Good Government Quotes

The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.

The responsibility for good government lies not just with governments themselves but also with every other part of the system they operate in, including media, non-governmental organisations and the public.

History has tried hard to teach us that we can't have good government under politicians.

The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity. When they assembled, the field of debate presented an ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared for every enormity.

He serves his party best who helps to make it instantly responsive to every need of the people.

No, my friend, the way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many.

I believe good governments have nothing to hide. We want to ensure we maintain confidence in our public institutions.

You need a government that believes in government. It also believes in markets and wants to give markets the best, the greatest opportunity, but is trying to govern well.

A good government remains the greatest of human blessings and no nation has ever enjoyed it.

In truth the monarchy here is an absurd anachronism. It has nothing on which it logically or legitimately stands. The feudal basis on which it once stood no longer existing, the monarchy now is only an impediment to good government -- an obstruction to the prosperity and progress of the islands. Destiny and the vast future interests of the United States in the Pacific clearly indicate who at no distant day must be responsible for the government of these islands.

Knowledge is the cause as well as the effect of good government

Dialoging is the first principle of good government.

Ordinary people want good government.

Good public service is good practical politics…. My goal is to strengthen the [Republican] Party by bettering it..

A good government can no more exist without propaganda than propaganda can exist without a good government.

Without union our independence and liberty would never have been achieved; without union they can never be maintained. Divided into twenty-four, or even a smaller number, of separate communities, we shall see our internal trade burdened with numberless restraints and exactions; communications between distant points and sections obstructed or cut off; our sons made soldiers to deluge with blood the fields they now till in peace...The loss of liberty, of all good government, of peace, plenty, and happiness, must inevitably follow a dissolution of the Union.

This is good government. We have divided government. To make divided government work you can’t ask each other to compromise core principles…. We ask each other to find common ground for the common good.

Have you not violated a fundamental principle of liberty in excluding the clergy from your Legislatures. I know their danger in a free government but I would rather see them excluded from civil power by custom than by law. They have property, wives & children, & of course are citizens of a community. Why therefore Should they be Abridged of any one privilege which Other citizens enjoy? Is it not a fact that by investing any men with more, or confining them to fewer privileges than members of a community enjoy in general we render those men the enemies of that community Perhaps all the Mischief which the clergy have done in all countries has arisen from the first of the above causes. Will not the clause in your Charter which excludes Clergymen from your Legislature hand down to posterity as well as hold up to the World an idea that you looked upon the Christian religion as well as its Ministers as unfriendly to good government? I wish our governments would treat religion of all kinds, & ministers of all denominations as if no such things or beings existed in the world. They mutually destroy each Other when any Attempts are made by either to support each other...

Liberty and good government do not exclude each other.

... a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

Good government can be no substitute for self-government.

It's crucial to democracy and good government to scrutinize our public officials.

I have been around long enough to know that when large amounts of money are donated to politicians, something besides good government is expected in return.

Peace, Order and Good Government.