Limited Governance Quotes

Government is only a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing overmuch kills the self-help and energy of the governed.

There are 100 different doors to come into the conservative movement. You can disagree with 99 of them, as long as you agree on one: more-limited government.

That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

I'm liberal about everything that is issue-based as far as ideology, but I'm also of the opinion of a very small government.

I think we have lost track of a core Republican principle of limited government and balancing budgets and restraining federal spending. We have got to change the system.

The least practicable measure of government must be the best. Anything beyond the minimum must be oppression.

Big-government proponents embrace both the power of the federal government and the idea that millions of Americans ought to be dependent on its largesse. It's time to return to our Founders' love for small government. More is not always better.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Among practical men the idea prevails that government can do nothing but 'keep the peace”.

I fear that, as conditions worsen, many will react to the failures of too much government by calling for even more government. Then there will be more and more lifeboats launched because fewer and fewer citizens know how to swim. Unlike some pendulums, political pendulums to not swing back automatically; they must be pushed. History is full of instances when people have waited in vain for pendulums to swing back.

It is impossible to manage the health care requirements of tens of millions of American citizens at the federal level. It is impossible to manage all of the permutations of people's economic aspirations and lives through a complex tax code. It is impossible to try to second-guess the market. It is impossible, from a managerial standpoint, for the federal government to do the things it is trying to do today.

The Obama presidency, and liberalism in general, are based on not trusting the American people - a belief that big government is better for people.

Limited government is best.

If the Federal government should go out of existence, the common run of people would not detect the difference in the affairs of their daily life for a considerable length of time.

We are too solicitous for government intervention, on the theory, first, that the people themselves are helpless, and second, that the Government has superior capacity for action. Often times both of these conclusions are wrong.

The school system has become a part of this huge government machine, governed by people who aren't close to the situation. That's why I'm a Republican. I believe in small government.

The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that 'the best government is that which governs least,' and that which governs least is no government at all.

This is a country that historically has had very little central government.

I am going to make Washington as irrelevant to your lives as possible