Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

Devolution [decentralization of government] cannot stop at the State House. It must go down to City Hall.

Anarchism means all sort of things to different people, but the traditional anarchists' movements assumed that there'd be a highly organized society, just one organized from below with direct participation and so on.

The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy.

If you're going to have centralization, why not have it!

As a result of my study, I came to the conclusion that a common supreme authority was undesirable.

When power is exercised exclusively at the centre, the result is rigidity of rules and alienation of the people subject to those rules.

The powers of government exercised locally derive from a federal law authorizing government by consent in local affairs only, unless those affairs are otherwise governed by federal law.

I don't believe in anarchy, because it will ultimately amount to the power of the bully, with weapons. Gandhi is my life's inspiration: passive resistance. I don't want to live in the Thunderdome with Mad Max.

I get asked quite often if I'm an anarchist. If they want to put a label on me, that's fine. What is most important to me is to live in a world that is not being murdered.

No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded

Contrary to public understanding, Anarchism means 'peace on earth, good will to men'. Acts of violence done in the name of Anarchy are caused by men and women who forget to be philosophers - teachers of the people - because their physical and mental suffering drive them to desperation

Of course the national government has to be strong, particularly on economic questions. But it must also be sensitive to the damage that neat theories can wreck upon a diverse country.

Their whole civil policy was adverse to concentration of power in the hands of any single individual, but inclined to the opposite principle of division among a number of equals.

Terror is the order of the day.

The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without authority, there could not be worse violence than that of authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution

The different forces, however, which are doing secret service work, or investigation of different kinds are not the parts of the government which it would seem wise to me to consolidate. There have grown up under various forms of government in different parts of the world, secret investigation branches under one head, and they times have practically superseded all the other arms of the government and have spread terror among the population. It seems to me that it is better for us to have these necessary forces divided up under different department heads. There may be a certain amount of rivalry but that will do no harm, and if the heads have the proper spirit of cooperation the men themselves will understand that when they need to assist each other, they should do so in the interests of law and order and justice which they are all serving. As long as they remain separate there will, however, be no danger of a secret octopus growing up to control in harmful ways.

… state authority should not be needlessly usurped by a centralized government. But I also believe that an obligation rests with the national government to see that the citizens of every state are treated equally.

You know, putting power in people's hands was the central idea of the conservative platform. And so, to me, the E.U. was the direct opposite of that, and totally inconsistent.

No more top-down politics with Westminster dictating what's right for every community. We must all be partners in designing a better future for our country.

The new era of bottom-up politics has had politically paradoxical consequences in China. While it has made the system of governance more participatory, it has made the central government less authoritarian and, therefore, more bureaucratic and cautious.

I'm a federalist.

Its true that contemporary technology permits decentralization, it also permits centralization. It depends on how you use the technology.

The way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly the functions in which he is competent ... It is by dividing and subdividing these Republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations until it ends in the administration of everyman's farm by himself, by placing under everyone what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best.

When the panchayat raj is established, public opinion will do what violence can never do.

The notion of anarchy ...means that once industrial functions have taken over from political functions, then business transactions and exchange alone produce the social order.