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Government! Three-fourths parasitic and the rest stupid fumbling - oh, Harshaw concluded that man, a social animal, could not avoid government, any more than an individual could escape bondage to his bowels. But simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it "good." He wished that government would wander off and get lost! (96)


Robert A. Heinlein

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Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling—oh, he conceded that man,...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth Stupid fumbling.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN There's no question that any of us who are doing an honest job in government could do a lot bett...
BILL SCOTT Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more indiv...
THOMAS HOBBES There was a limit to how much a government could reduce its spending, but a Labour government would ...
JOSEPH MUSCAT I smiled at him as best I could and pushed the paper across the table before he could change his min...
JODI PICOULT Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil...
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgement a...
WILLIAM GODWIN [I used to believe] the government was the answer to all our problems. But the . . . government, I...
CHET HUNTLEY [I used to believe] the government was the answer to all our problems. But the . . . government, I'v...
CHET HUNTLEY People thought there was a good chance of an agreement coming out of these meetings but it's clear t...
CASS JOHNSON Sure the people are stupid: the human race is stupid. Sure Congress is an inefficient instrument of ...
BERNARD DEVOTO It was an absurd theory that by cutting taxes you would increase government revenues, because the gr...
SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON He could not escape and was badly beaten till he lost his consciousness.
GEORGE NINAN We were an experiment to see if a unit of government could perform in a self-supporting way - an att...
DAVE STROHMAIER I think there was an expectation created more by Government than anyone that media reform was on the...
GREG BAXTER An oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a scientist has; and so it it is reasonably certa...
MARK TWAIN In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move...
BRUCE BERESFORD When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also go...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, ...
SAINT AUGUSTINE If, for example, existing government intervention is minor, we shall attach a smaller weight to the ...
MILTON FRIEDMAN That was the difficulty of it. Lobbying is a First Amendment right and we would not want to in any w...
JO MANEY To support his austerely upholstered nest and its rabble staff he put forth minimum effort for maxim...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN To support his austerely upholstered nest and its rabble staff he put forth minimum effort for maxim...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN To me, technology was a means to an end to achieve the social justice goals, stronger democracy and ...
BETH SIMONE NOVECK The Democratic plan in the 'Affordable Care Act' has, I would say, more government support, ...
KATHLEEN SEBELIUS We will not earn any more money from the charter of these three vessels to the government than we wo...
TIM GALLAGHER The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The m...
WALTER BAGEHOT Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, but ...
SAINT AUGUSTINE Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564 Therefore Adam could have stood if he w...
JOHN CALVIN That is the crux of the matter. The government could conceivably ask for individual names of people ...
ANDREW KRCIK For the money that the U.S. federal government paid farmers between 1995 and 2003, ... the governmen...
CATO INSTITUTE If my ego was out of whack and I believed I could carry anything off, that would be a stupid risk. B...
KATHLEEN TURNER No matter how noble the objective of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human ...
ERIC HOFFER My opinion is the greatest reward that any government could get is the approval of the people. If th...
AUNG SAN SUU KYI In a government such as ours we have vigorous contests to determine who should lead. The recent elec...
MATT BLUNT A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore! Robert A
ROBERT HEINLEIN It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fail...
TONY BLAIR Our government should have done everything, should have spoken up very, very loudly, very, very publ...
BRIAN DEEGAN The government decided that confrontation was not a good solution, and to let it evolve politically.
JEHANGIR KARAMAT It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that ...
TONY BLAIR Remember though, your best weapon is between your ears and under your scalp -provided it's loaded.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN He may be a scholar, but he’s first a man who believes—with certain justification—that he was ...
ROBERT LUDLUM There was no formula. But after a year or two, seeing Lindsay walking down 125th Street in Harlem wa...
JAY KRIEGEL Nothing's more dull and negligent Than an old, lazy government, That knows no interest of stat...
SAMUEL BUTLER (1) You never believed in the meaning of this world, and you therefore deduced the idea that everything ...
ALBERT CAMUS Jefferson feared that Hamilton had plans radically at odds with the Constitution. As he saw it, Hami...
R.B. BERNSTEIN The marquis de Carabas was not a good man, and he knew himself well enough to be perfectly certain t...
NEIL GAIMAN Whereupon people would come barging into his sanctuary, asking stupid questions and making stupid de...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN 'Hispanic' was the term adopted by the government - by the Nixon government in particular - ...
ILAN STAVANS If the government decides on an increase of more than 30 %, the inflation rate would jump by two to ...
FAISAL BASRI Government is force, pure and simple. There's no way to sugar-coat that. And because government ...
HARRY BROWNE When I went to live in South Africa, I immediately began to understand what went wrong. Because here...
BINYAVANGA WAINAINA He was lonely because he could imagine himself as anything but himself and as anywhere but where he ...
WENDELL BERRY Unlimited power is the ideal thing when it is in safe hands. The despotism of heaven is the one abso...
MARK TWAIN If the British government is prepared to say that the Unionists will not have a veto over British go...
MARTIN MCGUINNESS We do not encourage people to own exotic animals, but this is America and people tend to do things t...
HENRY CABBAGE In addition to their power over government based on government financing and personal influence, ban...
CARROLL QUIGLEY The United States of America was originally an experiment. But it was an experiment in recognizing G...
MIKE HUCKABEE And having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the ha...
EDMUND BURKE When I first ran for public office, it was with the passion and idealism of a young man who believed...
JAMES MCGREEVEY Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not ins...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN The government was set to protect man from criminals – and the Constitution was written to protect...
AYN RAND What I'm thinking about more and more these days is simply the importance of transparency, and J...
ESTHER DYSON The U.S. invaded Vietnam because many in our government - Lyndon Johnson's best and brightest - ...
JAY PARINI Plato's system was . . . rent by an irreconcilable dualism of mind and body, spirit and matter, good...
JIMMY SWAGGART Jurgen loved London because he could get lost here. He said that it was the first time he could do t...
TEDDY SHERINGHAM National sovereignty is an obligation as well as an entitlement. A government that will not perform ...
RICHARD PERLE If the U.S. Government was a company, the deficit would be $5 trillion because they would have to ac...
MARC FABER Virginia enjoys an equal-to status with the federal government when it comes to meat inspection. Rig...
ANDREW SMITH A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather ...
LIONEL TRILLING He could not stand. It was not
That he could not thrive, he was born
With everything but t...
TED HUGHES An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.
CONFUCIUS What we did was get stories that showed the outrages in government and write them as hard as we coul...
ROWLAND EVANS there is no state or locality in this country that could sustain a storm like that and not be overwh...
GEORGE HADDOW It was a blow, in the sense that they failed to frighten off the government and it was proven that i...
ARI SHAVIT It was a blow, in the sense that they failed to frighten off the government, and it was proven that ...
ARI SHAVIT George Bush ran a campaign where he bragged about being an anti-intellectual, dismissing his Harvard...
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON The only index by which to judge a government or a way of life is by the quality of the people it ac...
ERIC HOFFER For the evil our government does, tinfoil hats are simply not required, and are indeed a detriment.
MIKE KLEPPER He was not a stupid man. He was managed by reasonably clever people who understood his value. But he...
DESMOND MORTON Because Republicans believe that the federal government is limited in its function-some have conclud...
RAND PAUL We don't need a weakened government but a strong government that would take responsibility for t...
VLADIMIR PUTIN I guess the most interesting thing about Gabriel was that he didn't seem to care at all what people ...
JOHN COREY WHALEY I have always been a critic of government policy. I was in government for more than five years. Befo...
JONATHAN MOYO Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didn't trust "Mothers of Borogravia...
TERRY PRATCHETT The massive infusion of government money only puts a band-aid over a hemorrhaging wound. If Kokomo w...
MICHAEL HARRIS One essential of a free government is that it rest wholly on voluntary support. And one certain proo...
LYSANDER SPOONER I was very excited about a currency that was not controlled by a central government, that could be a...
ERIK VOORHEES He wants to become the number one opponent of a government that is already weak. This was the only p...
CARLOS LARREATEGUI The government has no business telling an individual what kind of light bulb to buy.
MICHELE BACHMANN Well there are lots of things that could bring the government down, but my opposition can not bring ...
STEPHEN HARPER It was a bad idea, because I think that any government reorganization has to come in relatively smal...
WARREN RUDMAN His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one ti...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY The greatest bulwark against an overreaching government, as tyrants know, is a religious population....
BEN SHAPIRO This is a man who knows what his responsibilities are under the law. He knew that there was a govern...
CHARLIE LEONARD It is a power stronger than will. Could a stone escape from the laws of gravity? Impossible. Impossi...
ISIDORE DUCASSE LAUTREAMONT Our discussions with the king made it very clear that he is willing, ready and able to return to Afg...
DANA ROHRABACHER

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ROBERT A. HEINLEIN One man’s “magic” is another man’s engineering. “Supernatural” is a null word.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN I woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was not
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN A community where everyone is a ruthless murderer, with handy access to death-dealing devices, is a ...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Every general prohibition creates its bootleggers.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Heroism' often consists in keeping your head in an emergency and doing the best you can with what yo...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurtin...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Everybody lies about sex.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN The correct way to punctuate a sentence that states: "Of course it is none of my business, but -- " ...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Work is not an end in itself; there must always be time enough for love.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Never tease an old dog; he might have one bite left.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Take big bites. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal ...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet you can't win.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN I came, I saw, she conquered."
The original Latin seems to have been garbled.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you ...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Live and learn, or you don't live long.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Be wary of strong drink, it can make you shoot at the tax collector...and miss.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodn...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN There is no such thing as "Just a cat.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none;...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Find out what you want to do, then do it. Never talk yourself into doing something you don’t want....
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Television leaves no external scars.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Some people insist that ‘mediocre’ is better than ‘best.’ They delight in clipping wings bec...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Dress yourself in heavy fishing waders, put on an overcoat and boxing gloves and a bucket over your ...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Library science was the foundation of all sciences.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN You can't believe what a lovely planet we have until you see her from outside.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN The Mother Thing makes our world.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Everybody else specializes. Daddy knows everything, and he puts the pieces together.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN More depended on the student than on the school.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Mother had the social restraint of an ambassador.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN I needed a space suit the way a pig needs a pipe organ.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN