A Quote by Jose Ortega y Gasset

[T]he mass-man sees in the State an anonymous power, and feeling himself, like it, anonymous, he believes that the State is something of his own. Suppose that in the public life of a country some difficulty, conflict, or problem presents itself, the mass-man will tend to demand that the State intervene immediately and undertake a solution directly with its immense and unassailable resources. This is the gravest danger that to-day threatens civilisation: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

Quote Topics

Absorption Anonymous Believes Civilisation Conflict Country Danger Day Demand Difficulty Directly Effort Feeling Himself His Immediately Immense Intervene Intervention Itself Life Like Man Mass Own Power Presents Problem Public Public Life Resources Sees Social Solution Some Something Spontaneous State Suppose Tend Will

Quote Author

Jose Ortega y Gasset
Spanish - Philosopher
May 9, 1883 - October 18, 1955

This is the gravest danger that today threatens civilization: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State, that is to say, of spontaneous historical action, which in the long run sustains, nourishes, and impels human destinies.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit.... A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.

Vaclav Havel

The State, of course, is absolutely indispensable to the preservation of law and order, and the promotion of peace and social cooperation. What is unnecessary and evil, what abridges the liberty and threatens the true welfare of the individual, is the State that has usurped excessive powers and grown beyond its legitimate function - the super-State, the socialist State, the redistributive State, in brief, the ironically misnamed 'Welfare State.'

Henry Hazlitt

We are living in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state. His property is only his as the state does not need it. He must hold his life and his possessions at the call of the state.

Bernard Baruch

Family is a difficult matter. I must admit I do not know that the state can intervene successfully in a family. It's a fact that everything is connected with the individualist temperament, the kind of economic environment which stresses the individual, but this is not directly the result of a state policy, nor do I see any good way by which the state could intervene except in some marginal ways.

Kenneth Arrow

The separation of church and state was meant to protect church from state; a state that declares religion off limits in public life is a state that declares itself supreme over all religious values.

Ben Shapiro

It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another, there is no other source from which State power can be drawn. Therefore every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure leaves society with so much less power; there is never, nor can be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power.

Albert J. Nock

The day when the Jew was first admitted to civil rights, the Christian state was in danger...the entrance of the Jew into {White) society marked the destruction of the State, meaning by State, the Christian State.

Bernard Lazare

There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism. [...] The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil, that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy.

Nikolai Berdyaev

I support the state, but not the state-run economy. The state should intervene only to create the conditions necessary for the private sector to thrive.

Abdoulaye Wade

The mass State has no intention of promoting mutual understanding and the relationship of man to man; it strives, rather, for atomization, for the psychic isolation of the individual. The more unrelated individuals are, the more consolidated the State becomes, and vice versa.

Carl Jung

The man of large and conspicuous public service in civil life must be content without the Presidency. Still more, the availability of a popular man in a doubtful State will secure him the prize in a close contest against the first statesman of the country whose State is safe.

Rutherford B. Hayes

The state has got to be its own master. The modalities of civic life may not be prescribed for it through any power standing outside of that state - be it a private person or be it a community superior, collateral, or subordinate to that state.

Edith Stein

In my home state of Maine, we've seen out-of-state groups with anonymous donors spend millions of dollars to campaign against issues that don't fit their agenda.

Chellie Pingree

Louis XIV was very frank and sincere when he said: I am the State. The modern statist is modest. He says: I am the servant of the State; but, he implies, the State is God. You could revolt against a Bourbon king, and the French did it. This was, of course, a struggle of man against man. But you cannot revolt against the god State and against his humble handy man, the bureaucrat.