Coercion Quotes - Page 3

• A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.

  John Steinbeck

  Travel, Struggle, Journey

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.8, Penguin

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• The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual's greed for power and the electorates' desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.

  David Mamet

  Party, Government, Evil

  "Hands Off Our Guns" by David Mamet, www.realclearpolitics.com. January 28, 2013.

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• Therefore coercion of the non-invasive, when justifiable at all, is to be justified on the ground that it secures, not a minimum of ' invasion, but a minimum of pain.

  Benjamin Tucker

  Pain, Atheism, Invasion

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• Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

  Maimonides

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

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• It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry.

  Albert Einstein

  Education, Mistake, Believe

  Albert Einstein, Stephen W. Hawking (2007). “A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein”, p.346, Running Press

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• Universities are not here to be mediums for the coercion of other people, they're here to be mediums for the free exchange of ideas.

  A. Bartlett Giamatti

  Ideas, People, Mediums

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• Considering the absence of legal coercion, the surprising thing is that men have for so long, and, on the whole, so reliably, adhered to what we might call the breadwinner ethic.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Men, Long, Might

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2011). “The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment”, p.11, Anchor

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• If God himself was not willing to use coercion to force man to accept certain religious views, man, uninspired and liable to error, ought not to use the means that Jehovah would not employ.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Religious, Mean, Men

  John Thomas Scopes, William Jennings Bryan, Tennessee. County Court (Rhea Co.) (1971). “The world's most famous court trial: State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes; complete stenographic report of the court test of the Tennessee anti-evolution act at Dayton, July 10 to 21, 1925, including speeches and arguments of attorneys”, Da Capo Pr

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• Freedom is an eternal principle. Heaven disapproves of force, coercion and intimidation. Only a free people can be truly a happy people.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  People, Heaven, Principles

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• What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion.

  Ayn Rand

  Liberty, Principles, Essentials

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.43, Penguin

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• People who denounce the free market and voluntary exchange, and are for control and coercion, believe they have more intelligence and superior wisdom to the masses. What's more, they believe they've been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider good reasons for doing so, but every tyrant that has ever existed has had what he believed were good reasons for restricting the liberty of others.

  Walter E. Williams

  Believe, Tyrants, People

  Walter E. Williams (2013). “Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism: Controversial Essays”, p.140, Hoover Press

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• We do not find the Savior using force or coercion to accomplish His purposes.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Purpose, Force, Accomplish

  Ezra Taft Benson (1988). “The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson”, Bookcraft Pubs

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• The heart of government, coated with whatever velvet gloves you want to put on it, is a mailed fist of force and coercion.

  Alan Keyes

  Love You, Heart, Government

  Alan Keyes' Speech at Renew America rally at the McKay Events Center in Orem, Utah, www.keyesarchives.com. March 8, 2000.

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• Coercion or compulsion never brings about growth. It is freedom that accelerates evolution.

  Paramahansa Yogananda

  Growth, Evolution, Compulsion

  Yogananda (Paramahansa), Swami Dhirananda (1925). “General Principles and Merits of Yogoda, Or, Tissue-will System of Body and Mind Perfection, and the Highest Technique of Concentration and Meditation”

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• Few things are more irritating than when someone who is wrong is also very effective in making his point.

  Mark Twain

  Humor, Ignorance, Politics

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• To blend, without coercion, the individual good and the common good is the essence of citizenship in a free country.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Country, Essence, Common

  Dwight D. Eisenhower's Columbia University Inaugural Addres, October 12, 1948.

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• I hope for an America where the power of faith will always burn brightly, but where no modern inquisition of any kind will ever light the fires of fear, coercion, or angry division.

  Edward Kennedy

  Fire, Light, America

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• There’s one thing that’s been 'learned' maybe from Tunisia and Egypt that I think is a mistake. And that is that the existing ruler has to resign. He doesn’t have to resign. You take all the supports out from under him; he falls. No matter what he wants to do. This is the distinction in the analyses between nonviolent coercion in which he has to resign, but he’s forced into it, and disintegration when the regime simply falls apart. There’s nobody left with enough power to resign.

  Gene Sharp

  Mistake, Fall, Thinking

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• Some paradox of our natures leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the objects of our pity , then of our wisdom , ultimately of our coercion.

  Lionel Trilling

  Men, Goes On, Fellow Man

  Lionel Trilling (2012). “The Liberal Imagination”, p.221, New York Review of Books

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• From that point on, the extraordinary system of spies and informers which has played an important part in the political work of the French state into our own time took shape. (Sartine, who became lieutenant general de police in 1759, is supposed to have said to Louis XV, "Sire, when three people are chatting in the street one of them is surely my man.") Eighteenth-century police manuals like those of Colquhoun in England or Lemaire in France are no less than general treatises on the government's full repertoire of domestic regulation, coercion, and surveillance.

  Charles Tilly

  Men, People, Political

  Charles Tilly, Gabriel Ardant, Social Science Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Comparative Politics (1975). “The Formation of national States in Western Europe”, Princeton Univ Pr

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• [Jesus] invoked a different kind of power: love, not coercion.

  Philip Yancey

  Jesus, Different, Kind

  Philip Yancey (2010). “The Jesus I Never Knew Study Guide”, p.77, Harper Collins

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• There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our Puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.

  Sherwin Wine

  Religious, Father, Past

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• What I say is, that the real non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in political action. For the basis of all political action is coercion; even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through.

  Voltairine de Cleyre

  Real, Believe, Gun

  Voltairine de Cleyre (2012). “Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre -- Anarchist, Feminist, Genius”, p.275, SUNY Press

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• In very clear and available language, this book details how to recognize the inner critic and how to deal effectively with it. Byron Brown's presentation is useful for any individual who wishes to be free from the inner suffering and coercion of this ancient foe of our humanity, but it is specifically directed to those interested and engaged in the inner journey toward realization and enlightenment.

  A. H. Almaas

  Book, Journey, Humanity

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• A new type of superstition has got hold of people's minds, the worship of the state. People demand the exercise of the methods of coercion and compulsion, of violence and threat. Woe to anybody who does not bend his knee to the fashionable idols!

  Ludwig von Mises

  Exercise, Idols, People

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

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