Hence the less government we have the better–the fewer laws and the less confided power.
The antidote to this abuse of formal government is the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual; the appearance of the principal to supersede the proxy; the appearance of the wise man; of whom the existing government is, it must be owned, but a shabby imitation.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Politics (1844)
Words of the Sentient 