"Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil it to their turn."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
William Penn, in his Preface to the First Frame of Government [constitution] for Pennsylvania, which was formally adopted in England, April 25, 1682. The William Penn Tercentenary Committee, Remember William Penn, 2d ed., p. 81 (1945). The committee noted that the preface was perhaps "Penn's best expression of his ideas of government" (p. 80)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Government
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Government
315 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Government →
Related Quotes
""Whatever is, is not," is the maxim of the anarchist, as often as anything comes across him in the shape of a law whi…"
"I am for Peace, for Retrenchment, and for Reform,—thirty years ago the great watchwords of the great Liberal Party."
"States are great engines moving slowly."
"Yet if thou didst but know how little wit governs this mighty universe."
"Perish commerce. Let the constitution live!"
"England is the mother of parliaments."
"Adeo ut omnes imperii virga sive bacillum vere superius inflexum sit."
"It [Calvinism] established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king."
"Oh, we are weary pilgrims; to this wilderness we bring A Church without a bishop, a State without a King."
"Well, will anybody deny now that the Government at Washington, as regards its own people, is the strongest government…"