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The chief business of a government is like that of a nurse, to hinder those who are under its care from doing mischief to themselves.

— Soame Jenyns

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More quotes by Soame Jenyns

Omnipotence cannot work contradictions, it can only effect all possible things.

A Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil (1757)

If christian nations therefore were nations of christians, all war would be impossible and unknown among them.

A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion (1776)

Great men whilst living must expect disgraces,
Dead they're ador'd—when none desire their places.

Those who profess outrageous zeal for the liberty and prosperity of their country, and at the same time infringe her laws, affront her religion and debauch her people, are but despicable quacks.

A Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil (1757)

Thousands are collected from the idle and the extravagant for seeing dogs, horses, men and monkeys perform feats of activity, and, in some places, for the privilege only of seeing one another.

Works (1790)

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Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1589)

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

James Madison

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Soame Jenyns (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.