Government is best which governs least — Thomas Paine
Government, in the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government. — William Lyon Mackenzie King
Government, in the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government. — Mackenzie King
The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life. — Frances Perkins
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Henry David Thoreau
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Thomas Jefferson
The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil. — James Monroe
We can't have a decent government unless those in power exercise self restraint. — William Howard Taft
The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party. — John C. Calhoun
The growth of modern constitutional government compels for its successful practice the exercise of reason and considerate judgment by the individual citizens who constitute the electorate. — Elihu Root
Besides a happy policy as to civil government, it is necessary to institute a system of law and jurisprudence founded in justice, equity, and public right. — Ezra Stiles
The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all. — H. L. Mencken
Short Good Government Quotes
A government is just only when the whole people share equally in its protection and advantages. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people. — Andrew Johnson
A wise government knows how to enforce with temper, or to conciliate with dignity. — George Grenville
Transparency in government leads to reduced corruption. — Julian Assange
Government is an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself. — Ibn Khaldun
Top 10 Good Government Quotes
I love peace and quiet, I hate politics and turmoil. We women are not made for governing, and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations. — Queen Victoria
Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance. — Kofi Annan
The United States government has always been proud of the welcome it has extended to good men of every nation, seeking freedom and homes and bread. — John Muir
Independence, the freedom of a self-governing nation, is in my estimation the highest political good, for which any disadvantage, if need be, and any sacrifice are a cheap price. — Enoch Powell
One of these days the people of Louisiana are going to get good government - and they aren't going to like it. — Huey Long
Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless. — Milton Friedman
A minister of state is excusable for the harm he does when the helm of government has forced his hand in a storm; but in the calm he is guilty of all the good he does not do. — Voltaire
There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters — Daniel Webster
Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Peace has in it trust in the Lord, that He governs all things, provides all things, and leads to a good end. — Emanuel Swedenborg
The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Bad Government Quotes
My mission is to lead the country out of a bad situation of corruption, depression and slavery. After I rid the country of these vices, I will then organize and supervise a general election of a genuinely democratic civilian government. — Idi Amin
War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is.
Revolution is when you decide that for yourself. — Benjamin Franklin
Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social. — Thomas Hobbes
Persist to overcome. He that can't endure the bad, will not live to see the good.
To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying. — Richard Henry Lee
The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. — Ludwig von Mises
It was a bad idea, because I think that any government reorganization has to come in relatively small bites, or else you get indigestion. — Warren Rudman
Just do what works for you, because there will always be someone who thinks differently.
A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must, in practice, be a bad government. — Joseph Story
The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem. — Milton Friedman
To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals. — Mark Twain
A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth; for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason. — Noah Webster
Responsible Government Quotes
No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standard of ethical behavior for those who conduct the public business. — John F. Kennedy
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. — Ronald Reagan
Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile. — William Lyon Mackenzie King
Never regret a day in your life: good days give happiness, bad days give experience, worst days give lessons, and best days give memories.
For years now I have been talking about personal responsibility and accountability, both in our private lives and in the halls of government. Those are important principles here in Idaho, and they will form the basis of this administration. — Butch Otter
In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves. — Walter E. Williams
How the American right managed to convince itself that the programs to alleviate poverty are responsible for the consequences of poverty will someday be studied as a notorious mass illusion. — Molly Ivins
Whatever is good for you soul, do that.
Globalisation makes it clear that social responsibility is required not only of governments, but of companies and individuals. All sources must interact in order to reach the MDGs. — Anna Lindh
Everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in government. — Carrie Chapman Catt
Family responsibility, yes, and always. Family bankruptcy due to the cruel rules of government, no. — Barbara Mikulski
You are responsible for the world that you live in. It is not government's responsibility. It is not your school's or your social club's or your church's or your neighbor's or your fellow citizen's. It is yours, utterly and singularly yours. — August Wilson
I can concede that the government has no knowledge of the people, but I believe the people know less of the government. There are useless officials, evil, if you like, but there are also good ones, and these are not able to accomplish anything because they encounter an inert mass, the population that takes little part in matters that concern them. — Jose Rizal
While transparency reduces corruption, good governance goes beyond transparency in achieving openness. Openness means involving the stakeholders in decision-making process. Transparency is the right to information while openness is the right to participation. — Narendra Modi
Try no to resist the changes that come in your way. Instead, let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come? How Rumi Can Change Your Life?
It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. — Alexander Hamilton
All that a good government aims at... is to add no unnecessary and artificial aid to the force of its own unavoidable consequences, and to abstain from fortifying and accumulating social inequality as a means of increasing political inequalities. — James F. Cooper
I have never on the field of battle sent you where I was unwilling to go myself, nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers. You can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and will be magnanimous. — Nathan Bedford Forrest
If the government shuts down, nothing happens, and we all move on, because it just doesn't matter. Stasis in the government is actually good for all of us. — Chamath Palihapitiya
It is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption. — Jean-Baptiste Say
Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. — Lord Acton
As Friedrich Hayek put it: I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop. — Saifedean Ammous
The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, "See if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk". — Harry Browne
The end of World War II and the dismantling of the New Deal meant the U.S. government cut its spending by an astonishing 75% between 1944 and 1948, and it also removed most price controls for good measure. And yet, the U.S. economy witnessed an extraordinary boom during these years. The roughly ten million men who were mobilized for the war came back home and were almost seamlessly absorbed into the labor force, as economic production boomed, flying in the face of all Keynesian predictions and utterly obliterating the ridiculous notion that the level of spending is what determines output in the economy. — Saifedean Ammous
The fundamental engineering feature of the fiat system is that it treats future promises of money as if they were as good as present money because the government guarantees these promises. — Saifedean Ammous
So far as it depends on the course of this government, our relations of good will and friendship will be sedulously cultivated with all nations. — John Tyler
The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves. — Plato
For a group to be great, both good governance and excellent execution are required. It’s not one or the other. — Koos Bekker
... fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. — Louis D. Brandeis
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. — Thomas Jefferson
The electorate is starved for honest debate and for the good governance that follows from it. — Bret Weinstein
If you look at the fact that the best chance we have for a good economy is the private sector. The government cannot create jobs. If the government could create jobs, then Communism would have worked. But didn't work. So what we have to do is allow the private sector and the entrepreneurial spirit to lead us back to a job-filled recovery. — Tim Scott
With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries. What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient. — Lee Kuan Yew
There can be no good character in civil government if there is none in the people. You cannot make a good omelet with bad eggs. — R.J. Rushdoony
Among the most inestimable of our blessings is that ... of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support. — Thomas Jefferson
The reason this country continues its drift toward socialism and big nanny government is because too many people vote in the expectation of getting something for nothing, not because they have a concern for what is good for the country. — Lyn Nofziger
A good two years after Hurricane Katrina I remember feeling so devastated and so ignorant that there was so much damage still left. I felt like here I was an American and this is an American city and the government hasn't done enough and people haven't given back enough. Everyone forgot and the city was lying in waste. — AnnaLynne McCord
The history of the last century shows, as we shall see later, that the advice given to governments by bankers, like the advice they gave to industrialists, was consistently good for bankers, but was often disastrous for governments, businessmen, and the people generally. — Carroll Quigley
A righteous government is of all the most to be wished for,Bearing of blessing and good fortune in the highest.Guided by the law of Truth, supported by dedication and zeal,It blossoms into the Best of Order, a Kingdom of Heaven!To effect this I shall work now and ever more. — Zoroaster
No Taxes. Let's just tip the government 15% if they do a good job. — Pat Paulsen
As Friedrich Hayek put it: I don't believe we'll ever have good money again until we get the thing out of the government's hands, that is, we can't violently take it out of the government's hands, all we can do is somehow cunningly introduce something that they can't stop. — Saifedean Ammous
I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn't deny them the opportunity to get married. — Rob Portman
Our government is an agency of delegated and strictly limited powers. Its founders did not look to its preservation by force; but the chain they wove to bind these States together was one of love and mutual good offices. — Jefferson Davis
The government cannot love you, and any politics that works on a different assumption is destined for no good. — Jonah Goldberg
We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion both suffer by all such interference. — Rutherford B. Hayes
Nothing can be more consoling to the man of God, than the conviction that the Lord who made the world governs the world; and that every event, great and small, prosperous and adverse, is under the absolute disposal of Him who doth all things well, and who regulates all things for the good of his people. — Jerry Bridges
We oppose the reactionary policies of the U.S. government but we do not oppose the American people. We want to have many good friends in the United States. — Kim Jong Il
In Conclusion
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