Government Quotes
Government never furthered any enterprise but the alacrity with which it got out of the way.Henry David Thoreau
All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.James Abram Garfield
All governments eventually lean further and further towards aristocracy.Frank Herbert, Dune
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.Edward Abbey
The government is us we are the government, you and I.Theodore Roosevelt
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.Gilbert Keith Chesterton
There is no legitimacy on earth but in a government which is the choice of the nation.Joseph Bonaparte
No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will.Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Washington, September 9, 1792
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.Thomas Jefferson
Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first - Class management.Senator Soape
As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.George Washington
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.John Adams
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! It is a dangerous servant and a terrible master.George Washington
Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.Nadia Boulange
Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from birth what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government to do good.Daniel Patrick Moynihan
I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.Dame Edith Sitwell
The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.Hubert H. Humphrey
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.Voltaire
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this counrty is closely related with this.Albert Einstein
When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.Harry S Truman
Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.I. F. Stone
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government they have only a talent for getting and holding office.H. L. Mencken
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781 - 82
In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one part of the citizens to give to the other.Voltaire, The Portable Voltaire
A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.Bertrand de Jouvenal
We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. We know that oppressive governments support terror, while free governments fight the terrorists in their midst. We know that free peoples embrace progress and life, instead of becoming the recruits for murderous ideologies.George W. Bush, Speech to UN General Assembly, September 21, 2004
Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.
I bear solemn witness to the fact that NATO heads of state and of government meet only to go through the tedious motions of reading speeches, drafted by others, with the principal objective of not rocking the boat.Pierre Elliott Trudeau
President Reagan was elected on the promise of getting government off the backs of the people and now he demands that government wrap itself around the waists of the people.Ralph Nade
The incestuous relationship between government and big business thrives in the dark.Jack Anderson
On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.Will Rogers
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the governing of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address
The Interstate Commerce commission, as its functions have now been limited by the courts is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the public clamor for a government supervision of railroads, at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal.Richard Olney, a lawyer for the Boston & Maine and Attorney General under Grover Cleveland, advising a railroad president
Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.Tom Robbins
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.Thomas Jefferson
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their constitutional right of amending it, or excercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.Abraham Lincoln
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.James Madison
