"The State, left to shape itself by dim pedantries and traditions, without distinctness of conviction, or purpose beyond that of helping itself over the difficulty of the hour, has become, instead of a luminous vitality permeating with its light all provinces of our affairs, a most monstrous agglomerate of inanities, as little adapted for the actual wants of a modern community as the worst citizen need wish. The thing it is doing is by no means the thing we want to have done. What we want!"
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Original Language: English
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Sources
Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets, Downing Street April 1, 1850
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/State
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State
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