George Santayana Quotes

We want a system that will improve consistency and steadiness in the quality of government.

Government loses its claim to legitimacy when it fails to fulfill its obligations.

My aspiration is not to be loved. It is that my government be respected and credible.

All governments, without exception, are stable only insofar as they can effectively reward and punish.

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

All governments must maintain power by consent. Not by coercion.

First, we need to focus government on the things that are required of the State. Second, we need to achieve competence in government so that the State delivers on the things it sets out to do.

A government that understands the limits of power as well as its potential.

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.

Government is instituted for those who live under it.

Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

We want a good government that works. Let us rise above caste divisions and nepotism and pledge to elect a government that is development oriented. Delhi needs a stable government and a strong government

Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.

The demand of our people in 1980 is not for smaller government or bigger government but for better government.

The state is or can be master of money, but in a free society it is master of very little else.

To listen to the interests of all marks an ordinary government; to foresee them marks a great government.

Popular government has not yet been proved to guarantee, always and everywhere, good government.

The way to end corruption is a progressive, policy driven state with proper implementation.

The true strength of rulers and empires lies not in armies or emotions, but in the belief of men that they are inflexibly open and truthful and legal. As soon as a government departs from that standard it ceases to be anything more than 'the gang in possession,' and its days are numbered.

Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.

It may be laid down as a general rule, that their confidence in and obedience to a government, will be commonly proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration . . . . Various reasons have been suggested in the course of these papers, to induce a probability that the general government will be better administered than the particular governments.

That is the trick of good government. To make folk desire to live in such a way that there is no need for its intervention.

All government is an ugly necessity.

Let a ruler base his government upon virtuous principles, and he will be like the pole-star, which remains steadfast in its place, while all the host of stars turn towards it

I have always felt that the real purpose of government is to enhance the lives of people and that a leader can best do that by restraining government in most cases instead of enlarging it at every opportunity.