Government is an unnecessary evil. Human beings when accustomed to taking responsibility for their own behavior can cooperate on a basis of mutual trust and helpfulness.

If human beings are fundamentally good no government is necessary if they are fundamentally bad any government being composed of human beings would be bad also.

The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.

If men were angels no government would be necessary.

A people and their religion must be judged by social standards based on social ethics. No other standard would have any meaning if religion is held to be necessary good for the well-being of the people.

I don't believe in team motivation. I believe in getting a team prepared so it knows it will have the necessary confidence when it steps on a field and be prepared to play a good game.

A wise and frugal Government which shall restrain men from injuring one another which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government and this is necessary to close the circlue of our felicities.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

There are two good rules which ought to be written on every heart - never to believe anything bad about anybody unless you positively know it to be true never to tell even that unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary and that God is listening.

Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.