Quotes Library

March 4, 2025

Every country has the government it deserves.

Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821), French writer, diplomat. Letter, 15 August 1811, Jay p.248

Do your constituents—those who elected you, deserve you? More importantly, do you deserve their vote?

Like “the survival of the fittest”, this is a tautology, as it tells us nothing. Who survives? The fittest. Who are the fittest? Those who survive. What does every country get? The government it deserves. What does it deserve? The government it got. It’s useless drivel, masquerading as “deep thought”.


More Quotes

August 6, 2025
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety)
September 28, 2025
The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
March 1, 2025
00:38
…considering the imbecility of human judgment and the difficulty of choice in new and doubtful things…it is much easier and pleasanter to follow than to guide [others].
Page 91 of 122