David Hume Quotes

What is government but an arrangement by which the many accept the authority of the few?

In no form of government is there an absolute identity of interest between the people and their rulers

If the fools do not control the world, it isn't because they are not in the majority.

Influence is not government.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

He who has once been approved and accepted by his people, though he abuse his right, yet retains the basis of his authority as against his own private subjects, since an obligation entered upon publicly and by mutual consent cannot be dissolved and broken by the will of any private citizen. For were this otherwise, endless disorders, worse even than tyranny itself, would ensue…

Towering over Presidents and State Governors, over Congress and State Legislatures, over conventions and the vast machinery of party, public opinion stands out in the United States, as the great source of Power.

If the people be governors, who shall be governed?

Democracy doesn't mean electing a dictator every five years.

As force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as the most free and the most popular.

We do not believe in the infallibility, nor even in the general goodness of the masses; on the contrary. But we believe even less in the infallibility and goodness of those who seize power and legislate.

The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar.

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

I do not wish to see men of culture asking to be entrusted with power

A true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. It is against natural order that the great number should govern and that the few should be governed.

I hold to be of itself a lesson for all those who love liberty, and who would extend its blessings to their country. Men are not to be pedants in liberty, any more than in virtue. Though they are not to be oppressed by tyrants, they must at least be governed by their fellow-men. The great principles of independence in the heart of man are to be cherished and upheld; but order, prosperity, the purposes of society, must be accomplished. The many must delegate the government of themselves to the few. Control, executive power, must be lodged somewhere …

One man may as easily destroy, as govern: be King or Anti-King.

Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them.

Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.

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.

It is not good to have a rule of many.

Democracy is a good client.

I don't know if, at the end of the day, how brave Saddam Hussein would be if he were stripped of his bodyguards and everything else.

I shall ask no more than that you agree with Dean Inge that even though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it is better than breaking them.