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"Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay."
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"Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle."

"Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom."

"I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses."

"I am concerned about the whole man. I am concerned about what the people, using their government as an instrument and a tool, can do toward building the whole man, which will mean a better society and a better world."

"The Federal Government should be the last resort, not the first. Ask if a potential program is truly a federal responsibility or whether it can better be handled privately, by voluntary organizations, or by local or state governments."

"Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure."

"It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for."

"We are a forward-looking people, and we must have a forward-looking government."

"The government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion."

"The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government."
Explore more quotes by Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Ozymandias'I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear:'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away."

"Joy, joy, joy!Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers,And the future is dark, and the present is spread,Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head."

"History is: Fables agreed upon - Voltaire The biography of a few stout and earnest persons - Ralph Waldo Emerson A vast Mississippi of falsehood - Matthew Arnold A confused heap of facts - Lord Chesterfield A cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man."

"All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth."

"In a drama of the highest order there is little food for censure or hatred; it teaches rather self-knowledge and self-respect."

"War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade."

"Love is free; to promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed; such a vow in both cases excludes us from all inquiry."
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