend his time being political. He spends it sleeping, eating, amusing himself a little and working?—mostly working. When they'd got all the political liberty they wanted?—or found they didn't want?—they began to understand this.
~ Aldous Huxley
Organized and balanced disunity is the necessary condition of liberty.
~ Aldous Huxley
No se corre mucho riesgo apostando a que, dentro de veinte años, todos los países excesivamente poblados y poco desarrollados del mundo estarán bajo una u otra forma de gobierno totalitario, probablemente del Partido Comunista. ¿Cómo
~ Aldous Huxley
My good boy!" The Director wheeled sharply round on him. "Can't you see? Can't you see?" He raised a hand; his expression was solemn. "Bokanovsky's Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!" Major instruments of social stability.
~ Aldous Huxley
To prevent economic breakdown and to repress popular discontent, the governments of hungry countries will be tempted to enforce ever-stricter controls. Furthermore, chronic undernourishment reduces physical energy and disturbs the mind. Hunger and self-government are incompatible.
~ Aldous Huxley
In brief, we govern by a mixture of lying and bullying. ---(From the pamphlet: The Scientific Solution of the Problem of Government.)
~ Aleister Crowley
Most scientific research today is funded by governments. To justify this research, the officials running the government must believe that the research has value to voters or to their own agendas.
~ Alex Epstein
What is clear from railroad history is that if government is to mix with private enterprise, something unavoidable in most instances, then it should do so in ways that serve its citizens, and that mission should come first.
~ Alex Marshall
All this relates to markets, because building a new transportation system is about building a new market system of production and exchange. If you do it right, you make things faster and more efficient. And you need government to do it.
~ Alex Marshall
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
~ Alexander Hamilton
It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.
~ Alexander Hamilton
If we must have an enemy at the head of government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible.
~ Alexander Hamilton
Vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty.
~ Alexander Hamilton
Everything, it seemed to Mma Ramotswe, had a waiting list—except the government taxman and the call, when it came, to leave this world. You could not argue with the agents of either of these: you paid, and you went. But I am just on the waiting list…No, there is no waiting list for these things…
~ Alexander McCall Smith
If we were all responsible for the misdeeds of the governments that represent us, thought Isabel, then the moral burden would be just too great.
~ Alexander McCall Smith
The trouble with this country...is that we are utterly surrounded by busybodies trying to stop us doing things. Or telling us what to do...Big Brother, with his ubiquitous closed-circuit cameras-which now monitored, it seemed, every square inch of public space-and his condescending imprecations and warnings, was everywhere...In his view, it was up to the individual whether or not to approach a cliff edge; it was not the Government's business.
~ Alexander McCall Smith
the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.
~ Alexander McCall Smith
All over the world, I think, it is much the same. People want to escape places where there is war and poverty, and not enough water even. Or too much water. And they look at places where there is peace and good government and they think: Why can't I go there? They just want to work and have a roof over their heads and not wake up to the sound of bombs and gunfire. That's all they want.
~ Alexander McCall Smith
That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want.
~ Alexander McCall Smith
Isabel looked at her. "Five pieces? Isn't that the Government recommendation?" "It's none of their business," said Jamie. Isabel disagreed. "Oh, I think it is. If the Government has to pick up the bill when we get ill, then surely it has the right to tell us how to avoid getting ill in the first place.
~ Alexander McCall Smith