Charles Sanders Peirce Quotes

Whenever anyone challenges anything, the powers that be try to paint them as extremists or radicals or whatever. And I think that's actually nonsense.

The state is an instrument in the hands of the ruling class for suppressing the resistance of its class enemies.

You can never know what is and what is not powerful, but you can always find out what the powerful people are scared of. A state like China looks so powerful, but they are so scared of the Internet, so the Internet is more powerful than them.

States are violent to the extent that they have the power to act in the interests of those with domestic power

The eagle suffers little birds to sing, And is not careful what they mean thereby, Knowing that with the shadow of his wings He can at pleasure stint their melody: Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome.

Government is force.

Under capitalism we have a state in the proper sense of the word, that is, a special machine for the suppression of one class by another.

Extensive and organized power over large populations does not suffice to make a nation

if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild, it would degrade men without tormenting them.

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.

I think there are ways in which we censor ourselves; that's the most dangerous kind of censorship - that's how hegemony works.

Politically, China suppresses its people, but because the government allows some freedom in economic matters, business has become the ultimate expression of individuality.

Liberty is the very last idea that seems to occur to anybody, in considering any political or social proposal. It is only necessary for anybody for any reason to allege any evidence of any evil in any human practice, for people instantly to suggest that the practice should be suppressed by the police.

Where the states are dead set on suppressing political opposition, it's very hard to overcome that.

The basic principle, rarely violated, is that what conflicts with the requirements of power and privilege does not exist.

The state reserves the right to be the sole interpreter of the needs of society.

The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery.

Every cook must learn to rule the State.

Some forms of truth are really forms of social power and oppression.

The state would rather give me an uzi than a microphone.

But, to protect men, we must have the power of controlling them. We must first enslave them before we can protect them.

There's no way to use power for good.

Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves.

If you have ever seen a four-year-old trying to lord it over a two-year-old, then you know what the basic problem of human nature is - and why government keeps growing larger and ever more intrusive.