Ben Carson Quotes

It's not good for people to have the safety net too low... People can take care of themselves better than we allow them to.

We don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into complacency and dependence.

Our nation needs to stop doing for people what they can and should do for themselves. Self reliance means, if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.

There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.

Tell the people not to depend on me anymore.

I have always told my daughters not to be dependent on anyone in any capacity.

We shouldn't turn the safety net into a hammock. It should actually be a safety net.

Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social morality which in any way lessens initiative is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers. Let social busybodies and professional "public morals experts" in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under this pretense of social welfare.

I want people to provide for themselves.

I don't want to be a burden on anybody.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'

Of course we have compassion. We just don't believe the safety net should be used as a hammock.

Carefully avoid all undertakings which depends on others; but let him eagerly pursue that which depends on himself.

Self government means self support.

In the past, the public assistance programs have been too much concerned with the mere dispatching of monthly checks. … it is high time that some concerted effort be made to get people off the rolls who can sustain themselves.

I don't think you ought to walk into this country one day, and the first stop you make is the welfare office.

We feel the need to emphasize with greater clarity the obligation for members of the Church to become more independent and self reliant.

Today I will not wait for someone to come to my aid. I'm not helpless. Although help may come, I'm my own rescuer. My relationships will dramatically improve when I stop rescuing others and stop expecting others to rescue me.

History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.

Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.

There is not the woman born who desires to eat the bread of dependence, no matter whether it be from the hand of father, husband, or brother; for any one who does so eat her bread places herself in the power of the person from whom she takes it.

I don't want to ever think that I don't know what to do. I want to deal with my own things, to perform my own roles, to be like, "I did this."

That's the only way we're going to get through these programs. That is true compassion. Having people become dependent on others is not compassion at all.

Recipients of transfers tend to become less self-reliant and more dependent on government payments. When people can get support without exercising their own abilities to discover and respond to opportunities for earning income, those abilities atrophy. People forget - or never learn in the first place - how to help themselves, and eventually some of them simply accept their helplessness.