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Self-government Quotes

Browse 144 quotes about Self-government.

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Self-government Quotes

“It behooves our citizens to be on their guard, to be firm in their principles, and full of confidence in themselves. We are able to preserve our self-government if we will but think so. - Thomas Jefferson Too much of our emphases and struggle has simply been in terms of confrontation and not enough recognition of how much spiritual, moral force is involved in the people who are struggling.”

PeopleIfsThinkingSelfEnoughGovernmentAbleSpiritualPoliticalForceTermMoralPrinciplesStruggleToo MuchCitizensInvolvedRecognitionPreservesFirmEmphasisConfrontationSelf-government
Author:Grace Lee Boggs
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“We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government.”

MadeSelfGovernmentFatherCommonLibertyIntelligentExperimentsCommon SensePresidentialCan NotOur FatherSelf-governmentFerventOverestimate
Book:Inaugural Speeches from the Presidents of the United States - Complete Edition
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“Despotism has forever had a powerful hold upon the world. Autocratic government, not self-government, has been the prevailing state of mankind. The record of past history is the record, not of the success of republics, but of their failure.”

WorldHas BeensSelfStatesGovernmentPastPowerfulForeverRecordsMankindRevolutionRepublicDespotismPrevailingSelf-government
Book:The Price of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses
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“If the layman cannot participate in decision making, he will have to turn himself over, essentially blind, to a hermetic elite. ... [The fundamental question becomes] are we still capable of self-government and therefore freedom? Margaret Mead wrote in a 1959 issue of Daedalus about scientists elevated to the status of priests. Now there is a name for this elevation, when you are in the hands of-one hopes-a benevolent elite, when you have no control over your political decisions. From the point of view of John Locke, the name for this is slavery.”

IfsStillsSelfHandsGovernmentPoliticalTurnsNamesFreedomDecisionViewsIssuesCapableScientistFundamentalsSlaveryBlindPoint Of ViewDecision MakingPriestsOver YouElitesBenevolentElevationSelf-governmentLaymanMeadPolitical DecisionsDaedalus
Author:Gerald Holton
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“All great enterprises have a pearl of faith at their core, and this must be ours: that Americans are still a people born to liberty. That they retain the capacity for self-government. That, addressed as free-born, autonomous men and women of God-given dignity, they will rise yet again to drive back a mortal enemy.”

PeopleMenStillsSelfGovernmentGivenBornLibertyEnemyMen And WomenCapacityDignityCoreMortalsEnterprisePearlsAutonomousSelf-governmentMortal EnemiesWomen Of God
Author:Mitch Daniels
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“We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts.... Self-government means self-reliance.”

WayMeanSelfGovernmentActionDemandConsequencePatriotSelf RelianceMiraculousRelianceSelf-government
Book:Calvin Coolidge says: dispatches written by former-president Coolidge and syndicated to newspapers in 1930-1931 : gathered for issuance in book form on the one-hundredth anniversary of Mr. Coolidge's birth, 4 July 1972
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“There are men so incorrigibly lazy that no inducement that you can offer will tempt them to work; so eaten up by vice that virtue is abhorrent to them, and so inveterately dishonest that theft is to them a master passion. When a human being has reached that stage, there is only one course that can be rationally pursued. Sorrowfully, but remorselessly, it must be recognized that he has become lunatic, morally demented, incapable of self-government, and that upon him, therefore, must be passed the sentence of permanent seclusion from a world in which he is not fit to be at large.”

MenWorldHumansSelfGovernmentPassionCoursesHuman BeingsVirtueStageMastersFitOffersVicesSentencesPermanentLazyLazinessIncapablePursuedTheftLunaticSelf-governmentSeclusionDementedAbhorrent
Book:In Darkest England, and the Way Out
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“Tax time approaches, and Americans are as always paying H & R Block billions to help them save some of their wealth from their ravenous government. Pitiful, in a way: it underlines the grim but unacknowledged fact that the government is their enemy and they have to hire protection from it. But don't we enjoy 'self-government'? Well, if we have it, I'd hardly say we enjoy it. True, we aren't being taxed by the monarch of Great Britain, but our American-born rulers claim far more of our wealth than the British monarchs ever did.”

IfsWayWellsSelfFactsHelpingGovernmentEnjoyBornWealthEnemyTaxesApproachClaimsBritishProtectionBillionsBlockBritainRulersGrimMonarchsGreat BritainPitifulSelf-government
Author:Joseph Sobran
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“Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will; collections of men by that of their majority; for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men.”

MenSelfBodyHandsGovernmentEarthLawIndividualChangeNaturalExerciseMajorityEvery ManCollectionsNatural LawSelf-government
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State
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“The basis for building a Christian society is evangelism and missions that lead to a widespread Christian revival, so that the great mass of earth's inhabitants will place themselves under Christ's protection, and then voluntarily use his covenantal laws for self-government. Christian reconstruction begins with personal conversion to Christ and self-government under God's law; then it spreads to others through revival; and only later does it bring comprehensive changes in civil law, when the vast majority of voters voluntarily agree to live under biblical blueprints.”

DoeSelfUseGovernmentEarthChristianLawChristBuildingMassBasesAgreeMajoritySpreadMissionsProtectionConversionVotersBiblicalRevivalComprehensiveEvangelismReconstructionBlueprintsSelf-government
Author:Gary North
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“Our Founding Fathers deliberately used the Bible as their guide. They tried to ensure that schools, likewise, use the Bible to teach Christian self-government, the true source of liberty. These Scriptural principles were so instilled in the minds of our forefathers that they would fight and die for liberty. This divine fight, however, is not easily won our arch foe is ruthless in enslaving mankind.”

MindSelfUseGovernmentSchoolChristianUsedDiesFightingFatherLibertyPrinciplesTeachMankindDivineSourceGuidesFoundingFoeRuthlessOur Founding FathersForefathersArchesSelf-government
Author:Richard S. Wheeler
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“An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens.”

SelfGovernmentNationsCitizensExerciseEducatedEnlightenedRepublicIndispensableImperativesSuitableSelf-governmentCitizenryOversight
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers... Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them for ourselves.”

IfsThinkingKnowsBelieveLittlesStillsSelfGovernmentAsksFatherOur LivesPlansRevolutionIntellectualCapacityAbandonElitesFoundingAmerican RevolutionSelf-government
Book:Speaking my mind: selected speeches
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“I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance and one night late it came to me this way. We could not leave (the Philippines) to themselves-they were unfit for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was. There was nothing left for us to do but take them all and educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them.”

WaySelfLightGovernmentNightLeftLateTyrannyUpliftingKneesGuidanceAnarchyTyrantsEducateAlmightySpainOne NightPhilippinesAlmighty GodFilipinoSelf-government
Author:William McKinley
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“Politics is the practical exercise of the art of self-government, and somebody must attend to it if we are to have self-government; somebody must study it, and learn the art, and exercise patience and sympathy and skill to bring the multitude of opinions and wishes of self-governing people into such order that some prevailing opinion may be expressed and peaceably accepted. Otherwise, confusion will result either in dictatorship or anarchy. The principal ground of reproach against any American citizen should be that he is not a politician. Everyone ought to be, as Lincoln was.”

PeopleIfsShouldMayArtSelfGovernmentOrderWishResultsOpinionStudyOughtCitizensPoliticianExerciseSkillsAcceptedPracticalsConfusionAnarchyDictatorshipPrincipalMultitudesGoverningReproachPrevailingAmerican CitizensSelf-government
Author:Elihu Root
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