Related:

• When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.
  Thomas Jefferson [letter,1807]...
• When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.
  -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) -- Life of Jefferson (Rayner), p. 356...
• Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them [public offices], a rottenness begins in his conduct.
  -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 1799...
• Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself.
  Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?" -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)...
• Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself.
  Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?...
• By persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation.
• He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essay
• No, my friend, the way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to.
  It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the national one down through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself...
• The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with the power to endanger the public liberty.
  -- John Adams (1772)...