Government Quotes
So they the Government go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all - Powerful to be impotent.Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, November 12, 1936
The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.Henry David Thoreau
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.Francis Bacon
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. Jr. Stevenson
The one bonus of not lifting the ban on gays in the military is that the next time the government mandates a draft, we can all declare we are homosexual instead of running off to Canada.Lorne Bloch
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
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! It is a dangerous servant and a terrible master.George Washington
If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.Thomas Jefferson
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.George Washington
The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.George Bancroft
The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers wthout government, I should not hesita.Thomas Jefferson
Judge of thine improvement, not by what thou speakest or writest, but by the firmness of thy mind, and the government of thy passions and affections.Thomas Fulle
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.Ambrose Bierce
That government is best which governs least. - From Civil Disobedience.Henry David Thoreau
The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity and until they do and find the cure all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.Richard Feynman
If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment
An elephant is a mouse, built to government specifications.John Herro
There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.Benjamin Franklin
When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.Sir Winston Churchill
The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.Hubert H. Humphrey
We are the men of intrinsic value, who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government we have heads to get money, and hearts to spend it.George Farquha
One of these days, the people are going to demand peace of the government, and the government is going to have to give it to them.Dwight Eisenhowe
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
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
I believe and I say it is true Democratic feeling, that all the measures of the government are directed tot he purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.William Henry Harrison, Speech, October 1, 1840
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
The most valuable function performed by the federal government is entertainment.Dave Barry
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.Alexander Tyle
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.George Bernard Shaw
All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second.Jim Fiebig
I make a fortune from criticizing the policy of the government, and then hand it over to the government in taxes to keep it going.George Bernard Shaw
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptable. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, Missionaria Protectiva
A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.Benjamin Disraeli, Speech in the House of Commons, Mar. 3, 1845
What experience and history teach is this - That nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.William Ellery Channing
All government - - Indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act - - Is founded on compromise and barter.Edmund Burke, Speech on the Conciliation of America
In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.Louis D. Brandeis
