Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.
Plato

Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.
Plato

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.
Plato

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine

Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
Karl Marx

If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.
Leo Tolstoy

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.
Leo Tolstoy

We must not only cease our present desire for the growth of the state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening.
Leo Tolstoy

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.
Jane Austen

Our forces saved the remnants of the Jewish people of Europe for a new life and a new hope in the reborn land of Israel. Along with all men of good will, I salute the young state and wish it well.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.
Niccolo Machiavelli

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
Niccolo Machiavelli

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.
James Madison

The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.
James Madison

To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.
Plutarch

In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
Plutarch

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.
Blaise Pascal

A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.
John Locke

Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.
John Locke