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All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.

— James A. Garfield

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Government

More quotes by James A. Garfield

The world's history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word.

The Province of History (1856)

Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.

Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis. Conservatives have their place in the piping times of peace; but in emergencies only rugged issue men amount to much.

I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion.

I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.

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Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1589)

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

James Madison

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James A. Garfield (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.