John Ralston Saul Quotes

The Democrats have prevailed because at heart we have embodied a great idea, which is that an elected government can be the instrument of the common purpose of a free people; that government can embrace great causes and do great things.

It is not the same thing—society and government

States are violent institutions. The government of any country, including ours, represents some sort of domestic power structure, and it's usually violent. States are violent to the extent that they're powerful, that's roughly accurate.

As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.

To blindly trust government is to automatically vest it with excessive power. To distrust government is simply to trust humanity - to trust in the ability of average people to peacefully, productively coexist without some official policing their every move. The State is merely another human institution - less creative than Microsoft, less reliable than Federal Express, less responsible than the average farmer husbanding his land, and less prudent than the average citizen spending his own paycheck.

No matter how big and powerful government gets, and the many services it provides, it can never take the place of volunteers.

I am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the State, the community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action.

If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the living God.

I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.

Conservatives believe government's principal functions are the preservation of freedom and removal of restraints on the individual. Liberalism's ascent in the first two-thirds of this century reflected the new belief that government should also confer capacities on individuals. Liberalism's decline in the final third of this century has reflected doubts about whether government can be good at that, or whether government that is good at that is good for the nation's character.

Every government, every country, has the right to exercise force when necessary.

It is not the State that orders us; but it is we who order the State!

A government that understands the limits of power as well as its potential.

The contradiction is somehow unresolved. In the case of the business propaganda, it's particularly ironic because while business wants the population to hate the government, they want the population to love the government. Namely, they're in favor of a very powerful state which works in their interest.

The antidote to this abuse of formal Government, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual.

Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny," Paul said. "They’re organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations.

The government's appearing to be a necessary evil does not oblige people to trust it. We face a choice of trusting government or trusting freedom-trusting overlords who have lied and abused their power or trusting individuals to make the most of their own lives.

The more powerful government becomes, the more abuses it commits and the more lies it must tell.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Constitution was not - and is not - a grant of rights to the citizenry. Instead, the Constitution is a "barbed-wire entanglement" designed to interfere with, restrict, and impede government officials in the exercise of political power.

There are people working their butts off trying to save our republic and save democracy from the likes of powerful people in the Democrat Party who want to take this country and turn it into a personal little playground for their own private gain.

As the old saying goes, 'money is power' and the more money the government takes, the more power it has over individuals.

I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress.

Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.

I think the Occupy movement will, or at least should, become a protean movement of ideas, as well as action, where the element of surprise remains with the protesters. We need to preserve the element of an intellectual ambush and a physical manifestation that takes the government and the police by surprise. It has to keep re-imagining itself, because holding territory may not be something the movement will be allowed to do in a state as powerful and violent as the United States.

We are too solicitous for government intervention, on the theory, first, that the people themselves are helpless, and second, that the Government has superior capacity for action. Often times both of these conclusions are wrong.