This quote waiting for review.

“The success of a welfare state is not measured by the number of schemes it announces but by the lives it meaningfully improves. Public programs must be designed with accessibility, efficiency, and dignity at their core. Assistance should empower individuals to become self-reliant rather than permanently dependent.”

Last update Sept. 26, 2026. History

Related quotes

“To a great extent the achievements of invention, of mechanical and of artistic creation, must of necessity, and rightly, be individual rather than governmental. It is the self-reliant pioneer in every enterprise who beats the path along”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Address at San Diego Exposition (1935)
Context: To a great extent the achievements of invention, of mechanical and of artistic creation, must of necessity, and rightly, be individual rather than governmental. It is the self-reliant pioneer in every enterprise who beats the path along which American civilization has marched. Such individual effort is the glory of America.

“In some organizations where staff assistance is overemphasized, from the standpoint of both the influence and the number of staff officials, the chief executive is likely to be cut off from his department heads. An executive should never lose sight of the fact that his closest contacts must be with the heads of the operating departments, and that it is upon them more than any others that the success of the program depends. If he permits himself to become cloistered because of the more favored position of the staff officials, the morale and driving force of the program will be impaired.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: "The Meshing of Line and Staff", 1945, pp. 102-104, as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 306-7

“But active programming consists of the design of new programs, rather than contemplation of old programs.”

Niklaus Wirth (1934) Swiss computer scientist

Program Development by Stepwise Refinement (1971)

“The enterprise engineer must be a leader, a designer, and a synthesizer. He is a doer. He understands theory as a guide to practice. He must concern himself with human organization because the pace and success of technology are becoming more dependent on interaction with the social system and less on scientific discovery. In private as well as public research and development, such men must find ways to reverse the deterioration of ethics and efficiency. They will strengthen the information links between physical design and the public so that technology can better serve society. In the public sector they must show the level of wisdom and leadership that can co-ordinate great engineering projects with politics. They will recognise that informing the public and becoming a nucleus for crystallising public opinion is even more important in many programmes than is the underlying science.”

Jay Wright Forrester (1918–2016) American operations researcher

Source: Engineering Education and Engineering Practice in the Year 2000 (1967), p. 137

“"Welfare" in the United States is a patchwork of more than 80 programs that provide benefits primarily to low-income individuals. These programs are means tested - only individuals whose financial resources fall below a certain level can receive benefits.”

Harvey S. Rosen (1949) American economist

Source: Public Finance - International Edition - Sixth Edition, Chapter 8, Expenditure Programs for the Poor, p. 156

“No one believes more firmly than we do that the safety and welfare of India depend on the permanence of British administration.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Letter to Lord Minto (1907), quoted in Nicholas Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), p. 256.

“Man's future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

"Essay on the Biological Sciences" in Good Reading (1958)
Context: If we have been slow to develop the general concepts of ecology and conservation, we have been even more tardy in recognizing the facts of the ecology and conservation of man himself. We may hope that this will be the next major phase in the development of biology. Here and there awareness is growing that man, far from being the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces that control all other life. Man's future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.

“The corporate manager who achieves success by honest efficiency in giving the best service to the public should be favored because we all beneﬁt by his efficiency. […] he should be helped by the Government because his success is good for the National welfare. But a man who, grasps and holds business power by breaking the industrial efficiency of others, who wins success by methods which are against‘ the public interest and degrading to the public morals, should not be permitted to ‘ exercise such power. Instead of punishing him by a long and doubtful process of the law after the wrong has been com- mitted, there should be such effective Government regulation as to check the evil tendencies at the moment that they start do develop.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

“there is an efficiency case for an institutional welfare state.”

Nicholas Barr (1943) British economist

Source: Economics Of The Welfare State (Fourth Edition), Chapter 4, State Intervention, p. 93

“Public policy requires that some hardship should be suffered by individuals rather than that judicial proceedings should be held in secret.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

Kimber v. The Press Association (1892), L.R. 1 Q.B. [1893], p. 69.

Related quotes

Related topics