Evan Meredith Jenkins Quotes

The people are difficult to govern: It is because those in authority are too fond of action [change].

Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear.

The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.

Rulers come and go; governments end and forms of government change; but sovereignty survives.

Government is nothing but regulated force; force is its appropriate claim upon your attention

Punishment alone governs all created beings.

Governmental power is the faculty to beat into submission all those who would dare to disobey the orders issued by the authorities. … Every governmental action is backed by constables, prison guards, and executioners. However beneficial a governmental action may appear, it is ultimately made possible only by the government's power to compel its subjects to do what many of them would not do if they were not threatened by the police and the penal courts.

The single definition of government I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's the organization which claims the right to kill people who won't do what it wants.

Where might is mixed with wit, there is too good an accord in a government.

Law, without force, is impotent.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.

There are two fairly standard approaches to political power used by those who seek it. Some seek power with the assumption that the citizenry are the source of legitimacy and are to be treated with respect. Others concentrate on identifying whatever insecurities there are within the citizenry and on exploiting them.'

Democracy is good, provided the government can function.

Coercion is the basis of every law in the universe.

Government is force.

But political checks will no more act of themselves, than a bridle will direct a horse without a rider.

In government it is order that matters.

Reward and punishment are the twin instruments of power in the State; they must not be revealed to anyone.

The stronger the hold we are able to keep here the better the inhabitants will be pleased... They can't conceive an independent Arab government. Nor, I confess, can I. There is no one here who could run it

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.

If a great multitude of men should call one of their number King, unless this instituted Prince, appear in greater visible splendor then others, can reward those that obey and please him, and do the contrary to others; his Institution signifies little, even although he chance to have greater corporal or mental faculties, than any other of the number

All governments must maintain power by consent. Not by coercion.

A government can punish specific acts of spoliation; but no government can conscript cooperation.

The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.