Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [181-200] of 295 Society quotesSociety QuotesSociety Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.~ Walter Lippmann [W]henever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty ...~ John Locke American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society.~ Thomas Babington Macaulay In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature.~ James Madison Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the minds of the people, which are among the chief blessings of civil society.~ James Madison The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy. They are more: they are the best basis of public liberty, and the strongest bulwark of public safety. It follows, that the greater the proportion of this class to the whole society, the more free, the more independent, and the more happy must be the society itself.~ James Madison When we are considering the advantages that may result from an easy mode of naturalization, we ought also to consider the cautions necessary to guard against abuses. It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle amongst us, and throw their fortunes into a common lot with ours. But why is this desirable? Not merely to swell the catalogue of people. No, sir, it is to increase the wealth and strength of the community; and those who acquire the rights of citizenship without adding to the strength or wealth of the community are not the people we are in want of … I should be exceedingly sorry, sir, that our rule of naturalization excluded a single person of good fame that really meant to incorporate himself into our society; on the other hand, I do not wish that any man should acquire the privilege, but such as would be a real addition to the wealth or strength of the United States.~ James Madison In every declining civilization there is a small "remnant" of people who adhere to the right against the wrong; who recognize the difference between good and evil and who will take an active stand for the former and against the latter; who can still think and discern and who will courageously take a stand against the political, social, moral, and spiritual rot or decay of their day.~ Donald S. McAlvaney The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard.~ George McGovern Society honors its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.~ Mignon McLaughlin The contempt for law and the contempt for the human consequences of lawbreaking go from the bottom to the top of American society.~ Margaret Mead To act without clear understanding, to form habits without investigation, to follow a path all one's life without knowing where it really leads -- such is the behavior of the multitude.~ Mencius I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.~ H. L. Mencken The only part of the conduct of anyone for which he is amenable to society is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.~ John Stuart Mill Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.~ John Stuart Mill Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.~ Margaret Mitchell [T]he income tax is incompatible with a free society. The IRS routinely intrudes on our basic civil liberties and privacy rights -- and its intrusions are getting worse all the time. I want an America where it is no longer the government's business how much money you make and what you do with it.~ Stephen Moore Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism as it is a merge of state and corporate power.~ Benito Mussolini Our modern society is engaged in polishing and decorating the cage in which man is kept imprisoned.~ Swami Nirmalananda Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things FOR you carries with it the equivalent power to do things TO you.~ Albert Jay Nock Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print