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Opinion Quotes

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Opinion Quotes

“The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.”

People Persons Government Opinion Development Authority Property Patriotic Public Opinion

Book:Literary and historical miscellanies

Source: Literary and historical miscellanies

“It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack.”

Giving Government Opinion Characteristics Censorship Credibility

Author:Voltaire

“We are bound to maintain public liberty, and, by the example of our own systems, to convince the world that order and law, religion and morality, the rights of conscience, the rights of persons, and the rights of property, may all be preserved and secured, in the most perfect manner, by a government entirely and purely elective. If we fail in this, our disaster will be significant, and will furnish an argument, stronger than has yet been found, in support of those opinions which maintain that government can rest safely on nothing but power and coercion.”

Source: A Discourse, Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1820: In Commemoration of the First Settlement of New-England

“Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government?”

Believe Government Opinion Democracy Influence Public Opinion Textbooks Fillers

Author:Voltaire

“Government has no Right to hurt a hair of the head of an Atheist, for his Opinions. Let him have a care of his Practices.”

Government Care Hurt Opinion Practice Hair Atheist

Author:John Adams

“I call government that works the best for people open society, which is basically just another more general term for a democracy that is - you call it maybe a liberal democracy. It's not only majority rule but also respect for minorities and minority opinions and the rule of law. So it's really a sort of institutional democracy.”

People Government Law Term Opinion Democracy Majority Minorities Rule Of Law Majority Rule Liberal Democracy

Author:George Soros

“As we know from our government, the more power you have, the more of a bureaucrat you are, and the more ego you have invested in being right, the greater the odds are that you will never change your opinion.”

Knows Government Opinion Greater Ego Odds Never Change Bureaucrats

Author:Richard Linklater

“The knowledge of the individual citizen is of less value than the knowledge of science. The former is the opinion of individuals. It is merely subjective and is excluded from policies. The latter is objective - defined by science and promulgated by expert spokesmen. This objective knowledge is viewed as a commodity which can be refined... and fed into a process, now called decision-making. This new mythology of governance by the manipulation of knowledge-stock inevitably erodes reliance on government by people.”

“Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the law least interferes with private affairs; where the government is least felt; where the individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest influence; where the administrative powers are fewest and simplest; where taxes are lightest and most nearly equal”

People Country Government Law Found Individual Felt Moral Opinion Influence Taxes Equal Affair Peaceful Interfere Simplest Scope Administrative Free Opinion

Book:The Law

Source: The Law

“[We are] no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.”

Source: The New Freedom A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People

“Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?”

Men Should Believe Ideas Government Opinion Speech Weapons Gun Presses Opposition Freedom Of Speech Printing Freedom Of The Press Pernicious Printing Press Lethal Weapon

Author:Vladimir Lenin

“In the absence of government each man learns to think, to act for himself, without counting on the support of an outside force which, however vigilant one supposes it to be, can never answer all social needs. Man, thus accustomed to seek his well-being only through his own efforts, raises himself in his own opinion as he does in the opinion of others; his soul becomes larger and stronger at the same time.”

Thinking Men Needs Wells Doe Soul Government Force Social Answers Effort Opinion Support Stronger Raises Absence Well Being Accustomed Counting Vigilant

Author:Alexis de Tocqueville

“Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen.”

Government Political Spirit Order Liberty Opinion Security Citizens Tranquillity

Author:Baron de Montesquieu

“The most absurd public opinion polls are those on taxes. Now, if there is one thing we know about taxes, it is that people do not want to pay them. If they wanted to pay them, there would be no need for taxes. People would gladly figure out how much of their money that the government deserves and send it in. And yet we routinely hear about opinion polls that reveal that the public likes the tax level as it is and might even like it higher. Next they will tell us that the public thinks the crime rate is too low, or that the American people would really like to be in more auto accidents.”

“It is not for us to give an assessment to what happened, but in our opinion the reputation of British science, the reputation of the British government, and the reputation of the title 'Sir' has sustained heavy damage.”

Giving Government Opinion Happened Heavy British Reputation Titles Damage Assessment British Government

Author:Andrey Illarionov

“A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.”

Source: The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788

“Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”

Source: The Fœderalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favor of the New Constitution, as Agreed Upon by the Fœderal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from the Original Text. With an Historical Introduction and Notes

“The opinions of men should not be the object of any government. Our civil rights are no more dependent on our religious beliefs than they are dependent upon our thoughts about geometry or physics!”

Men Should Government Belief Religious Opinion Rights Objects Physics Civil Rights Dependent Our Thoughts Geometry Religious Belief

Author:Thomas Jefferson