Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman
Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, “Unlimited Government” (Dec. 29, 1961).
“Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.”
Frame of Government (1682)
Context: Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.
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William Penn53
English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker… 1644–1718Related quotes
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
Source: The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
Letter to John Wayles Eppes (9 September 1814). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 11 http://files.libertyfund.org/files/807/0054-11_Bk.pdf, pp. 425-426 <br class="br">1810s <br class="br">Context: [... ] Congress itself can punish Alexandria, by repealing the law which made it a town, by discontinuing it as a port of entry or clearance, and perhaps by suppressing it’s banks. But I expect all will go off with impunity. If our government ever fails, it will be from this weakness. No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as of duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only.
Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman
Rampart Institute, p. 431
The Fundamental of Liberty (1988)
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…
A speech delivered at Niblo’s Saloon, in New York, on the 15 of March, 1837.<br>The Works of Daniel Webster, Boston, Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851, vol. 1, p. 358 http://books.google.com/books?id=9DMOAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA358&lpg=PA358&dq=%22They+mean+to+govern+well%3B+but+they+mean+to+govern%22&source=bl&ots=oJ6IWDhF2B&sig=iYuDQMQjnHzxMjzbd6rJohrXVrQ&hl=en&ei=xqYqTKDpFML-nAeF2omjAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CCwQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=%22They%20mean%20to%20govern%20well%3B%20but%20they%20mean%20to%20govern%22&f=false. <br class="br">Context: There are men, in all ages, who mean to exercise power usefully; but who mean to exercise it. They mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be kind masters; but they mean to be masters.
Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian
Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), p. 5
Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman
As quoted in Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer, L.K. Samuels, editor, Freeland Press and Rampart Institute, Santa Ana: CA, Chap. 5, p. 70
“It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.”
Henry Fielding book The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Source: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
“Good and bad men are each less so than they seem.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher