"Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but they have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
“Somehow strangely the vice of men gets well represented and protected but their virtue has none to plead its cause - nor any charter of immunities and rights.”
“Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.”
More on Politics
“I would like to think that we have made much more progress, that we've come much further, to have someone like a Donald Trump to emerge as the nominee of a major political party.”
“Germany had the misfortune of becoming poisoned, first because of plenty, and then because of want.”
“I would remind you the lesser of two socialists is still a socialist.”
More on Government
“Say did you read in the papers about a bunch of Women up in British Columbia as a protest against high taxes, sit out in the open naked, and they wouldent put their clothes on? The authorities finally turned a Sprayer that you use on trees, on 'em. That may lead into quite a thing. Woman comes into the tax office nude, saying I won't pay. Well they can't search her and get anything. It sounds great. How far is it to British Columbia?”
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”
“No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.”