James Joyce Quotes

The individual is greater than the state.

In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the person and the state. It's become a fact of life that governments have become very intimate with people, most always to their detriment.

The liberal, emphasizing the civil and property rights of the individual, insists that the individual must remain so supreme as to make the state his servant.

The absolute rule of the state shall be a function of the absolute liberty of each individual will.

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins ... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

The history of government is the history of two conflicting principles: one is the supreme importance of the State; the other is the supreme importance of the individual.

Man exists for his own sake, and not to add a laborer to the State.

The public power of all society is above every soul contained in the same society.

The basic principle that governs the relation between a state and its people --a total and unconditional subordination and submission of individuals and classes to the state…

To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them.

Government is a necessary evil

Man should not be in the service of society, society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that's what is threatening the world at this minute.

What is this thing we call government? Is it anything but organized violence? The law orders you to obey, and if you don't obey, it will compel you by force - all governments, all law and authority finally rest on force and violence, on punishment or fear of punishment.

I've always been like nah, I'm going to have it my way, that way, when I look out that window at the end of the day, I can say I did it my way, whether it's on a higher level, or a level where I can just maintain, I can still say I did it my way.

That's the best way to live your life: Don't listen to what other people think. Just follow your heart.

Between government in the republican meaning, that is, Constitutional, representative, limited government, on the one hand, and Empire on the other hand, there is mortal enmity.

Private property creates for the individual a sphere in which he is free of the state. It sets limits to the operation of the authoritarian will.

I'm eccentric, what else? I don't know, I've got two people telling me what to say.

The "social contract," in the only sense in which it is not completely mythical, is a contract among conquerors, which loses its raison d'être if they are deprived of the benefits of conquest.

Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself.

Society is only possible on these terms, that the individual finds therein a strengthening of his own ego and his own will.

I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.

The object of the state is always the same: to limit the individual, to tame him, to subordinate him, to subjugate him.

Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms.

I don't need nobody tryin' to make me over -- I just wanna live simple and free.