"What government is the best? That which..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
What government is the best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.[Ger., Welche Regierung die beste sei? Diejenige die uns lehrt uns selbst zu regieren.]
More by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on!”
“Profoundness, genius, spontaneity, merit, nobility, ingenuity, voice propriety, feeling, discernment, sensibility, good taste, great tone, rightness, courtliness, vivacity, boldness, style, freshness, harmony, perfection, imagination, purity, correctness. The greatest writer of all times. God's most astonishing creation.”
“Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look around.”
More on Government
“There is an important sense in which government is distinctive from administration. One is perpetual, the other is temporary and changeable. A man may be loyal to his government and yet oppose the particular principles and methods of administration.”
“The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it ... If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?”
“Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government?”
More on Self Governance
“What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing! I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable and tremendous! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and falacious! Would to God that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend.”
“A Swaraj government means a government established by the free joint will of Hindus, Mussalmans and others.”
“Though, when a people shall have become incapable of governing themselves and fit for a master, it is of little consequence from what quarter he comes.”