Elliot Richardson Quotes

To comprehend the Wisdom of this Injunction the better, and explain the Duty before us, it should be considered, that Government is the only Means by which human Happiness can be attained.

Government is connected to everything we do.

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

Progressivism is the belief that we have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices.

The strengthening of our statehood is, at times, deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism.

Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion.

History has shown that Big Government expands quickest in the immediate aftermath of a crisis - real or manufactured.

A good government can no more exist without propaganda than propaganda can exist without a good government.

Public business … must always be done by somebody…. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.

Government is not a substitute for people, but simply the instrument through which they act. And if the individual fails to do his duty as a citizen, government becomes a very deadly instrument indeed.

Governments are sails, the people is the wind, the state is the boat, and time is the sea.

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these …

Because market forces and institutions are ethically indifferent, they require a deliberative, communal intelligence to prevent extreme injustice.

Our politics, our public life and thought rise not to the level of our opportunity.

In every Revolution a dictator is needed to save the state by force, or censors to save it by virtue.

China’s rulers wanted row country to get rich, but not at the cost of control.

Citizens need to know how their countries are being run so that they can hold governments and big business to account.

I think we need to raise our voices, and we need to demonstrate to the people we represent, as well as the American people, that their leaders have a responsibility to take action.

The trouble with the social-democratic state is that, when government does too much, nobody else does much of anything.

A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot - because the first leads inevitably to the second.

The stakes ... are too high for government to be a spectator sport.

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.

The measure of the state's success is that the word anarchy frightens people, while the word state does not.

It became clear to the whole world that a totalitarian regime could neither accuse nor transform itself: suicide was not in its nature, it could only kill others.

What can government do? They can listen to their own people. But I'll tell you what citizens can do, when we elect one of these people - whether we think it's a good guy or a bozo - you got to stay on the case. You don't vote and go home and give them the keys to the car, he'll drive you right off a cliff. You have to help people to stay honest.