When it comes down to it, government is simply an abandonment of responsibility on the assumption that there are people, other than ourselves, who really know how to manage things. But the government, run ostensibly for the good of the people, becomes a self-serving corporation. To keep things under control it proliferates laws of ever-increasing complexity and unintelligibility, and hinders productive work by demanding so much accounting on paper that the record of what has been done becomes more important than what has actually been done. The Taoist moral is that people who mistrust themselves and one another are doomed. . Alan W. Watts
About This Quote

Every man loves his country. The only thing that every man stands to gain from his country is what he has produced in it. Every man stands to lose by his country. For if the country goes down, so do all the things which are in it.

If the government goes down, so do all the things which are done through it. If you think about it, this is a very sensible moral, and one that holds good for our personal lives as well as our national life. Take an individual who trusts himself and one who mistrusts himself; both will learn to take care of themselves, but neither one will take care of the other.

Source: Tao: The Watercourse Way

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  1. The world is filled with love-play, from animal lust to sublime compassion.
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