"Government is merely an attempt to express..." - Quote by Woodrow Wilson
Government is merely an attempt to express the conscience of everybody, the average conscience of the nation, in the rules that everybody is commanded to obey. That is all it is.
More by Woodrow Wilson
“Benevolence does not consist in those who are prosperous pitying and helping those who are not. It consists in fellow feeling that puts you upon actually the same level with the fellow who suffers.”
“There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to suceed and be great. Our thought has been 'Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself,' while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have a chance to look out for themselves.”
“They do not need our praise. They do not need that our admiration should sustain them. There is no immortality that is safer than theirs. We come not for their sakes but for our own, in order that we may drink at the same springs of inspiration from which they themselves drank.”
More on Government
“It is important that we should never lose sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments.”
“Those who bear equally the burthens of Government should equally participate of its benefits.”
“Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.”
More on Conscience
“The color of the king doth come and go,Between his purpose and his conscience,Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set:His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.”
“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
“The worst thing that can happen to a good teacher is to get a bad conscience about her profession because she feels herself hopeless as a psychologist.”