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He knows, of course, that a criminal organization like the Verbover ring can’t flourish without the ready services of bagman and secret lobbyists, without regular applications of grease and body English to the works of government.

— Michael Chabon The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)

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Government

More quotes by Michael Chabon

Miracles prove nothing except to those whose faith is bought very cheap, sir.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)

Every generation loses the messiah it has failed to deserve.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)

He’s too superstitious not to see this as a bad omen, but when you're a pessimist, all omens are bad.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)

He didn’t want to be what he wasn’t, he didn’t know how to be what he was.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)

The rest of Sitka’s homicides are so-called crimes of passion, which is a shorthand way of expressing the mathematical product of alcohol and firearms.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)

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