P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Government is about stealing and nothing else. That's all it's ever been about. That's all it'll ever be about.

Throughout history government has served as a vehicle for the organization of hatred and oppression, benefiting no one except those who are ambitious and ruthless enough to gain control of it.

You can't trust anybody with power.

If monarchy is corrupting - and it is - wait till you see what overt empire does to us.

Government by blackmail is incompatible with democracy.

dangerous demagogue corrupt pervert, prostitute, debauch cursed.

Government exists to protect the interests of the powerful from the will of the people.

Our democracy has been marred by imperialism.

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

America is just the country that shows how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society.

Democracy has shown us that what is evil are the grosses têtes, the big heads, all big heads are greedy for money and power, they are ambitious that is the reason they are big heads and so they are at the head of the government and the result is misery for the people

The art of power often involves brutality — and other offenses too.

The good government of one man is the bad government of another

The shortest way to change a radical into a conservative, a liberal into a tyrant, a man into a beast, is to give him power over his fellows.

... the keynote of government is injustice.

Power not only corrupts he who wields the power but those who submit to it. Those who grovel at the feet of power betray their fellows to hide themselves behind the cloak of submission. It is an evil thing.

The grossest, the cruelest, the most selfish, the most easily pervertible and perverted thing in this world, is government.

Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race

Abuse of power comes as no surprise

To be governed is, under pretext of public utility and in the name of the general interest, to be laid under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, exhausted, hoaxed and robbed; then, upon the slightest resistance, at the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, annoyed, hunted down, pulled about, beaten, disarmed, bound, imprisoned, shot, judged, condemned, banished, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and, to crown all, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored.

There are always people willing to commit unspeakable human atrocity in exchange for a little power and privilege.

Politicians as a class are dangerous, that people who are seeking power over us are not, by definition, our friends.

There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.

The Federal Government is exploiting public fear to redefine the relationship between the rulers and the American people.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.