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No matter how noble the objective of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an evil government


Eric Hoffer

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KELLY JONES To stand on the
brink of what is coming, feeling eager, optimistic anticipation—with no feeli...
ASK AND IT IS GIVEN Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil...
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind. -Eric Hoffer.
ERIC HOFFER Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law.
LOUIS D. BRANDEIS Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole p...
LOUIS D. BRANDEIS Never assume, no matter how strong the temptation, that other people are low-life lying manipulators...
DINESH D'SOUZA Government breeds more government, and a lobbying infrastructure to defend itself.
GEORGE F. WILL Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wh...
H.L. MENCKEN Free government is the most difficult of all government. But it is everlastingly true that the plain...
HERBERT HOOVER Take a chance of your life, you're risking nothing in this planet.
NAZIM AMBALATH Government is inherently incompetent, and no matter what task it is assigned, it will do it in the m...
CHARLEY REESE Something did happen, and I really don't feel proud of it.
DEYTH BANGER No matter how much money government pumps into the economy, if the money does not reach the right de...
LULLU KRUGEL It is a lie.
ARTHUR MILLER Most Americans recognize that whatever the government program is, no matter how essential it is, it&...
GEORGE ALLEN It is under review and no determination has been made as to what the government will do next on this...
CHARLES MILLER i find it funny how republicans want less government yet their actions contradict this. if they want...
ARMANDO RODRIGUEZ JR And having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the ha...
EDMUND BURKE A good government remains the greatest of human blessings and no nation has ever enjoyed it.
DEAN INGE A successful villain should have all these things at his or her villainous fingertips, or else give ...
LEMONY SNICKET And what constitutes evil, real evil, is the taking of a single human life. Whether a man would die ...
ANNE RICE You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say you can have no Parli...
BENJAMIN DISRAELI No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There is a remedy in human nature ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Government is an unnecessary evil. Human beings, when accustomed to taking responsibility for their ...
FRED WOODWORTH Our government teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it...
LOUIS D. BRANDEIS Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker,...
LOUIS D. BRANDEIS Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understandin...
OG MANDINO Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will.
JAMES MONROE We don't want violence. But if it happens, it will be caused by government officials and the governm...
CHAMLONG SRIMUANG If human beings are fundamentally good, no government is necessary; if they are fundamentally bad, a...
FRED WOODWORTH A servant who serves excellently from his whole heart with due courage and humility is never a serva...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of ...
VIKTOR E. FRANKL It has to do with our suspicion and skepticism of government power being able to take private proper...
JOHN CORNYN You should never give up a happy middle in the hopes of a happy ending, because there is no such thi...
JOHN GREEN Unfortunately, the attitude of many towards the press, humanitarians included and especially governm...
ALVIN ADAMS War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a go...
JIMMY CARTER If an election is simply a one-day snapshot of transient mass delusions, then this is not a very nob...
JAMES BOVARD A man's suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an ...
VIKTOR E. FRANKL Acts of Kindness:
A random act of kindness, no matter how small, can make a tremendous impact o...
ROY T. BENNETT No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.
MILAN KUNDERA The oil ministry is working with the government in order to speed up the payment process. There is n...
ASIM JIHAD The Government need the farmers and the farmers need the Government
SOTONYE ANGA Unlimited power is the ideal thing when it is in safe hands. The despotism of heaven is the one abso...
MARK TWAIN In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on bet...
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our re...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
H. L. MENCKEN I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses o...
JAMES MADISON I have no doubt... (the government) feels it will be less of an affront to China if some other form ...
BOB BROWN The key question here is as to whether this is an intensification with the explicit objective of res...
PAIKIASOTHY SARAVANAMUTTU War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a go...
JIMMY CARTER Government! Three-fourths parasitic and the rest stupid fumbling - oh, Harshaw concluded that man, a...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Important meetings take place between the Clerk and whichever government wins to go over the priorit...
HALI GERNON When government programs fail, it is often because public officials are clueless about how human bei...
CASS SUNSTEIN Let your little inspire someone greatly and greatly be the reasons for the smiles of someone in litt...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Let your little inspires someone greatly and greatly be the reasons for the smiles of someone in lit...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
YANN MARTEL This is a government of the people, by the people and for the people no longer. It is a government o...
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something ...
ELIZABETH GILBERT No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
AESOP No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
AESOP No matter what your religion, you should try to become a government program, for then you will have ...
LYNN MARTIN Of course, no government official will ever tell you that the cities may be making the people in the...
STEVEN MAGEE War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a go...
JIMMY CARTER It is a farce. If they couldn't form a government till now, how will they lead a country?
AHMED ALI To cheapen the lives of any group of men, cheapens the lives of all men, even our own. This is a law...
WILLIAM PICKENS I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their liv...
JOHN STEINBECK No matter how much you like your local school teacher, he or she is a government agent.
NANCY PEARCEY Because teachers, no matter how kind, no matter how friendly, are sadistic and evil to the core.
HEATHER BREWER The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Ham...
TZIPI LIVNI I did not see ill will on the part of the government, that they were holding it for themselves, or m...
ASMA JEHANGIR The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of goo...
THOMAS JEFFERSON The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be lia...
JAMES MADISON A random act of kindness, no matter how small, can make a tremendous impact on someone else's life.
ROY BENNETT Evil cannot and will not be vanquished by evil. Dark will only swallow dark and deepen. The good and...
NORA ROBERTS He had a harder time helping her out though. He was asleep while she was doing stars. Without wings,...
LAURIE FRANKEL Well, these photographs are out and what really remains to be seen is how the government will respon...
AMRIT SINGH Tomorrow is promised to no one. Prioritize today accordingly.
GINA GREENLEE Oh the brave Fisher's life, It is the best of any, 'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife, ...
IZAAK WALTON The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate ob...
THOMAS JEFFERSON The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate obje...
THOMAS JEFFERSON 37. It is better to be single and unhappy than unhappily married.
JAMES C. DOBSON Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch and say, 'See if...
HARRY BROWNE Unpredictability means what it means. I don't know how you define it. It is what it is.
MICHAEL KEATON In my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no nece...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgement a...
WILLIAM GODWIN Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C. It is doubtful that the government knows much more than the public does about how government Economi...
W. ALLEN WALLIS It is only when there is the supervision and critical oversight from the people that the government ...
WEN JIABAO Their objective was to undermine the electoral system and overthrow the government,
BEREKET SIMON Let the Government get to the bottom of the matter and leave no stone unturned.
ADAN DUALLE I can feel it in my bones that no matter what we do, even if we do not do anything, the revolutionar...
FERDINAND MARCOS It is what it is, it is what you make it.
JAMES DURBIN I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the Americ...
BIN LADEN Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling—oh, he conceded that man,...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN I think there is a lot of suspicion that surrounds the government and it's grown worse in recent dec...
AITAN GOELMAN National sovereignty is an obligation as well as an entitlement. A government that will not perform ...
RICHARD PERLE There are so many things we do in life that define the real meaning of our lives. There are so many ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH

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ERIC HOFFER Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind. -Eric Hoffer.
ERIC HOFFER One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of...
ERIC HOFFER The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in w...
ERIC HOFFER Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.
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ERIC HOFFER The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as ...
ERIC HOFFER Laughter to begin with was probably glee at the misfortunes of others. The baring of the teeth in l...
ERIC HOFFER Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense, and sublime truths are equally potent in readying people for se...
ERIC HOFFER Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions ...
ERIC HOFFER The fact is that up to now a free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither ac...
ERIC HOFFER When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common...
ERIC HOFFER Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. The resentment of the weak does not spring...
ERIC HOFFER Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart. For we can...
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ERIC HOFFER To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain e...
ERIC HOFFER Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
ERIC HOFFER It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites --opposi...
ERIC HOFFER There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmar...
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ERIC HOFFER It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
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ERIC HOFFER The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist...
ERIC HOFFER It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and presen...
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ERIC HOFFER An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anyth...
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ERIC HOFFER The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of t...
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ERIC HOFFER We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true; they ruin our dreams.
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ERIC HOFFER Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about o...
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ERIC HOFFER We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every...
ERIC HOFFER A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-...
ERIC HOFFER To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
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ERIC HOFFER A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
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ERIC HOFFER Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, ...
ERIC HOFFER The birth of the new constitutes a crisis, and its mastery calls for a crude and simple cast of mind...
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ERIC HOFFER The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
ERIC HOFFER There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.
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ERIC HOFFER To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as h...
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ERIC HOFFER There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
ERIC HOFFER The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altoge...
ERIC HOFFER Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
ERIC HOFFER Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses ...
ERIC HOFFER We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are ...
ERIC HOFFER Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-eviden...
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ERIC HOFFER Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
ERIC HOFFER Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like ...
ERIC HOFFER Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing...
ERIC HOFFER Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
ERIC HOFFER What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?
ERIC HOFFER Intolerance is the Do Not Touch sign on something that cannot bear touching. We do not mind having o...
ERIC HOFFER It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is ...
ERIC HOFFER It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer fr...
ERIC HOFFER A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominate...
ERIC HOFFER There is a grandeur in the uniformity of the mass. When a fashion, a dance, a song, a slogan or a jo...
ERIC HOFFER It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and ...
ERIC HOFFER Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the...
ERIC HOFFER The pre-human creature from which man evolved was unlike any other living thing in its malicious vic...
ERIC HOFFER Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not or...
ERIC HOFFER It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigran...
ERIC HOFFER When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
ERIC HOFFER More significant than the fact that poets write abstrusely, painters paint abstractly, and composers...
ERIC HOFFER The necessary has never been man's top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the ...
ERIC HOFFER When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it.
ERIC HOFFER The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others but also with ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
ERIC HOFFER It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission an...
ERIC HOFFER The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
ERIC HOFFER Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of a...
ERIC HOFFER We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and con...
ERIC HOFFER A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
ERIC HOFFER There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being hi...
ERIC HOFFER All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action...
ERIC HOFFER We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.
ERIC HOFFER Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers a...
ERIC HOFFER There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
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ERIC HOFFER Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The ...
ERIC HOFFER Thus we find that people who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossibl...
ERIC HOFFER The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wis...
ERIC HOFFER We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: chan...
ERIC HOFFER When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and th...
ERIC HOFFER We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the ...
ERIC HOFFER Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions m...
ERIC HOFFER We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meani...
ERIC HOFFER The unpredictability inherent in human affairs is due largely to the fact that the by-products of a ...
ERIC HOFFER Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And w...
ERIC HOFFER To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of...
ERIC HOFFER Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.
ERIC HOFFER The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
ERIC HOFFER It is easier to love humanity than to love one's neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem e...
ERIC HOFFER Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others.
ERIC HOFFER Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that ...
ERIC HOFFER We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire cr...
ERIC HOFFER Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want ...
ERIC HOFFER Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to ...
ERIC HOFFER With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the ...
ERIC HOFFER A man by himself is in bad company.
ERIC HOFFER Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the p...
ERIC HOFFER Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
ERIC HOFFER It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.
ERIC HOFFER We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
ERIC HOFFER We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the fact that many i...
ERIC HOFFER A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prom...
ERIC HOFFER The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares no...
ERIC HOFFER The nature of society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow-by th...
ERIC HOFFER It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.
ERIC HOFFER There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a...
ERIC HOFFER Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.
ERIC HOFFER Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possib...
ERIC HOFFER Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling o...
ERIC HOFFER Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.
ERIC HOFFER People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
ERIC HOFFER Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of m...
ERIC HOFFER It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
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ERIC HOFFER The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitaria...
ERIC HOFFER Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength
ERIC HOFFER The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by d...
ERIC HOFFER The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.
ERIC HOFFER It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.
ERIC HOFFER One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of...
ERIC HOFFER There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were,...
ERIC HOFFER Our great weariness comes from work not done.
ERIC HOFFER It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opi...
ERIC HOFFER There is apparently no surer way of turning a thing into its opposite than by exaggerating it
ERIC HOFFER It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.
ERIC HOFFER To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
ERIC HOFFER The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the ...
ERIC HOFFER The game of History is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of thr majority in th...
ERIC HOFFER Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that ...
ERIC HOFFER You dehumanize a man as much by returning him to nature - by making him one with rocks, vegetation, ...
ERIC HOFFER Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And w...
ERIC HOFFER Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragemen...
ERIC HOFFER The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in w...
ERIC HOFFER To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalizes - we are aware that what is happening to us has hap...
ERIC HOFFER It is easier to love humanity as a whole that to love one's neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we r...
ERIC HOFFER One might equate growing up with a mistrust of words. A mature person trusts his eyes more than his ...
ERIC HOFFER Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
ERIC HOFFER