Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
| NUMBER: | 776 |
| AUTHOR: | William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) |
| QUOTATION: | The chief duty of governments, in so far as they are coercive, is to restrain those who would interfere with the inalienable rights of the individual, among which are the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to the pursuit of happiness and the right to worship God according to the dictates of one’s conscience. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Bryan prepared the ten rules as a synopsis of his speech so the newspapers might get the exact sense of it. |
| SUBJECTS: | Government—purpose of |