Mark Steyn Quotes

Anything that shifts power from the individual judgment of free citizens to government is a bad thing.

The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.

Before my tenure, people didn't seem to think that citizens had a right to limit the size of their government.

The American people believe that we ought to control our government. On the other hand, we've seen government more and more controlling us

The privacy and dignity of our citizens are being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen – a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person's] life.

Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.

We have seen an outrageous increase in the size, scope, and intrusiveness of the federal government.

Gun control means control. It means control for the government and the government starts controlling the people.

In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the person and the state. It's become a fact of life that governments have become very intimate with people, most always to their detriment.

All our rights are gradually eroded as government gets bigger.

Government works less efficiently when it begins to grow out of control and takes on more and more of the responsibilities that belong to the citizens.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

In a country where Americans sense, quite genuinely, that their freedoms have been taken away by the government - as in the U.S. Patriot Act, as in NSA surveillance - people feel powerless.

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

A government role in our society should be inherently suspect …. There is something inherently coercive in the nature of government.

The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivalry of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in fine, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise.

I have an institutional fear of big government. I have an institutional opposition to bureaucracy.

I am not one of those who thinks that Congress needs to be in session 24 hours a day interfering in peoples' lives.

When government gets too big, freedom is lost. Government is supposed to be the servant. But when a government can tax the people with no limit or restraint on what the government can take, then the government has become the master.

The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.

My quarrel is not with the legitimate role of government but with the unlimited role of government.

As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.

We should know at least the broad strokes of the powers that the government's claiming in our name, and using allegedly, on our behalf. And also against us as well.

As government grows, freedom recedes.

The problem is big government. If whoever controls government can impose his way upon you, you have to fight constantly to prevent the control from being harmful. With small, limited government, it doesn't much matter who controls it, because it can't do you much harm.