3 Norman Angell Quotes on Governance

Norman Angell quotes on governance

30. Within the state we have made defense of the individual the obligation of the whole community, and by that fact have established such preponderance of power on the side of the law that it could never be good business to challenge it. And that fact has, in large measure, swept highwaymen from the roads and pirates from the seas.

36. The fact that men are naturally quarrelsome is presumed to be an argument against such institutions as the League. But it is precisely the fact of the natural pugnacity of man that makes such institutions necessary. If men were naturally and easily capable of being their own judges, always able to see the other's case, never got into panics, never lost their heads, never lost their tempers and called it patriotism - why, then we should not want a League. But neither should we want in that case most of our national apparatus of government either - parliaments, congresses, courts, police, ten commandments. These are all means by which we deal with the unruly element in human nature.

44. The root of the problem is very simply stated: if there were no sovereign independent states, if the states of the civilized world were organized in some sort of federalism, as the states of the American Union, for instance, are organized, there would be no international war as we know it ... The main obstacle is nationalism.