“Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.”
More from Hamilton on Government
Others on Government
Thomas Paine
6 quotes“Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of par...”
Ronald Reagan
4 quotes“Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them.”
Barbara Tuchman
3 quotes“Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government.”
Andrew Jackson
2 quotes“There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.”
Daniel Webster
2 quotes“The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.”
Ron Paul
2 quotes“Counterfeit money should not be done by anyone, whether it be government or private.”
Edmund Burke
2 quotes“All government - indeed every human benefit and enjoyment every virtue and every prudent act - is founded on compromis...”
John Locke
1 quote“Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.”
Thomas Jefferson
1 quote“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the c...”
Anton Chekhov
1 quote“The State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to.”
John Stuart Mill
1 quote“The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its p...”
Julian Barnes
1 quote“The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else.”