Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes

Government is a necessary evil

"Government," says Swift, "is a plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of many heads."

Bad as any government may be, it is seldom worse than anarchy.

If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.

Where government is impossible, politics is impossible.

It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.

I believe all universities should at least offer courses in politics and policy implementation.

Good political leadership is good government. What we need is more good political leadership.

A Republic without parties is a complete anomaly. The history of all popular governments show how absurd is the idea of their attempting to exist without parties

The state is therefore everyone; the rules within the state are laws which safeguard the welfare of all and which must originate from the welfare of all.

Politics is made up of two words: "Poli," which is Greek for "many," and "tics," which are bloodsucking insects.

Mankind has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. [...] The art of government is the exclusive possession of quacks and frauds. It has been so since the earliest days, and it will probably remain so until the end of time.

All such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple governments are despotisms; and of all despotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent.

I believe you can divide the people in to two basic groups, those who believe government is a necessary good and those who believe it is a necessary evil, those who want government to take care of them, those who want government to leave them alone.

Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else.

The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms.

Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent.

The divine right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants, but the divine right of government is the keystone of human progress, and without it governments sink into police, and a nation is degraded into a mob.

It is with government as with medicine, its only business is the choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.

The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.

History will also give occasion to expatiate on the advantage of civil orders and constitutions; how men and their properties are protected by joining in societies and establishing government; their industry encouraged and rewarded, arts invented, and life made more comfortable; the advantages of liberty, mischiefs of licentiousness, benefits arising from good laws and a due execution of justice. Thus may the first principles of sound politics be fixed in the minds of youth.

I have a hard time imagining a country or a government where I would say, "Oh, this is good," where I could live under a government that I respect for a day or a week, even to see what it feels like.

It must be admitted that the tendency of the human race toward liberty is largely thwarted, especially in France. This is greatly due to a fatal desire-learned from the teachings of antiquity-that our writers on public affairs have in common: They desire to set themselves above mankind in order to arrange, organize, and regulate it according to their fancy.

Once more: there are three offices according to whose directions the highest magistrates are chosen in certain states - guardians of the law, probuli, councilors - of these, the guardians of the law are an aristocratical, the probuli an oligarchical, the council a democratical institution.

Nonviolent attainment of self-government presupposes a non-violent control over the violent elements in the country.