"It is a maxim of wise government..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are.
More by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
“Beauty vanishes; virtue is lasting.”
“No doubt you are right... there would be far less suffering amongst mankind if men... did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity.”
More on Government
“Virtually everything that the government does costs more than when the same thing is done in private industry - whether it is building housing, running prisons, collecting garbage, or innumerable other things. Why in the world would we imagine that health care would be the exception?”
“That government is best which governs least.”
“The leaders should all relate to this principle: the governed must be as happy as possible.”
More on Wisdom
“I know the American people. I've met a lot of them. I've met a lot more of them than any columnist has, or any talking head on TV has. And they're pretty sophisticated.”
“Unknown Make new friends but keep the old ones; one is silver and the other's gold.”
“Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other.”