Government Quotes

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.
Ronald Reagan
Herbert clark hoove - when there is a lack of honor in government, the...
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have right that these wants should be provided for, including the want of a sufficient restraint upon their passions.
Edmund Burke
Sir winston churchill - so they the government go on in strange paradox,...
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
All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second.
Jim Fiebig
The function of government ought to be: make sure you have good water to drink, somebody picking up the garbage, good roads to drive on, enough electricity to turn your light bulbs and your record player on, and whatever smaller amounts of regulatory assistance is necessary to make this society work.
Frank Zappa, Interview with this submitter, New York City, 5/08/1980
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
Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
Richard M. Nixon
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
George Washington
If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government - - And a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws.
Edward Abbey
Georg wilhelm friedrich hegel - what experience and history teach is this - that...
A government is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.
James Reston
The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.
Lord William Beveridge
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
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
Aristotle, Politics
Universal suffrage is the government of a house by its nursery.
Prince Otto
Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.
Ludwig Mises
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson
The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
William H. Borah
Governments never learn. Only people learn.
Milton Friedman
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
The process of creating new, democratic organs of government power is beginning, and, as never before, the greatest responsibility rests with the broadcast media.
Eduard Sagalaev
Government never furthered any enterprise but the alacrity with which it got out of the way.
Henry David Thoreau
Our constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws, not of men.
Gerald R. Ford, on becoming President, Aug. 9, 1974
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
There has never been a perfect government, because men have passions and if they did not have passions, there would be no need for government.
Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
The Second Amendment reveals a profound principle of American government - The principle of civilian ascendency over the military.
William Orville Douglas
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
A compassionate government keeps faith with the trust of the people and cherishes the future of their children.
Lyndon B. Johnson
If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.
Henry Commage
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
No government can be long secure without formidable opposition.
Benjamin Disraeli
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation, Jan 16, 1984
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.
Albert Camus
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
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
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.
Edward Abbey
The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
Milton Friedman