Ethical Governance Quotes

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.

Throughout my career, I have made rooting out public corruption a top priority.

Virtue is necessary to a republic.

Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force?

I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare - I have no use for him, either.

An honest public servant can't become rich in politics. He can only attain greatness and satisfaction by service.

Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.

Abuse of power isn't limited to 'bad guys' in other nations. It happens in our own country. Those in power get jaded, deluded, and seduced by power itself. I have a reverence for individuality. I've always considered myself too individualistic to be either right-wing or left-wing. I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. People should be able to be what they want to be and do what they want - as long as they're not harming other people. I am a libertarian.

Self-preservation shouldn't be the first instinct in politics. It should be doing the right thing for the country.

Politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.

The basis of effective government is public confidence, and that confidence is endangered when ethical standards falter or appear to falter.

I have described Swaraj as Ramarajya and Ramarajya is an impossibility unless we have thousands of Sitas.

No man can do both effective and decent work in public life unless he is a practical politician on the one hand, and a sturdy believer in Sunday-school politics on the other. He must always strive manfully for the best, and yet, like Abraham Lincoln, must often resign himself to accept the best possible.

I know nothing, by experience, of party discipline. I would rather be a raccoon-dog, and belong to a Negro in the forest, than to belong to any party, further than to do justice to all, and to promote the interests of my country. The time will and must come, when honesty will receive its reward, and when the people of this nation will be brought to a sense of their duty, and will pause and reflect how much it cost us to redeem ourselves from the government of one man.

You who make the laws, the vices and the virtues of the people will be your work.

Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals.

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.

I would never want to trade a vote for a gavel.

Corruption is uniquely reprehensible in a democracy because it violates the system's first principle, which we all learned back in the sunshiny days of elementary school: that the government exist to serve the public, not particular companies or individuals or even elected officials.

I don't think politics has anything to do with left, right, or center. It has to do with trying to do right by people.

We know that, sooner or later, reckless government actions and policies have consequences. That when government corrupts the truth and breaks faith with the American people, the entire fabric of our society - everything we believe in and count on - is in jeopardy.

Dignity, in private men and in governments, has been little else than a stately and stiff perseverance in oppression; and spirit, as it is called, little else than the foam of hard-mouthed insolence.

I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the leastact of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length even become the laughing-stock of the world.

National morality, by example and by persuasion, should begin at the White House and have the good influence to reach out to every corner of the land