James Monroe Quotes

As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.

We have one authority and one law and everyone has the responsibility to follow that law and that authority.

If human beings are fundamentally good, no government is necessary; if they are fundamentally bad, any government, being composed of human beings, would be bad also.

But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external controls nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

If all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government.

Government should fear the people, not the other way around.

Government is a necessary evil

Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.

Government is an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence.

If men were angels, there would be no need of government.

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.

If we weren't born with anti-social passions - narcissism, envy, lust, meanness, greed, hunger for power, just to name the more obvious - why the need for so many laws, whether religious or secular, that govern behavior?

Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.

There can be no liberty without the law.

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.

I believe that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

Who, then, will govern? The answer must be, Man - for we have no angels in the shape of men, as yet, who are willing to take charge of our political affairs.

Law is born from despair of human nature.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people.

The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.