A Quote by George Orwell

In the end I worked out an anarchistic theory that all government is evil, that the punishment always does more harm than the crime and that people can be trusted to behave decently if only you will let them alone.

George Orwell

Quote Topics

Alone Always Behave Crime Does End Evil Government Harm In The End More Only Out People Punishment Than Them Theory Trusted Will Worked

Quote Author

George Orwell
British - Novelist
June 25, 1903 - January 21, 1950

We think of justice sometimes as getting what you deserve, you know? - ?what crime was committed and what is the punishment for that crime. That's how a lot of the criminal justice works. But God's justice is restorative, so it's not as interested in those same questions of "What did they do wrong?" and "What is the punishment for that?" It's more about what harm was done and how do we heal that harm, and that's a much more redemptive version. So, it definitely doesn't turn a blind eye to harm, but it does say we want to heal the wounds of that.

Shane Claiborne

Dorothy Day said - and I'm sure that Kathy Kelly would say the same thing - 'I'm working toward a world in which it will be easier for people to behave decently.' Now, think about that: a world in which it will be easier for people to behave decently.

Studs Terkel

People felt like they were friends with Google, and they believed in the "Do No Evil" thing that Google said. They trusted Google more than they trusted the government, and I never understood that.

Cathy O'Neil

The punishment should fit the crime and if a doctor or drug company does harm knowingly or negligently to a patient they should be compensated to make them whole.

Corrine Brown

Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.

Kurt Vonnegut

Governments have tried to stop crime through punishment throughout the ages, but crime continued in the past punishment remains. Crime can only be stopped through a preventive approach in the schools. You teach the students Transcendental Meditation, and right away they'll begin using their full brain physiology sensible and they will not get sidetracked into wrong things.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

You live your life and it ends quite quickly and all you can do with it is pass it on decently to someone else. Whether directly or indirectly, behave decently to other people.

Danny Boyle

Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more.

Thomas Sowell

How far does one combine resistance to over-control with social justice, i.e. tolerable living for people in general? We are too selfish to be trusted, if left free, to give away enough to make people comfortable enough to give them a chance. Yet if all this is ordered for us, as to some extent it has to be, it so soon leads to tyranny. It is a very difficult problem. If only human beings had more pity, unselfishness, and justice and didn't need coercion to treat each other decently.

Rose Macaulay

I cannot believe that God wants punishment to go on interminably any more than does a loving parent. The entire purpose of loving punishment is to teach, and it lasts only as long as is needed for the lesson. And the lesson is always love.

Madeleine L'Engle

Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.

W. Somerset Maugham

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Thomas Jefferson

If one can understand why people behave as they do then often the road to forgiveness is opened. Not only is forgiveness essential for the health of Society, it is also vital for our personal well-being. Bitterness is like a cancer that enters the soul. It does more harm to those that hold it than to those whom it is held against.

Terry Waite

My government currently runs things only because the people 'allow' them to run things. It is my responsibility that I do everything I can to keep tabs on my government, keep them honest and make sure that they always act for the good of the people. They must be reminded that they hold no power over the people that the people do not wish for them to hold. If the government begins working in a way that the people don't agree with, they must be made to know that we will rip it to its very foundations and replace it with something that does.

Derek R. Audette

No government can be trusted, that does not trust its own people with military-style arms of greater weight and power than those possessed by the central government itself.