Robert M. Hutchins Quotes

Government is not the enemy. Government is simply a tool that can be used wisely or unwisely.

Power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the People.

That’s the function of government—to do for people what they cannot do for themselves.

I'll remind you all, however, that for government, existence is a privilege, not a right.

If you're in government, the right thing to do is be focused on solving real problems and asking what's the best solution to a particular problem.

I believe nobody is stronger than the state. So the state would be strong, and we have to work altogether to make the strength of the state.

Providing for the common good, making people feel secure in their communities and homes - this is the central job of government. it's why all of us are here serving our state and our people.

My task as a citizen is to get the government to do more good and less inefficient and wasteful work.

It's a rarity when someone takes a political risk in Washington today in the public interest.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

Administration is the essence of government, and its quality is a prime condition of civic comfort.

The final end of government is not to exert restraint but to do good.

Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and trustees are created for the benefit of the public.

All government is intended for the benefit of the people.

We need government to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves.

All of us can agree that we want government to work as well as possible, and we should all applaud efforts to improve it. But there is no escaping the divisive and essential questions: What is the purpose of the state, and whom does it serve?

The state must be the first to be organized and totally committed to serving the interests of the people. We must always be clear that the example is set at the top.

I believe in the state as a power for good.

The people we send to Washington have to roll up their sleeves, stop the fighting, and work together on issues that are not political, not partisan, but personal to families across our state and our nation.

I'm a big fan of public trust.

The state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.

Government is not infallible. Government is only an executive control, a centralized authority for the purpose of expressing the will of the people; before you have a government you must have the people. Without the people there can be no government. The government must be, therefore, an expression of the will of the people.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.

One of the worst of errors would be the general admission of the proposition that a Government has no right to interfere for any purpose except for that of affording protection.

For all the huffing and blowing we get about rugged individualism, the American spirit and the American experiment always have had at their heart the notion that the government is all of us and that, therefore, the government may keep things in trust for all of us.