bad government Quotes

1. "History, in general, only informs us what bad government is."
- Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

2. "The most perilous moment for a bad government is one when it seeks to mend its ways."
- Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution

3. "The first task of the doctor is ... political: the struggle against disease must begin with a war against bad government." Man will be totally and definitively cured only if he is first liberated..."
- Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception

4. "A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth; for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason."
- Noah Webster, The Original Blue Back Speller

5. "Oh, oh, look out: MySpace is going to put together a march. On the streets! With big banners! Saying, STOP, BAD GOVERNMENT! STOP DOING THAT BAD, BAD THING! Hold me, Mother! We must, as a governing body, stop doing immoral things immediately, or bisexual college girls with nose rings might wave colorful signs at us! Or"
- Cintra Wilson, Caligula for President: Better American Living Through Tyranny

6. "Yes, but bad language is bound to make in addition bad government, whereas good language is not bound to make bad government. That again is clear Confucius: if the orders aren’t clear they can’t be carried out. Lloyd George’s laws were such a mess, the lawyers never knew what they meant. And Talleyrand proclaimed that they changed the meaning of words between one conference and another. The means of communication breaks down, and that of course is what we are suffering now. We are enduring the drive to work on the subconscious without appealing to the reason. They repeat a trade name with the music a few times, and then repeat the music without it so that the music will give you the name. I think of the assault. We suffer from the use of language to conceal thought and to withhold all vital and direct answers. There is the definite use of propaganda, forensic language, merely to conceal and mislead."
- Quote by Ezra Pound

7. "The arts and humanities are not mere entertainment, to be turned to for relaxation after a busy day spent solving differential equations; they are our templates for living, for governing ourselves and our societies. Nor can science offer any help with the knottier problems besetting the human race. It can remedy bad smells, bad pains, and bad roads, but not bad behavior, bad government, or bad ideas."
- Quote by John Derbyshire

8. "A democratic state begins from the assumption that most of those who gravitate toward power are mediocre and probably immoral. It assumes that we must always protect ourselves from bad government. We must be prepared for the worst leaders even as we hope for the best. And as Karl Popper wrote, this understanding leads to a new approach to power, for "it forces us to replace the question: Who shall rule? By the new question: How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?"
- Chris Hedges, I Don't Believe in Atheists

9. "Suits obviously had helped to promote bad government and he was as guilty as anyone for wearing them so steadfastly for twenty years. Of late he had become frightened of the government for the first time in his life, the way the structure of democracy had begun debasing people rather than enlivening them in their mutual concern. The structure was no longer concerned with the purpose for which it was designed, and a small part of the cause, Nordstrom thought, was probably that all politicians and bureaucrats wore suits."
- Jim Harrison, Legends of the Fall

10. "Helmuth said that Mann felt it would be even more difficult to bring about a revolution in Germany because the German people are so fatalistic. While they are deep thinkers who love philosophy, they have a deep suspicion that there really is no great meaning or purpose to life. Thus, they seek security above all else and are unwilling to overthrow a bad government because of the attitude, 'What difference would it make anyway?' Hence, Helmuth concluded, the people were willing to accept Hitler because, in some perverse way, he managed to create for them a fatal feeling of safety."
- Rudi Wobbe, Three Against Hitler