John Stuart Mill Quotes

You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

All our rights are gradually eroded as government gets bigger.

The Constitution was framed fundamentally as a bulwark against governmental power.

To strengthen a weak government, we must reduce its power.

A government role in our society should be inherently suspect …. There is something inherently coercive in the nature of government.

Our devotion to individual freedom limits our readiness to give central government the power to override our traditional power structure.

Big government makes small citizens.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded.

The government is supposed to conform to our will. By taking the most important thing you have, your health and your health care, and turning that over to the government, you fundamentally shift the power, a huge chunk of it, from the people to the government. This is not the direction that we want the government to go in this nation.

The American people believe that we ought to control our government. On the other hand, we've seen government more and more controlling us

The greatest threat to our freedom is an all powerful federal government.

The great object in view is to limit and qualify the powers of government.

It must never be forgotten ... that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power.

We can’t trust government to limit its powers to the Constitution.

See that the government does not acquire too much power. Keep a check on your rulers.

Those who seek always to limit the power of government are of good heart and conscience. Those who seek to expand the power of government are base tyrants.

If the believers in liberty wish the principles of liberty taught, let them never intrust that instruction to any government; for the nature of government is to become a thing apart, an institution existing for its own sake, preying upon the people, and teaching whatever will tend to keep it secure in its seat.

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

Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.

As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

As the old saying goes, 'money is power' and the more money the government takes, the more power it has over individuals.

Government is the natural enemy of freedom.