Frederick the Great Quotes

Princes, sovereigns, and king have not been given supreme authority in order to live in luxurious self-indulgence and debauchery. They have not been elevated by their fellow-men to enable them to strut about and to insult with their pride the simple-mannered, the poor, and the suffering. They have not been placed at the head of the State to keep around themselves a crowd of idle loafers whose uselessness drives them towards vice. The bad administration which may be found in monarchies springs from many different causes, but their principal cause lies in the character of the sovereign

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

The taxpayers deserve accountability.

Sometimes I am convinced there is nothing wrong with this country that couldn't be cured by the magical implantation of ethical standards on us all - leaders and followers. Until that becomes doable, the Center for Public Integrity is just about the best thing we have going for us.

It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.

We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.

Nothing is worse, or more of a breach of the social contract between citizen and state, than for government officials, bureaucrats and agencies to waste the money entrusted to them by the people they serve.

One of the most lethal mistakes a public official can make is raising taxes and not paying your own.

There is no excuse for waste, fraud, and abuse in the Defense Department budget.

We call ourselves public servants but I'll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.

I believe - we all pay taxes. I'm happy to pay it, but I hate to have it abused, money wasted, no accountability. That's going to bother you.

Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible is evil.

The President represents everybody and he sets the moral tone of the country.

The sovereign is the foremost judge, general, financier, and minister of his country, not merely for the sake of his prestige. Therefore, he should perform with care the duties connected with these offices. He is merely the principal servant of the State.

This state shows every need for a constructive administration, devoted to the protection and expansion of labor and capital, industry, and agriculture, all working toward the efficiency of our courts, public schools, freedom in religious beliefs and reduction in taxation and burdens of government, and toward liberating our state and our institutions from the ever growing modern tendency of monopoly and concentration of power

All this activity is directed by the King in person, and only by him. Besides, he looks after the whole public administration in all its branches With such care and thoroughness that not a thaler [note: a monetary unit] is spent unless he has given his signature. Those who do not see it cannot believe that there is any man in the world, however intelligent and able he may be, who can settle so many things personally in a single day as Frederick William the First, who works from 3 o'clock in the morning till 10, and spends the rest of' the day in looking after and drilling his army....

Too many conservatives in our country want to run up enormous deficits in the hope that someone else will pay for it. This is not conservativism; it is alchemy or lunacy.

O kings of the earth! We see you increasing every year your expenditures, and laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is wholly and grossly unjust ... do not rob them to rear palaces for yourselves.

Think for a moment of what this patronage system means. How many of you are there who would be willing to do to your private client, or customer, or any private trust, or to a friend or neighbor, what you see being done to the State of New York every year of your lives in the taking of money out of her treasury without service?

All Americans want our government to have a moral compass.

As a matter of general sound public policy, I am very certain that there is a requirement that where a public official is under inquiry or investigation, especially an elected official, and it appears that his scale of living or the total of his bank deposits far exceeds the public salary which he is known to receive, he, the elected public official, owes a positive public duty to the community to give a reasonable or credible explanation of the sources of the deposits, or the source which enables him to maintain a scale of living beyond the amount of his salary.

Law is, for the most part, positive or mandatory. It prescribes certain duties which I am to do as the condition of my civic protection. Conscience is, for the most part, negative or prohibitory in its operation. It sets before me certain evils to be undone or repented of. Thus law aims to exalt its subject, or make him conventionally righteous; while conscience aims to humiliate him

We respect law, when the law respects our needs. Whenever legality clashes with morality, legality should be opposed and morality should be upheld.

We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right [individually] to appropriate a dollar of the public money.

When you steal from the government, you steal from yourself.