State Ruin Quotes

A dog starved at his master's gate Predicts the ruin of the state.

There are two means by which states are maintained in their weal and greatness--reward and penalty: the one for the good, the other for the bad. And, if the distribution of these two be faulty, nothing else is to be expected than the inevitable ruin of the state... .

The danger that the massacres will surely ruin your state the same as it has destroyed those innocent Jewish victims, rather deepens my regret that you have till now not succeeded in suppressing fully the excesses

Justice is peculiarly indispensable to nations . The unjust State is doomed of God to calamity and ruin. This is the teaching of the Eternal Wisdom and of history .

Avarice and luxury, those evils which have been the ruin of every great state.

And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will? When we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the whim of others? When people devoid of whatsoever competence are made judges over experts and are granted authority to treat them as they please? These are the novelties which are apt to bring about the ruin of commonwealths and the subversion of the state.

There must be religion. When that ligament is torn, society is disjointed and its members perish... [T]he most important of all lessons is the denunciation of ruin to every state that rejects the precepts of religion.

It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.