Political Sayings

The most important thing for a good government is not to govern too much.

The right of voting is the right of self-government.

The truth is, all politicians have an interest in the perpetuity of the forms of government, and none in the perpetuity of their substance.

Every man who is not a fool knows that a bad government is a great evil; but that there is no greater evil than a weak government.

There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.

Surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician.

The political is not a matter of choice; it is a matter of necessity.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

I have been accused of being a Communist, which I am not. I am a libertarian socialist.

We must release ourselves from the prison of business and politics.

The Japanese are a disease of the skin; the Communists are a disease of the heart.

I am not a slave to any system, nor a devotee to any sect.

The less government we have, the better—the fewer laws, and the less confided power.

If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I am surprised to find how soon I have forgotten them.

The state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.

I am not afraid that they will find bad governments, but that they will find governments that are not interested in the well-being of the people.

The duty of civility requires us to explain how our political positions can be supported by the values of public reason.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent.