I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King my republican feelings and principles forbid it the simplicity of our system of government forbids...

The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.

People are so docile right now. It is almost as if good government means when the politicians lie to us for our own good, for the public good, and bad government is when politicians lie for their own...

The new republic should be based on diversity, respect and equal rights for all.

It is a confession of the weakness of our own faith in the righteousness of our cause when we attempt to suppress by law those who do not agree with us. Alfred E. Smith, governor of New York after WWI

Democracy is a poor system

The entire Nazi war machine was only possible because of past, present and future violations of the non aggression principle {achievable only through government}.

Conservative should tend to resist the argument that our particular crisis is a more-than-normal one, that our particular moment is a more-than-Madisonian one. Conservatism is a healthy political...

One of the {many} problems with government is not that power corrupts or even that it is magnetic to corruptible people; rather, it is that we have been conditioned to tolerate corruption in power,...

I always said a good despotism was the best form of government

Earthquake means destruction; dictator means destruction! In the case of earthquake, you need a strong building; in the case of dictator, you need an educated rational mind, because an irrational...

Democracy's fatal flaw: There are more dumb people than smart people. Welcome to the new Dark Ages!

Failure of government programs prompts more determined effort, while the loss of liberty is ignored or rationalized away... whether it is the war on poverty, drugs, terrorism... or the current Hitler...

To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required - not...

Generally it must be stated that realpolitik has been better at dividing than at ruling. Take it as a whole since Kissinger called on the Shah in 1972, and see what the harvest has been.

What matters is not how affluent a country is but how unequal it is.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Once any tyranny becomes accepted as ordinary, according to Veronica, its victory is assured.

Avowed preference for an elite based on merit was misconstrued by enemies into a secret adoration of aristocracy.

The army is the only order of men sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated...

What if a king made bad laws; laws so unnatural that a country broke them by declaring its freedom? He threw his arms in the air. Now you are spouting nonsense. Two slaves running away from their...

Machiavelli's The Prince and Plutarch's Lives

While other Americans dreamed of a brand-new society that would expunge all traces of effete European civilization, Hamilton humbly studied those societies for clues to the formation of a new...

In the general course of things, the popular views and even prejudices will direct the action of the rulers.

True, fascism was not to be tolerated by decent people. But neither was racism or colonialism or slave labor camps—one or another of which was a characteristic of all of the Allied powers.