Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
781
AUTHOR:
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–59)
QUOTATION:
The business of government is not directly to make the people rich, but to protect them in making themselves rich; and a government which attempts more than this is precisely the government which is likely to perform less. Governments do not and cannot support the people.
ATTRIBUTION:
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, speech on parliamentary reform, March 2, 1831.—The Complete Writings of Lord Macaulay, vol. 17, p. 39 (1900).
