Skip to content

Quotes from The State — Randolph Bourne

1886–1918 United States

← All quotes by Randolph Bourne

9 quotes

We cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State.

The State (1918)

War is the health of the State and it is during war that one best understands the nature of that institution.

The State (1918)

Indeed, it is not too much to say that the normal relation of States is war.

The State (1918)

War is the health of the State.

The State (1918)

The State is a jealous God and will brook no rivals. Its sovereignty must pervade everyone and all feeling must be run into the stereotyped forms of romantic patriotic militarism which is the traditional expression of the State herd-feeling.

The State (1918)

War is the health of the State. Only when the State is at war does the modern society function with that unity of sentiment, simple uncritical patriotic devotion, cooperation of services, which have always been the ideal of the State lover.

The State (1918)

The President is an elected king, but the fact that he is elected has proved to be of far less significance in the course of political evolution than the fact that he is pragmatically a king. … Kings have often been selected this way in European history, and the Roman Emperor was regularly chosen by election.

The State (1918)

The American Revolution began with certain latent hopes that it might turn into a genuine break with the State ideal. The Declaration of Independence announced doctrines that were utterly incompatible not only with the century-old conception of the Divine Right of Kings, but also with the Divine Right of the State. … If revolution is justifiable a State may even be criminal sometimes in resisting its own extinction.

The State (1918)

The modern State is not the rational and intelligent product of modern men desiring to live harmoniously together with security of life, property, and opinion. It is not an organization which has been devised as pragmatic means to a desired social end. All the idealism with which we have been instructed to endow the State is the fruit of our retrospective imaginations.

The State (1918)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Randolph Bourne (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.