"It [government] covers the surface of society with a network of small
complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds
and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.
The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, guided; men are seldom
forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a
power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but
it compresses, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is
reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of
which the government is the shepherd."
-- Alexis de Tocqueville
[Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clerel, le Comte de Tocqueville] (1805-1859) French historian
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