Lawrence Lessig Quotes

The question of our time is rapidly becoming can government get things done?

If you are really interested in making government work, you should have the experience of working in government.

The question today is not whether the government is too small or too small, but whether or not it works

Government should do a few things, and do them right

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.

Maybe we can show government how to operate better as a result of better architecture.

We need a new government that works.

If you look at government policy generally, what government tries to do in all instances is to make sure that we take care of all elements that might relate to a particular issue.

That is one of the reasons why we have raised this matter about the need to focus quite sharply on the function of local government, but also on the resourcing of local government. Because it may very well be that we say to local government, you have got to run an indigent policy.

The reason so many problems do not get solved in Washington is that solving those problems is not the No. 1 priority: Re-election is.

Emphasize reconciliation, not resolution. It is unrealistic to expect everyone to agree about everything. Reconciliation focuses on the relationship, while resolution focuses on the problem. When we focus on reconciliation, the problem loses significance and often becomes irrelevant.

You can have very big local government. By big, I mean very engaged government. Do you measure it in terms of the number of laws? Number of employees? You could make arguments for either one. I tend to think the axis of the size of government is the wrong concern. But I do think that situating power more locally is a legitimate approach.

Sometimes the only solution is figuring out a bigger problem to focus on.

Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two [good and evil].

I don't want to jump the gun, [but] I will tell you, though, that my goal is to have the best possible government.

Socialism starts when government creates a problem, and then government steps in to solve the problem.

In and out of government, I've always been willing to take on complicated, sometimes unpopular, issues and work them through to have a solution.

Government is like an onion. To understand it, you have to peel through many different layers. Most outsiders never get beyond the first or second layer.

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.

When I'm creatively solving problems, I'm in my sweet spot, and nothing can take me out of that joyful present.

Don't focus on the problem, focus on the PURPOSE.

What we should be asking is not whether we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter and better government.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem. It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.

Government is not the problem, and government is not the solution. We - the American people - we are the solution.