A Quote by Walter Lippmann

It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.

Walter Lippmann

Quote Topics

Best Equally Government Least Most Perfectly Provides True Which

Quote Author

Walter Lippmann
American - Journalist
September 23, 1889 - December 14, 1974

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Henry David Thoreau

It may be true that the government that governs best governs least Unfortunately, the same is also true of the government that governs worst.

Jane Bowles

The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that 'the best government is that which governs least,' and that which governs least is no government at all.

Benjamin Tucker

I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

Stephen Colbert

That government is best which governs least.

Henry David Thoreau

Government is best which governs least

Thomas Paine

The best government is that which governs least.

John L. O'Sullivan

Soon we will be addicted to the federal government, and we will not want to support our local police force. I have been a believer that the government that governs best is the government that governs least.

Paul Orfalea

A famous, very often quoted phrase says: "That government is best, which governs least." I do not believe this to be a correct description of of the functions of a good government. Government ought to do all the things for which it is needed and for which it is established. Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against the violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the country against foreign enemies. These are the functions of government within a free system, within the system of the market economy.

Ludwig von Mises

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

Henry David Thoreau

The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people’s private lives. Government governs best when it governs least – and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone’s version of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against gays.

Barry Goldwater

There is no good government but what is republican. That the only valuable part of the British constitution is so; for the true idea of a republic is "an empire of laws, and not of men." That, as a republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangement of the powers of society, or in other words, that form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the law, is the best of republics.

John Adams

The thought about Republicans is, we're supposed to be Jeffersonian. That government governs the best that governs the least.

Pat Robertson

It is certain, I think, that the best government is the one that governs the least. But there is a much-neglected corollary: the best citizen is the one who least needs governing.