Wilhelm von Humboldt Quotes on Politics
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Diejenige Regierung ist die beste, die sich uberflussing macht.
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Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, but yet real activity. The ardent desire for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence.
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The inquiry into the proper aims and limits of State agency must be of the highest importance-nay, that it is perhaps more vitally momentous than any other political question.
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All political arrangements, in that they have to bring a variety of widely-discordant interests into unity and harmony, necessarily occasion manifold collisions. From these collisions spring misproportions between men's desires and their powers; and from these, transgressions. The more active the State is, the greater is the number of these.
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The legislator should keep two things constantly before his eyes:-1. The pure theory developed to its minutest details; 2. The particular condition of actual things which he designs to reform.