Political Institutions Quotes - Page 2

• [T]he kingdom of God... is to be a political institution that shall hold sway over all the earth; to which all other governments will be subordinate and by which they will be dominated.

  B. H. Roberts

  Government, Political, Earth

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• Political revolutions aim to change political institutions in ways that those institutions themselves prohibit. Their success therefore necessitates the partial relinquishment of one set of institutions in favor of another, and in the interim, society is not fully governed by institutions at all

  Thomas Kuhn

  Political Revolution, Favors, Way

  Thomas S. Kuhn (2012). “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.93, University of Chicago Press

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• While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself and his fellow men.

  John Quincy Adams

  Powerful, Blessed, Men

  John Quincy Adams (1965). “John Quincy Adams and American continental empire: letters, papers and speeches”, Chicago, Quadrangle Books

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• My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth year from its birth, the independence of the United States. A remarkable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined in future history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind.

  John Adams

  Memorable, Race, Years

  "A Selection of Eulogies Pronounced in the Several States". Book by D.F. Robinson and Company, 1826.

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• All political institutions are manifestations and materializations of power; they petrify and decay as soon as the living power of the people ceases to uphold them.

  Hannah Arendt

  Power, People, Political

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.150, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Americans also seem to believe that the monarchy is a kind of mediaeval hangover, encumbered by premodern notions of decorum; the reality is that the British monarchy, for good or ill, is a modern political institution - perhaps the first modern political institution.

  Adam Gopnik

  Hangover, Believe, Reality

  The New Yorker, September 29, 1997.

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• The aim of political institutions like the United Nations is to draw the line between struggle and conflict and to make it possible for nations to stay on the right side of that line.

  Javier Perez de Cuellar

  Struggle, Political, Lines

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• There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Country, Law, Common Sense

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2003). “Democracy in America”, p.101, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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• Religion, which never intervenes directly in the government of American society, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Political, Firsts

  Alexis de Tocqueville (2007). “Democracy in America: An Annotated Text Backgrounds Interpretations”, W W Norton & Company Incorporated

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• ...I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of individuals... I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty, subversive of democratic political institutions, and self-defeating in their purpose.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Gun, Self, Law

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• People who live in states have as a rule never experienced the state of nature and vice-versa, and have no practical possibility of moving from the one to the other ... On what grounds, then, do people form hypotheses about the relative merits of state and state of nature? ... My contention here is that preferences for political arrangements of society are to a large extent produced by these very arrangements, so that political institutions are either addictive like some drugs, or allergy-inducing like some others, or both, for they may be one thing for some people and the other for others.

  Anthony de Jasay

  Moving, Government, People

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• The Christian church does not ask the U. S. Supreme Court, or any other human court, what marriage is. Marriage is a pre-political institution defined by our Creator - for His glory and for human flourishing.

  Albert Mohler

  Christian, Political, Church

  FaceBook post by Albert Mohler from Jun 27, 2013

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• Religion is a set of social and political institutions and spirituality is a private pursuit which may or may not take place in a church setting.

  D. Patrick Miller

  Political, Church, May

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• The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine the animadvert upon all political institutions is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact, to their existence, that without it we must fall into despotism and anarchy.

  William C. Bryant

  Fall, Political, Liberty

  "The Death of Lovejoy" by William C. Bryant (November 18, 1837), as quoted in William Cullen Bryant II "Power For Sanity: Selected Editorials of William Cullen Bryant, 1829-61" (p. 78), 1994.

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• This is not the time for political fun and games. This is the time for a new beginning. I ask you now to put aside any feelings of frustration or helplessness about our political institutions and join me in this dramatic but responsible plan to reduce the enormous burden of Federal taxation on you and your family.

  Ronald Reagan

  Fun, New Beginnings, Frustration

  Reagan, Ronald (1982). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1981”, p.668, Best Books on

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• No light privilege is it to have a hand in building up the moral life of these new communities; no common honour surely to help to lay side by side with the foundations of their free political institutions the broad and deep foundations of the Church of God.

  Henry Parry Liddon

  Light, Hands, Building Up

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• But cool and candid people will at once reflect, that the purest of human blessings must have a portion of alloy in them, that the choice must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT good; and that in every political institution, a power to advance the public happiness, involves a discretion which may be misapplied and abused.

  James Madison

  Blessing, People, Evil

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Henry Barton Dawson (1864). “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”, p.277, New York : C. Scribner ; London : Sampson Low

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• The safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.

  James Madison

  Happiness, Safety, Political

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2003). “The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus”, p.216, Cambridge University Press

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• The idea of a world commonweal has to be established as the criterion of political institutions, and also as the criterion of general conduct in hundreds of millions of brains. It has to dominate education everywhere in the world. When that end is achieved, then the world state will be achieved.

  H. G. Wells

  Ideas, Political, Brain

  H. G. Wells (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of H. G. Wells”, p.15078, Delphi Classics

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• Let it be immediately added, however, that this economic independence and prosperity has always been absolutely associated in the American mind with free political institutions.

  Herbert Croly

  Political, Independence, Mind

  Herbert Croly (2005). “The Promise of American Life”, p.10, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The principle of my political life ... is that all amelioration and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Country, Mean, Evil

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• Republican patience with how unionism deals with the political institutions, and with key issues like equality and human rights, will be tested because, obviously, there will be a battle a day on these matters. So lets face up to all of this with our eyes wide open.

  Gerry Adams

  Patience, Eye, Equality

  Gerry Adams (2007). “An Irish Eye”, Brandon Books

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• Unlike national markets, which tend to be supported by domestic regulatory and political institutions, global markets are only 'weakly embedded'. There is no global lender of last resort, no global safety net, and of course, no global democracy. In other words, global markets suffer from weak governance, and are therefore prone to instability, inefficiency, and weak popular legitimacy.

  Dani Rodrik

  Safety, Political, Suffering

  Dani Rodrik (2012). “The Globalization Paradox: Why Global Markets, States, and Democracy Can't Coexist”, p.13, OUP Oxford

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• The only standard we have for judging all of our social, economic, and political institutions and arrangements as just or unjust, as good or bad, as better or worse, derives from our conception of the good life for man on earth, and from our conviction that, given certain external conditions, it is possible for men to make good lives for themselves by their own efforts.

  Mortimer Adler

  Life, Men, Judging

  Mortimer Jerome Adler (1991). “Desires, Right & Wrong: The Ethics of Enough”, MacMillan Publishing Company

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• You can judge the moral bearing of a political system, a political institution, a political man by the degree of danger they attach to the fact of being observed through the eyes of a satiric poet.

  Roque Dalton

  Eye, Men, Judging

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