The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable. – H. L. Mencken

The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion. – Lewis Mumford, in Anne Chisholm, Philosophers of the Earth: Conversations with E