Government Is A Necessary Evil Quotes

#1. Government is a necessary evil

Thomas Paine

#2. It is said that government is a necessary evil, but it is far more evil than it is necessary.

James Cook

#3. That government is not a necessary good but an unavoidable evil.

Lyn Nofziger

#4. The Founders never intended for Americans to trust their government. Our entire Constitution was predicated on the notion that government was a necessary evil, to be restrained and minimized as much as possible.

Rand Paul

#5. The fateful equating of power with violence, of the political with government, and of government with a necessary evil has begun.

Hannah Arendt

#6. Unlike classical liberalism, which saw the government as a necessary evil, or simply a benign but voluntary social contract for free men to enter into willingly, the belief that the entire society was one organic whole left no room for those who didn't want to behave, let alone "evolve.

Jonah Goldberg

#7. No matter how deeply wedded one may be to the free enterprise system (and I, for one, am wedded for life), one has to accept the need for positive government; one has to consider government action on a sizable scale as desirable rather than as a necessary evil.

Peter Drucker

#8. Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

Thomas Paine

#9. Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

#10. I believe you can divide the people in to two basic groups, those who believe government is a necessary good and those who believe it is a necessary evil, those who want government to take care of them, those who want government to leave them alone.

Lyn Nofziger

#11. Government is only a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing overmuch kills the self-help and energy of the governed.

Wendell Phillips

#12. Society in every state is a blessing, but Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil ...

Howard Zinn

#13. The government's appearing to be a necessary evil does not oblige people to trust it. We face a choice of trusting government or trusting freedom-trusting overlords who have lied and abused their power or trusting individuals to make the most of their own lives.

James Bovard