Private Initiative Quotes

State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management.

Government does not have a monopoly on compassion.

I'm not a big government guy. I believe in private industries taking care of people. I think they do a better job.

We happen to be living in an era when, in consequence of human gullibility and fallibility, the world has been overtaken by panic and distress such as private initiative alone cannot cope with. To an extent that could previously never have been expected the cities, the states, and the central government have been compelled to undertake to provide relief where voluntary agencies have been unequal to the task.

Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle - the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.

The economy is the creation of the personal initiative of private citizens….Public authorities also must play an active role in promoting increased productivity with a view to social progress and the welfare of all citizens.

The private sector doesn't sit around and say - 'Well, since the president said we should do this, we should do it.'

Government should do only those things the people cannot do for themselves.

Not everything can be solved by government.

The government can help, but we need to make this transition now to a recovery led by private investment, private.

Government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.

Saying that government is not the way to solve problems is not saying that humanity cannot solve its problems. What I've finally learned is this: Despite the obstacles created by governments, voluntary networks of private individuals - through voluntary exchange - solve all sorts of challenges.

Government doesn't have to come up with new killer features on its own. It has to step aside and let others come up with them.

I'm a liberal, but I think there's so much that the private sector can do and does do.

Success is created in studio apartments and garages, at kitchen tables, and in classrooms across the nation, not in government conference rooms in Washington.

Government cannot and must not replace private initiative.

The important thing is this: that, under such government recognition as we may give to that which is beneficent and wholesome in large business organizations, we shall be most vigilant never to allow them to crystallize into a condition which shall make private initiative difficult. It is of the utmost importance that in the future we shall keep the broad path of opportunity just as open and easy for our children as it was for our fathers during the period which has been the glory of America's industrial history.

The government can supply no substitute for enterprise.

If anyone will study the causes of retarded recuperation in Europe, he will find much of it due to stifling of private initiative on one hand, and overloading of the government with business on the other.

I would like here to announce to all Indonesian Muslims that I, as a private citizen, am prepared to take charge of the massive national effort of zakat collection... From now on, I am personally willing to receive zakat payments made in the form of money orders from every single Muslim in the country.

Conservatives came to office to reduce the size of government and enlarge the sphere of free and private initiative. But lately we have increased government in order to stay in office. And, soon, if we don't remember why we were elected we will have lost our office along with our principles, and leave a mountain of debt that our children's grandchildren will suffer from long after we have departed this earth. Because, my friends, hypocrisy is the most obvious of sins, and the people will punish it.

The Federal Government should be the last resort, not the first. Ask if a potential program is truly a federal responsibility or whether it can better be handled privately, by voluntary organizations, or by local or state governments.

Together, let us make this a new beginning. Let us make a commitment to care for the needy, to teach our children the values and the virtues handed down to us by our families, to have the courage to defend those values and the willingess to sacrifice for them. Let us pledge to restore, in our time, the American spirit of voluntary service, of cooperation, of private and community initiative, a spirit that flows like a deep and mighty river through the history of our nation.

Founded on the principles of private initiative, entrepreneurship and self-employment, underpinned by the values of democracy, equality and solidarity, the co-operative movement can help pave the way to a more just and inclusive economic order.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.