Quotes · Skopia

233 quotes

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. — James Madison · 1788 Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. — James Madison · 1787 Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency. — James Madison · 1787 It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. — James Madison · 1788 Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. — James Madison · 1788 The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. — James Madison · 1788 All 28 quotes →

Alexander Hamilton10 quotes

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787 The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787 The vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787 Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. — Alexander Hamilton · 1788 The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. — Alexander Hamilton · 1788 If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert. — Alexander Hamilton · 1788 All 10 quotes →

John Adams10 quotes

The happiness of society is the end of government. — John Adams · 1776 Every project has been found to be no better than committing the lamb to the custody of the wolf, except that one which is called a balance of power. — John Adams · 1789 We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. — John Adams · 1798 Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. — John Adams · 1814 Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right... and a desire to know-but besides this they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded, and envied kind of knowledge. I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers. — John Adams · 1765 The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and the executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that. — John Adams · 1776 All 10 quotes →

Thomas Jefferson9 quotes

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. — Thomas Jefferson · 1787 Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched... Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. — Thomas Jefferson · 1816 The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. — Thomas Jefferson · 1785 Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. — Thomas Jefferson · 1801 It rests now with ourselves alone to enjoy in peace and concord the blessings of self-government, so long denied to mankind: to shew by example the sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs and that the will of the majority, the Natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. — Thomas Jefferson · 1790 The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government. — Thomas Jefferson · 1809 All 9 quotes →

Edmund Burke8 quotes

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. — Edmund Burke · 1775 Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. — Edmund Burke · 1790 To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affection. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind. — Edmund Burke · 1790 Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. — Edmund Burke · 1774 The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered. — Edmund Burke · 1775 Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed. — Edmund Burke · 1777 All 8 quotes →

Abraham Lincoln7 quotes

The ballot is stronger than the bullet. — Abraham Lincoln · 1856 If all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government. — Abraham Lincoln · 1854 To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity, among strangers, as nations or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization. — Abraham Lincoln · 1859 With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. — Abraham Lincoln · 1858 No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. — Abraham Lincoln · 1854 While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years. — Abraham Lincoln · 1861 All 7 quotes →

Ronald Reagan7 quotes

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. — Ronald Reagan · 1981 The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help. — Ronald Reagan · 1986 Freedom and incentives unleash the drive and entrepreneurial genius that are the core of human progress. — Ronald Reagan · 1985 Since the turn of the century, the number of democracies in the world has grown fourfold. Human freedom is on the march, and nowhere more so than in our own hemisphere. Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit. People, worldwide, hunger for the right of self-determination, for those inalienable rights that make for human dignity and progress. — Ronald Reagan · 1985 No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So governments' programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth. — Ronald Reagan · 1964 Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: "We the People." "We the People" tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us."We the People" are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the People" tell the government what it is allowed to do."We the People" are free. — Ronald Reagan · 1989 All 7 quotes →

John Stuart Mill5 quotes

Liberty consists in doing what one desires. — John Stuart Mill · 1859 A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life. — John Stuart Mill · 1859 Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. — John Stuart Mill · 1867 The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. — John Stuart Mill · 1859 No man made the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species. Its appropriation is wholly a question of general expediency. When private property in land is not expedient, it is unjust. — John Stuart Mill · 1848

Niccolo Machiavelli5 quotes

Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasions for it. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1531 The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532 He [the prince] holds to what is right when he can but knows how to do wrong when he must. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532 It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1531 Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live; that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin that his preservation. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532

John Locke4 quotes

Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690 The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of civil society is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community. — John Locke · 1690 Man being...by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent. — John Locke · 1690 The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. — John Locke · 1690

Milton Friedman4 quotes

History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition. — Milton Friedman · 1962 There is an invisible hand in politics that operates in the opposite direction to the invisible hand in the market. In politics, individuals who seek to promote only the public good are led by an invisible hand to promote special interests that it was no part of their intention to promote. — Milton Friedman · 1983 Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself...economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom. — Milton Friedman · 1962 Very few people spend other people's money as carefully as they spend their own. — Milton Friedman · 1975

Socrates4 quotes

Democracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BC The city in which those who are to rule are least eager to hold office must needs be the best governed and freest from strife. — Socrates · 375 BC Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils. — Socrates · 375 BC When the tyrant has disposed for foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. — Socrates · 375 BC

William Henry Harrison4 quotes

As long as the love of power is a dominant passion of the human bosom, and as long as the understandings of men can be warped and their affections changed by operations upon their passions and prejudices, so long will the liberties of a people depend on their own constant attention to its preservation. — William Henry Harrison · 1841 If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends. Beyond that they become destructive of public virtue, the parent of a spirit antagonist to that of liberty, and eventually its inevitable conqueror. — William Henry Harrison · 1841 We admit of no government by divine right, believing that so far as power is concerned the Beneficent Creator has made no distinction amongst men; that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed. — William Henry Harrison · 1841 Those who are called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading principle the duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest good to the greatest number. — William Henry Harrison · 1841

Dwight D. Eisenhower3 quotes

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America. — Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1953 No nation can longer be a fortress, lone and strong and safe. And any people, seeking such shelter for themselves, can now build only their own prison. — Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1957 This peace we seek cannot be born of fear alone: it must be rooted in the lives of nations. There must be justice, sensed and shared by all peoples, for, without justice the world can know only a tense and unstable truce. — Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1957

Franklin D. Roosevelt3 quotes

Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference. — Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1936 Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights—then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend. — Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1945 The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government. — Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1938

Henry Adams3 quotes

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds. — Henry Adams · 1907 Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. — Henry Adams · 1907 Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education. — Henry Adams · 1907

Karl Marx3 quotes

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs! — Karl Marx · 1883 In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. — Karl Marx · 1848 The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. — Karl Marx · 1848

Learned Hand3 quotes

Right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many this is, and will always be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all. — Learned Hand · 1943 We believe, and I think properly, that when the men who met in 1787 to make a Constitution made the best political document ever made, they did so very largely because they were great compromisers. — Learned Hand · 1951 The condition of our survival in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world. — Learned Hand · 1931

Adam Smith2 quotes

All systems, either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men. — Adam Smith · 1776 Consumption is the sole end and purpose of production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. — Adam Smith · 1776

Andrew Jackson2 quotes

There are no necessary evils in the government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favor alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. — Andrew Jackson · 1832 Constantly bearing in mind that in entering into society "individuals must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest," it will be my desire so to discharge my duties as to foster with our brethren in all parts of the country a spirit of liberal concession and compromise. — Andrew Jackson · 1833

Aristotle2 quotes

No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BC The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class. — Aristotle · 350 BC

Benjamin Cardozo2 quotes

Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances. — Benjamin Cardozo · 1923 Of that freedom one may say that it is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom. — Benjamin Cardozo · 1937

Benjamin Disraeli2 quotes

Finality, Sir, is not the language of politics. — Benjamin Disraeli · 1859 I repeat... That all power is a trust - that we are accountable for its exercise - that, from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist. — Benjamin Disraeli · 1826

Bill Clinton2 quotes

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. — Bill Clinton · 1993 Government is not the problem, and Government is not the solution. We—the American people—we are the solution. Our Founders understood that well and gave us a democracy strong enough to endure for centuries, flexible enough to face our common challenges and advance our common dreams in each new day. — Bill Clinton · 1997

Calvin Coolidge2 quotes

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers. — Calvin Coolidge · 1926 But there is another element, more important than all, without which there can not be the slightest hope of a permanent peace. That element lies in the heart of humanity. Unless the desire for peace be cherished there, unless this fundamental and only natural source of brotherly love be cultivated to its highest degree, all artificial efforts will be in vain. Peace will come when there is realization that only under a reign of law, based on righteousness and supported by the religious conviction of the brotherhood of man, can there be any hope of a complete and satisfying life. — Calvin Coolidge · 1925

George Orwell2 quotes

The relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them. — George Orwell · 1945 There are only four ways in which a ruling class can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern. These causes do not operate singly, and as a rule all four of them are present in some degree. A ruling class which could guard against all of them would remain in power permanently. Ultimately the determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself. — George Orwell · 1949

George Savile, Lord Halifax2 quotes

A known liar should be outlawed in a well-ordered government. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750 Wherever a knave is not punished, an honest man is laughed at. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750

Hannah Arendt2 quotes

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution. — Hannah Arendt · 1970 Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. — Hannah Arendt · 1969

Harry Truman2 quotes

Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix. — Harry Truman · 1972 Communism is based on the belief that man is so weak and inadequate that he is unable to govern himself, and therefore requires the rule of strong masters. Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice. — Harry Truman · 1949

Henry David Thoreau2 quotes

I heartily accept the motto,—"That government is best which governs least";... Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all." — Henry David Thoreau · 1848 All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. — Henry David Thoreau · 1848

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