Vilfredo Pareto Quotes

Government is not infallible. Government is only an executive control, a centralized authority for the purpose of expressing the will of the people; before you have a government you must have the people. Without the people there can be no government. The government must be, therefore, an expression of the will of the people.

Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.

The American citizen must be made aware that today a relatively small group of people is proclaiming its purposes to be the will of the People. That elitist approach to government must be repudiated.

Rather than living in a democracy, we are living in a benevolent oligarchy.

There is nothing more dangerous than a government of the many controlled by the few.

Governments are based pincipally on force and deception. Democratic governments are based chiefly on deception, other governments on force. And democratic governments, if you get too uppity, give up on the deception and resort to brute force, as a lot of us found out in the sixites. Those who didn't find out in the sixites will find out in the near future because we're going to have a rerun.

Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions-a government of force, and a government of laws; the first is the definition of despotism-the last, of liberty.

People live with the illusion that we have a democratic system, but it's only the outward form of one. In reality we live in a plutocracy, a government of the rich.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.

It's the tyranny of an oligarchy that I'm concerned about.

Either force or corruption has been the principle of every modern government.

Aristocracy is that form of government in which education and discipline are qualifications for suffrage or office holding.

Government means politics, and interference by government carries with it always the implication of coercion. We may accept the expanding power of bureaucrats so long as we bask in their friendly smile. But it is a dangerous temptation. Today politics may be our friend and tomorrow we may be its victims.

Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.

Governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people.

The clinical definition of "fascism" is when private concentrated economic power takes government away from the people, turns government into a guarantor, a subsidizer, a covering of corporate power.

As soon as people drop the reins on government, government will leash the people.

He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap.

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.

The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.

Freedom for the government is enslavement for the people. When the government is free the people are enslaved. When the government is contained then the people are free.

Between a tyrant and a prince there is this single or chief difference, that the latter obeys the law and rules the people by its dictates, accounting himself as but their servant.

A popular government wields a moral force, which is infinitely superior to the physical force that the foreign government could summon to its assistance.

Our constitutions purport to be established by 'the people,' and, in theory, 'all the people' consent to such government as the constitutions authorize. But this consent of 'the people' exists only in theory. It has no existence in fact. Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.