Self-government Quotes - Page 4

• The Philippines are ours forever. They are not capable of self-government. How could they be? They are not a self-governing race.

  Albert J. Beveridge

  Travel, Home, Race

  Maiden speech in the Senate. "Congressional Record", Senate, 56th Congress, 1st session, pp. 704-712, en.wikisource.org. January 09, 1900.

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• I have a job to pay attention. It is my number one duty as a human being - to earn an experiment in self-government every day by spotlighting cockroaches who violate their oath to the US constitution and wipe their ass with the US Constitution.

  Ted Nugent

  Jobs, Government, Self

  "More Than 10 Questions with Ted Nugent. The Man, His Views, His Music & The New Album ShutUp & Jam". Interview with Mark Capuano, music.allaccess.com. July 23, 2014.

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• Our Founding Fathers well understood that concentrated power is the enemy of liberty and the rights of man. They knew that the American experiment in individual liberty, free enterprise and republican self-government could succeed only if power were widely distributed. And since in any society social and political power flow from economic power, they saw that wealth and property would have to be widely distributed among the people of the country. The truth of this insight is immediately apparent.

  Ronald Reagan

  Country, Wisdom, Father

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• Men should do their actual living and working in communities small enough to permit of genuine self-government and the assumption of personal responsibilities, federated into larger units in such a way that the temptation to abuse great power should not arise.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Responsibility, Power, Men

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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.

  William McKinley

  Uplifting, Night, Light

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• Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression. This is because thoughtful, bold and independent minds are essential to the wise and considered self-government.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Wise, Independent, Thoughtful

  Quoted by Z. Chafee Jr. in Atlantic Monthly, January 1955.

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• We spoke and acted as if, given the opportunity for self-government, we would quickly create utopias. Instead injustice, even tyranny, is rampant.

  Julius Nyerere

  Opportunity, Government, Self

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• The people cannot look to legislation generally for success. Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil. It can provide no substitute for the rewards of service. It can, of course, care for the defective and recognize distinguished merit. The normal must care for themselves. Self-government means self-support.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Character, Mean, Government

  Calvin Coolidge (1924). “Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings”

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• [Short Talk on Sylvia Plath] Did you see her mother on television? She said plain, burned things. She said I thought it an excellent poem but it hurt me. She did not say jungle fear. She did not say jungle hatred wild jungle weeping chop it back chop it. She said self-government she said end of the road. She did not say humming in the middle of the air what you came for chop.

  Anne Carson

  Mother, Hurt, Government

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• He became another data point in the American experiment of self-government, an experiment statistically skewed from the outset, because it wasn't the people with sociable genes who fled the crowded Old World for the new continent; it was the people who didn't get along well with others.

  Jonathan Franzen

  Government, Self, Data

  Jonathan Franzen (2010). “Freedom: A Novel”, p.444, Macmillan

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• People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well

  Charles Colson

  Government, Self, Tyrants

  Charles W. Colson, Nancy Pearcey (1999). “How Now Shall We Live?”, p.373, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

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• 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

  Thinking, Government, Self

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.320

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• The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by the Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian people and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society. And that's what's been happening.

  Pat Robertson

  Christian, Atheist, Government

  TV Series "The 700 Club", www.imdb.com. (1966- ).

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• The necessity for external government to man is in an inverse ratio to the vigor of his self-government. Where the last is most complete, the first is least wanted. Hence, the more virtue the more liberty.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Men, Self, Liberty

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge (1854). “The complete works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an introductory essay upon his philosophical and theological opinions”, p.458

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• Mr. President, passage of this bill will visit the heel of oppression on all the people, vitiate their constitutional shield against tyranny, and materially hasten the destruction of the best design for self-government yet devised by the minds of men. Its passage will mark one of the darkest days in history

  Strom Thurmond

  Men, Self, People

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• What America needs is to hold to its ancient and well-charted course. Our country was conceived in the theory of local self-government. It has been dedicated by long practice to that wise and beneficent policy. It is the foundation principle of our system of liberty. It makes the largest promise to the freedom and development of the individual. Its preservation is worth all the effort and all the sacrifice that it may cost.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Wise, Country, Sacrifice

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• A first attempt to recover the right of self government may fail, so may a second, a third, etc. But as a younger and more instructed race comes on, the sentiment becomes more and more intuitive, and a fourth, a fifth, or some subsequent one of the ever renewed attempts will ultimately succeed... To attain all this, however, rivers of blood must yet flow, and years of desolation pass over; yet the object is worth rivers of blood and years of desolation. For what inheritance so valuable can man leave to his posterity?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Race, Self

  Thomas Jefferson, Andrew M. Allison (1983). “The Real Thomas Jefferson”, Natl Center for Constitutional

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• 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.

  Grace Lee Boggs

  Spiritual, Struggle, Thinking

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• I have so much confidence in the good sense of man, and his qualifications for self-government, that I am never afraid of the issue where reason is left free to exert her force.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Self, Issues

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.111, Rowman & Littlefield

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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.

  Richard S. Wheeler

  Christian, Father, School

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• The advent of self-government for the Iraqi people is a watershed moment in their history.

  Todd Akin

  Government, Self, People

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• Keep steady in the view of the great principles for which you contend. The safety of your homes and the lives of all you hold dear depend upon your courage and exertions. Let each man resolve to be victorious, and that the right of self government, liberty and peace shall find him a defender.

  Robert E. Lee

  War, Home, Men

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• China is a country with a record of continuous self-government going back 4,000 years, the only society that has achieved this. One must start with the assumption that they must have learnt something about the requirements for survival, and it is not always to be assumed that we know it better than they do.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Country, Government, Self

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• Peoples nurtured on freedom and self-government judge any other form of polity to be deformed and unnatural. Those who are used to monarchy do the same .

  Michel de Montaigne

  Self, Government, Judging

  Michel de Montaigne (1991). “The essays of Michel de Montaigne”, Lane, Allen

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• No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see... all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Exercise, Government, Self

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution”, p.292, Algora Publishing

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