Government Quotes - Page 326

Those are governed best who are governed least.

Government governed least is government governed best.

[If] the nature of ... government [were] a subordination of the civil to the ecclesiastical power, I [would] consider it as desperate for long years to come. Their steady habits [will] exclude the advances of information, and they [will] seem exactly where they [have always been]. And there [the] clergy will always keep them if they can. [They] will follow the bark of liberty only by the help of a tow-rope.

I pledge undying hostility to any government restrictions on the free minds of the people.

Reason and free inquiry are the only effective agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error and error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of the Reformation, the corruption of Christianity could not have been purged away.

The persons and property of our citizens are entitled to the protection of our government in all places where they may lawfully go.

The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures.

We need a revolution every 20 years just to keep government honest.

A single good government is a blessing to the whole earth.

A free government is of all others the most energetic.

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

A noiseless course, not meddling with the affairs of others, unattractive of notice, is a mark that society is going on in happiness. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.

No government can continue good, but under the control of the people.

I would rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers.

Should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price.

It is (our) duty . . . to pay especial attention to the principles of government which shall be inculcated therein (at the University), and to provide that none shall be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which the Constitutions of this State, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion; and for this purpose it may be necessary to point out specially where these principles are to be found legitimately developed.

If I had to choose between government and a free press, I would choose a free press.

It [appears] that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

To constrain the brute force of the people, the European governments deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to sustain a scanty and miserable life.

The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.

If it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience.

Once one accepts the premise of the Declaration of Independence - that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed" - it follows that the governed must, in order to exercise their right of consent, have full freedom of expression.

The very existence of society depends on the fact that every member of it tacitly admits he is not the exclusive possessor of himself, and that he admits the claim of the polity of which he forms a part, to act, to some extent, as his master.

What are the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism is a sin.

We're looking to identify funds if we can. We're also looking at other resources to assist the government in making this a reality, ... At this point, we don't have a particular source of funding for that but we're still looking if we could help in finding another way to assist.