Quotes on Limited Government

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

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.

The Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest...and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war

A tyrant... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.

Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.

Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.