Political Philosophy Quotes

Un prigioniero di guerra è un uomo che cerca di ucciderti, non ci riesce, dopo di che ti chiede di non ucciderlo.

Winston Churchill

It is my strong conviction that a realist conception of human nature should be made a servant of an ethic of progressive justice and should not be made into a bastion of conservatism, particularly a conservatism which defends unjust privileges.

Reinhold Niebuhr

As government expands, liberty contracts.

Ronald Reagan

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.

Thomas Jefferson

We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.

Ronald Reagan

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Thomas Jefferson

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste.

Thomas Jefferson

I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.

Thomas Jefferson

That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves. If we are directed from Washington (heads of an organization) when to sow and when to reap, we will soon want for bread.

Thomas Jefferson

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem. It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

Ronald Reagan

It was not desirable that the pitiless should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they become discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances.

George Orwell

The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.

Aristotle

Round pegs in square holes tend to have dangerous thoughts about the social system and tend to infect others with their discontents.

Aldous Huxley

To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.

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

Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Remember that every government service, every offer of government - financed security, is paid for in the loss of personal freedom... In the days to come, whenever a voice is raised telling you to let the government do it, analyze very carefully to see whether the suggested service is worth the personal freedom which you must forgo in return for such service.

Ronald Reagan