Calvin Coolidge Quotes

The only thing I believe is individual responsibility doesn't mean the government is the answer to ever fear and every problem every individual has. We are the masters of our own destiny.

Smaller government, more individual responsibility, more individual control creates more Republicans. More state power and ownership and control and top-down decision-making creates more Democrats.

People have to take responsibility for themselves. We need to get the housing industry going again. We don't need government intervening in every step.

Now, let me be clear. The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle to grave assurance that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise the most goodies and the most benefits, I'm not your president. You have that president today.

How do we turn our nation around? President Obama thinks the answer is more and more government. Government is not the answer. You are not doing anyone a favor by creating dependency, destroying individual responsibility.

When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves.

We live in such a corporate world where everyone is passing the buck, it seems to me. Therefore I like stories where the individual takes responsibility for BEING the individual, and not just for himself, but for his comrades, his society and ultimately for his country. Ultimately, we can all learn a lesson from that and not be browbeaten by the corporate world which is taking over.

I will raise my voice as long as God gives me sound or ability, against this Communistic idea that the Government will take care of us all, and everything belongs to the government. It is wrong!

I do not want to live under a philanthropy. I do not want to be taken care of by the government.... We do not want a benevolent government. We want a free and a just government.

We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts.... Self-government means self-reliance.

My political philosophy as a libertarian says that government has no business intervening in any consensual private behavior. My professional ethic as a thinker and writer, however, says that self-knowledge is our ultimate responsibility

Conservatives say human beings are people who are primarily concerned with self-interest, and that's what they should be concerned with - self-interest and individual responsibility. They shouldn't be paying for anybody else's health care or anything else like that. As a result, government is something that should be absolutely minimal. It's not there for your overall protection and empowerment - it's not there to offer protection against disease or natural disasters or bad products or companies who sell you fallacious mortgages and so on.

In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.

The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their government, its functions do not include the support of the people.

Government should do only those things the people cannot do for themselves.

Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people.

The inescapable truth is: government does not have all the answers. In too many instances, government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.

A famous, very often quoted phrase says: "That government is best, which governs least." I do not believe this to be a correct description of of the functions of a good government. Government ought to do all the things for which it is needed and for which it is established. Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against the violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the country against foreign enemies. These are the functions of government within a free system, within the system of the market economy.

That is the crux of modern conservatism - government taking strong measures to foster the attitudes and aptitudes necessary for increased individual independence.

There's no expert on this planet who says that the government telling people what to do actually does any good with this issue, this is going to require an effort on everyone's part.

What Barack Obama calls bipartisanship is not moving to the right, but finding where people who consider themselves conservatives share these fundamental American values. When he talks about union, that's the kind of thing he means. That requires common responsibility. Individual responsibility is one of the hallmarks of conservative thought. In conservative religion, you yourself are responsible for whether you get into heaven. Or with fiscal conservatives, you are the market. It's your individual discipline and market discipline.

Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak.

Europe can only hold together and stand together, which is very important in times of migration challenges, terrorism challenges, if each country takes responsibility for itself.