To preserve a trading state from decline, the greatest care must be taken, to support a perfect balance between the hands employed in work and the demand for their labour.

-Steuart (later Denham), SirJames
  Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy.

The art of war is of vital importance to the state.

-SunTzu
c.500^320   BC  TheArt ofWar, ch.1,'Laying Plans', section1 (translated byJames Clavell,1981).

   Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature.

-Swift,Jonathan
  'On Poetry', l.319^20.

We want a society in which we are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. That is what we mean by a moral societyönot a society in which the State is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the State.

-Thatcher, Margaret HildaThatcher, Baroness
  Speech, Zurich University,14 Mar.

The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.

-Trudeau, Pierre Elliott
  Of the liberalization of the Criminal Code. Interview in Ottawa, 22 Dec.The remark is based on similar words written by the journalist Martin O'Malley in an unsigned editorial in the Globe and Mail,12 Dec1967.

Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move, And when this dust falls to the urn In that state I came, return.

-Vaughan, Henry
  Silex Scintillans,'The Retreat'.

Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le saint empire romain n'e¤  tait en aucune manie'  re ni saint, ni romain, ni empire. This state which was called and is still called the Holy Roman Empire, was not in any way holy, or Roman or an Empire.

-Voltaire pseudonym of  Fran c° ois Marie Arouet
  Essai sur Les Moeurs et l'EŁ  sprit des Nations.

   The greatest asset that a head of state can have is the ability to get a good night's sleep.

-Wilson of Rievaulx, (James) Harold Wilson, Baron
  BBC Radio 4 broadcast,16 Apr.

The woman voter would be pernicious to the State not only because she could not back her vote by physical force, but also by reason of her intellectual defects.

-Wright, SirAlmroth Edward
  The Unexpurgated Case againstWoman Suffrage, pt.2.

What ifthat other single voicewe knowsowell responds by saying,'Wesay no, and we arethe State'? Well, wesay yesöand we are the people.

-Wright, Kenyon
  Calling for a Scottish Parliament. Speech at the inaugural meeting of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, 30 Mar.The 'single voice' is that of Prime Minister MargaretThatcher.