Political Sayings
93 sayings found from the Early Modern era from 15 authors
Category
The first duty of a government is to protect its citizens.
The best government is that which makes the people happy.
The continuation of authority in one individual has frequently been the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential to the system of popular governments, because nothing is so dangerous as to suffer power to be continued for a…
The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution.
I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.
No government can continue good but under the control of the people.
The best government is that which governs least.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.
Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
The most sacred of the duties of a government is to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.
I think myself that we are over-governed, and that the best government is that which governs least.
The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny, are to diffuse it generally among the people, and to give to all, in proportion to their interest in it, a proportionate share in its exercise.
On this foundation I hope the whole may be made to stand; and that from this principle, every generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness, consequently to change it as circumstanc…
The will of the people, expressed by their suffrage, is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
I am not a Federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself.
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.