A Quote by Thomas Jefferson

Those are governed best who are governed least.

Thomas Jefferson

Quote Topics

Best Governed Least Those

Quote Author

Thomas Jefferson
American - President
April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826

All countries must be governed by the modern people; they must be governed by the progressive people; they must be governed by those who believe in the reason and science; they must be governed by the compassionate and just, by the ethical and honest, by the nonviolent and peaceful people; they must be governed by the libertarians; they must be governed by the people who believe in the enlightenment and who refuse to shape the society based on some childish religious stories!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

In my early twenties the nature of conservatism itself changed. When I identified as a fourteen-year-old conservative, it was closer to what we today think of as libertarianism - conservatism, at least for me, had been defined by Jeffersonian credos like "the best governed are the least governed" and "I have sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" that were very idealistic and romantic to a kid.

Steve Erickson

Government governed least is government governed best.

Thomas Jefferson

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.

George Bernard Shaw

This country must be governed, and can be governed, simply on questions of policy and administration and the French Canadians who have had any part in this movement have never had any other intention but to organise upon those party distinctions and upon no other.

Wilfrid Laurier

We can either be governed by fear - fear of immigrants, fear of Muslims, call the press the enemy of the people, tear kids away from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border - or we can be governed by our ambitions and our aspirations and our desire to make the most out of all of us. And that's America at its best.

Beto O'Rourke

In a poem the excitement has to maintain itself. I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of a fabric is governed by gravity.

Marianne Moore

The country has always been governed by a coalition but today it is governed by a so-called Grand Coalition which is a more polite word for all and sundry.

George Mikes

I can conceive of nothing worse than a man-governed world -- except a woman-governed world.

Nancy Astor

The ordinary man is an anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbour to be governed, but he himself doesn't want to be governed. He is mortally afraid of government officials and policemen.

George Bernard Shaw

Consequences are governed by principles, and behavior is governed by values; therefore, value principles!

Stephen Covey

Once one accepts the premise of the Declaration of Independence - that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed" - it follows that the governed must, in order to exercise their right of consent, have full freedom of expression.

Thomas I. Emerson

The public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the 'consent of the governed' is meaningless... The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.