"A Necessary Evil"

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in
its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an
intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same
miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country
without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that
we furnish the means by which we suffer."

-- Thomas Paine (Common Sense, 1776)

Reference: Thomas Paine: Collected Writings , Foner ed., Library
of America (6)