Quotation.Cloud - A repository of notable quotations from across time and space

   

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Quotations about government

John AdamsThere is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

 - John Adams

Tags:   danger  government  liberty  power  

Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

 - Ronald Reagan

Tags:   duty  government  life  people  protection  

Thomas JeffersonThe 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

Tags:   God  government  injury  power  

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

 - Ronald Reagan

Tags:   aggression  government  history  war  

Bertrand RussellThe State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats.

 - Bertrand Russell

Tags:   bureaucracy  government  status quo  

Ayn RandThere's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws.

 - Ayn Rand

Tags:   criminals  government  laws  power  

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

 - Edward R. Murrow

Tags:   government  sheep  wolves  

Ayn RandThe government was set to protect man from criminals - and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government.

 - Ayn Rand

Tags:   constitution  criminals  government  

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.

 - Patrick Henry

Tags:   constitution  government  restraint  

Samuel AdamsIf ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin.

 - Samuel Adams

Tags:   government  patriots  ruin  

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

 - George Washington

Tags:   force  government  reasoning  

When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence.

 - Gary Lloyd

Tags:   government  oppression  politics  

It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.

 - Henry George

Tags:   aggression  government  liberty  repression  rights  virtue  

James MadisonReligion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

 - James Madison

Tags:   government  religion  

James MadisonA popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

 - James Madison

Tags:   government  information  knowledge  

James MadisonThe essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

 - James Madison

Tags:   abuse  government  power  

Edward AbbeyNo tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.

 - Edward Abbey

Tags:   gadgets  government  police  tyranny  

Edward AbbeyA patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

 - Edward Abbey

Tags:   country  government  patriotism  

Richard FeynmanNo government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literary or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.

 - Richard Feynman

Tags:   art  freedom  government  history  philosophy  religion  science  

Edmund BurkeA state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.

 - Edmund Burke

Tags:   adaptation  change  government  

Winston ChurchillI would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."

 - Winston Churchill

Tags:   government  struggle  

Abraham LincolnIf ever this free people, if this Government itself is ever utterly demoralized, it will come from this incessant human wriggle and struggle for office, which is but a way to live without work.

 - Abraham Lincoln

Tags:   elections  government  politics  work  

AristotleA state exists for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of a life only: if life only were the object, slaves and brute animals might form a state, but they cannot, for they have no share in happiness or in a life of free choice.

 - Aristotle

Tags:   choice  freedom  government  life  

Marcus Tullius CiceroYou understand, then, that the function of a magistrate is to govern, and to give commands which are just and beneficial and in conformity with the law. For as the laws govern the magistrate, so the magistrate governs the people, and it can truly be said that the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law a silent magistrate.

 - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Tags:   government  law  

David HumeAn established government has an infinite advantage by that very circumstance of its being established--the bulk of mankind being governed by authority, not reason, and never attributing authority to anything that has not the recommendation of antiquity.

 - David Hume

Tags:   authority  government  obedience  

David HumeIt is on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.

 - David Hume

Tags:   government  opinions  

David HumeNothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

 - David Hume

Tags:   control  government  power  

Thomas PaineSome writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.

 - Thomas Paine

John F. KennedyI believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

 - John F. Kennedy

Tags:   America  church  government  religion  state  

We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they're going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning.

 - Ronald Reagan

Tags:   conclusions  exploitation  government  

Thomas PaineSociety 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

Abraham LincolnThis country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

 - Abraham Lincoln

Tags:   America  constitution  government  revolution  rights  

Louis BrandeisFear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.

 - Louis Brandeis

Tags:   fear  government  hate  repression  stability  

Louis BrandeisExperience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

 - Louis Brandeis

Tags:   evil  government  liberty  rulers  understanding  

Louis BrandeisOur Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face.

 - Louis Brandeis

Tags:   corruption  crime  government  laws  teachers  

George Bernard ShawThe art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

 - George Bernard Shaw

Tags:   aristocracy  bureaucracy  government  idols  

Winston ChurchillMany forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

 - Winston Churchill

Tags:   democracy  government  

Harry S. TrumanThose who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.

 - Harry Truman

Tags:   government  regulation  suicide  thought  

Mark TwainThe chances are that a man cannot get into congress now without resorting to arts and means that should render him unfit to go there.

 - Mark Twain

Tags:   character  government  politics  

Harry S. TrumanAll the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

 - Harry Truman

Tags:   government  politics  presidents