“Government was rarely more than a choice between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”
More from Barbara Tuchman on Government
Others on Government
Thomas Paine
6 quotes“Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one.”
Ronald Reagan
4 quotes“Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”
Hamilton
3 quotes“Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and ju...”
Andrew Jackson
2 quotes“There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.”
Ron Paul
2 quotes“Counterfeit money should not be done by anyone, whether it be government or private.”
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.”
Edmund Burke
2 quotes“All government - indeed every human benefit and enjoyment every virtue and every prudent act - is founded on compromis...”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1 quote“A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.”
Bertrand Russell
1 quote“Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.”
President Trump
1 quote“The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a go...”
George Washington
1 quote“Government is not reason it is not eloquence - it is force.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe
1 quote“Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed”