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'If the Government gets hold of you they'll flog you to death; if the Buddhists get hold of you they'll starve you to death.'

— Arthur Waley Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942)

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More quotes by Arthur Waley

Though the snow-drifts of Yoshino were heaped across his path, doubt not that whither his heart is set, his footsteps shall tread out their way.

The Tale of Genji (1925)

Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow.

The Tale of Genji (1925)

Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.

The Tale of Genji (1925)

It is in general the unexplored that attracts us.

The Tale of Genji (1925)

'Nothing in the world is difficult,' said the Patriarch, 'it is only our own thoughts that make things seem so.'

Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942)

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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: Arthur Waley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.