Responsible government is an off shoot of a culture of personal responsibility.

When there is no personal responsibility in any society, there cannot be a responsible government.

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

The Vice Presidency is sort of like the last cookie on the plate. Everybody insists he won't take it, but somebody always does.

The function of Government must be to favor no small group at the expense of its duty to protect the rights of personal freedom and of private property of all its citizens.

Thank heavens we don't get all the government we pay for.

Governments exist to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection,-they have many friends and few enemies.

The best government is that which governs least.

A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands-even for beneficial purposes-will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.

Govern a great nation as you would fry small fish.

A government is free in proportion to the rights it guarantees to the minority.

No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition.

The handwriting on the wall may be a forgery.

Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Nothing is as dangerous for the state as those who would govern kingdoms with maxims found in books.

The proper function of a government is to make it easy for people to do good and difficult for them to do evil.

All rising to great place is by a winding stair.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

In a healthy nation there is a kind of dramatic balance between the will of the people and the government, which prevents its degeneration into tyranny.