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That’s what governments are there for, to keep good things from happening.

— Daniel Quinn My Ishmael (1997)

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Government

More quotes by Daniel Quinn

In fact, of course, there is no secret knowledge; no one knows anything that can’t be found on a shelf in the public library.

Ishmael (1992)

The problem is that man’s conquest of the world has itself devastated the world.

Ishmael (1992)

Six billion of you wake up every morning and start devouring the world.

My Ishmael (1997)

This is precisely how someone speaks who imagines that he is the world’s divinely appointed ruler.

Ishmael (1992)

Any culture will become an obscenity when blown up into a universal world culture to which all must belong.

The Story of B (1996)

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