Quotes About Government

It is only with government help—in the form of subsidies, restrictions on potential rivals, and the like—that business can "exploit" the public in any meaningful sense. That

I am getting more and more convinced that the war-peace question is the key to the whole libertarian business," Rothbard noted privately in 1956. I am equally convinced. If we can't get this right, who cares about the Department of Education or the minimum wage?

Leftist intellectuals were practically unanimous in favoring U.S. entry into World War I since they understood the opportunity it presented for institutional change at home. Wartime economic planning, they were convinced, would help to erode Americans' conservative beliefs in the limits of government and the inviolability of private property.

Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind to be entirely in her grasp for a while, had she handled the distaff, the spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world would have noticed the change in government. . . .

It is a weak sovereign that has weak subjects; and a weak people whose sovereign wanteth power to rule them at his will.

Ella para él y él para el Estado

Tocqueville was correct in his rendition of how the Constitution was formed, but he likely never dreamed that an American president would ever send an invading army to kill some 300,000 of his own citizens in order to destroy the right of secession, a right that all of America's founding fathers held as sacrosanct and that was at the very heart of the American system of government.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.

Except for spending to protect property rights, enforce the law, and protect citizens from foreign aggressors, all government spending crowds out private spending and weakens the vitality of capitalism.

Majority rule is not "destroyed" by smaller political units. Quite the contrary; it is rendered more efficient in serving the taxpaying public. Majority rule voting will exist in smaller political units even more efficiently than in larger, more centralized ones. That's why Switzerland, with its highly decentralized system of government and with power vested in more than sixty cantons, is arguably the world's most peaceful and prosperous democracy.

Modern governments actually spend relatively little on programs and systems that benefit all citizens, such as national defense or the judicial system; mainly they are concerned with infringing on the property rights of one (less politically powerful) group of citizens for the benefit of another (more politically powerful) group.

As George Orwell might have said, with socialism all men are created equal, only some are more equal than others.

We who live in capitalist countries tend to take all of this—property rights, free-market pricing, entrepreneurship—for granted, but every socialist country that has ever existed in the world has taken away these key ingredients of capitalism and has consequently created an economic catastrophe.

Changes in consumer preferences can also affect profits. So can the actions of our government.

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.

The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. { Letter to celebrated scientist Alexander von Humboldt , 6 December, 1813 }

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.