Quotations - Politics and Government

“My friends, I must tell you that a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Although it is now put forward in the main by people who have a good grounding in the liberalism and radicalism of the early part of this century, there can be no doubt that socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State. It is not alone that property, in all its forms, is struck at, but that liberty, in all its forms, is challenged by the fundamental concept of Socialism.” – Sir Winston Churchill

"The only object of liberty is life." - G.K. Chesterton, Irish Impressions. 219

"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." - G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, June 5, 1920

"Without authority three is no liberty. Freedom is doomed to destruction at every turn, unless there is a recognized right to freedom. And if there are rights, there is an authority to which we appeal for them." - G.K. Chesterton, G.K.'s Weekly, April 28, 1928

"The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust." - G.K. Chesterton, G.K.'s Weekly, August 18, 1928

"Comradeship is quite a different thing from friendship. . .For friendship implies individuality; whereas comradeship really implies the temporary subordination, if not the temporary swamping of individuality. Friends are the better for being two; but comrades are the better for being two million." - G.K. Chesterton, "A Case of Comrades" The Apostle and the Wild Ducks

"The professional soldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a community declines." - G.K. Chesterton, Heretics 1905

"I would rather a boy learnt in the roughest school the courage to hit a politician, or gained in the hardest school the learning to refute him - rather than that he should gain in the most enlightened school the cunning to copy him." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 8-31-12

"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." - G.K. Chesterton, Christendom in Dublin

"America is the only country ever founded on a creed." - G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw In America, 1922

"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man." - G.K. Chesterton, Chapter 19, What I Saw In America, 1922

"The unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing. It is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the equality of citizens, which even voting and elections have not destroyed." - G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw In America, 1922

"When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws." - G.K. Chesterton, Daily News, 7/29/05

"He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." - G.K. Chesterton, Varied Types

"You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. - G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles, 1909

"When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 4/6/18

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged." - G.K. Chesterton, The Cleveland Press, 3/1/21

"There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants."- G.K. Chesterton, Outline of Sanity

"All government is an ugly necessity." G.K. Chesterton, A Short History of England.

"It is a good sign in a nation when things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on." - G.K. Chesterton, "Patriotism and Sport," All Things Considered

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 4/19/24

"Self-denial is the test and definition of self-government." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Field of Blood" Alarms and Discursions

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." - G.K. Chesterton, A Short History of England

"There are only two ways of governing: by a rule and by a ruler." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Queen and the Suffragettes" What's Wrong with the World

"There are two kinds of revolutionists, as of most things - a good kind and a bad. The bad revolutionists destroy conventions by appealing to fads - fashions that are newer than conventions. The good do it by appealing to facts that are older than conventions." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN 4-30-10

"Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it." - G.K. Chesterton, Autobiography, 1937

"Anyone who is not an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down the chimney or even under the bed." - G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw In America, 1922

"The position we have now reached is this: starting from the State, we try to remedy the failures of all the families, all the nurseries, all the schools, all the workshops, all the secondary institutions that once had some authority of their own. Everything is ultimately brought into the Law Courts. We are trying to stop the leak at the other end." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 3/24/23

"Though the academic authorities are actually proud of conducting everything by means of Examinations, they seldom indulge in what religious people used to describe as Self-Examination. The consequence is that the modern State has educated its citizens in a series of ephemeral fads." - G.K. Chesterton, Nash's Pall Mall Magazine. April, 1935

"The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense." - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 9/7/29

"For my part, I would have no executions except by the mob; or, at least, by the people acting quite exceptionally. I would make capital punishment impossible except by act of attainder. Then there would be some chance of a few of our real oppressors getting hanged. - G.K. Chesterton, ILN, 2/13/09

"Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions… . Despotism may govern without faith but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic … than in the monarchy … ; it is more needed in democratic republics than in any others. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened as the political tie is relaxed? " - Alexis de Tocqueville