Abolition Quote by Henry David Thoreau

If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomesonly a hired…

— Henry David Thoreau

The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never…

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect…

— Walter Lippmann

The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men to each govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights,…

— Edmund Burke

“Necessary policemen, firemen, street cleaners, health officers, judges, legislators and executives perform productive services as important as those of anyone in private industry. They…

— Henry Hazlitt

“In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people, no one man has any more intrinsic right to official…

— H.W. Brands

In such a government as ours no man is appointed to an office because he is the fittest for it--nor hardly in any other…

— Samuel Johnson

Offices are not powerful because they exist; men make them so. Rights are not honored because they exist; men compel their recognition.

— Tom Wicker

Some have said that it is not the business of private men to meddle with government--a bold and dishonest saying, which is fit to…

— Cato the Younger

There must be public servants who are working regularly among the people.

— Thabo Mbeki

The way things are supposed to work is that we're supposed to know virtually everything about what they [the government] do: that's why they're…

— Glenn Greenwald

In a virtuous government, and more especially in times like these, public offices are what they should be - burdens to those appointed to…

— Thomas Jefferson