Quotes on Governing

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty.

It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.

First, it is necessary to study the facts, to multiply the number of observations, and then later to search for formulas that connect them so as thus to discern the particular laws governing a certain class of phenomena. In general, it is not until after these particular laws have been established that one can expect to discover and articulate the more general laws that complete theories by bringing a multitude of apparently very diverse phenomena together under a single governing principle.

If you don't have a moral question governing your society, then you don't have a society that is going to survive.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

We are losing our living systems, social systems, cultural systems, governing systems, stability, and our constitutional health, and we're surrendering it all at the same time.

We shall never understand the natural environment until we see it as a living organism. Land can be healthy or sick, fertile or barren, rich or poor, lovingly nurtured or bled white. Our present attitudes and laws governing the ownership and use of land represent an abuse of the concept of private property.... Today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see and nobody calls the cops.

Money is plentiful for those who understand the simple laws which govern its acquisition.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

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

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice, nothing else; that is the alpha and omega of my argument: to others I leave the business of governing the world.

The idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government) has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.

In dwelling, live close to the ground._x000D_ _x000D_ In thinking, keep to the simple._x000D_ _x000D_ In conflict, be fair and generous._x000D_ _x000D_ In governing, don't try to control._x000D_ _x000D_ In work, do what you enjoy._x000D_ _x000D_ In family life, be completely present.

Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.

You can build a throne with bayonets, but it's difficult to sit on it.