A Quote by Wilhelm von Humboldt
The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
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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.
I have spent my entire career advocating for free-market economic policies, trying to convince the leaders of this country that unnecessary government interference in the market-place - and let's face it, most government is totally unnecessary - destroys liberty and inhibits prosperity.
The best advertising and the best communication when it comes to business is that which makes you smile, that which makes you think, that which makes you ponder.
Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.
Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?
Simplicity is that grace which frees the soul from all unnecessary reflections upon itself.
A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the easy life of the gods would be a lifeless life.
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
Most problems are best solved privately, not through government. There's a problem of discourtesy in the world, which is best handled through social norms, which are indispensable. But you wouldn't want the government to be mandating courtesy.
It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.
Fine taste is an aspect of genius itself, and is the faculty of delicate appreciation, which makes the best effects of art our own.
Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it? ... A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men.
Well, there is a contradiction in a sense. If you're making commercials which sell products which are unhealthy or which are unnecessary, I think that you are part of a system - I am part of a system which encourages people to buy things and do things which are not to their best interest. And to that extent you could say it was contradictory.
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.
I became startled by the extraordinary difference between something whose surface is completely invisible which only makes itself present by virtue of what it reflects, and a window, which doesn't make itself apparent at all, in the ideal case.
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