Government Quotes
Many 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.Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, November 11, 1947
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.Francis Bacon
It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.Hubert Humphrey
A revolution of government is the strongest proof that can be given by a people of their virtue and good sense.John Adams, (Diary, 1786)
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.Dwight D. Eisenhowe
Its embarrassing, you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on a Best Sellers List.Abbie Hoffman, In response to the success of his book; Steal this Book
The teaching of politics is that the Government, which was set for protection and comfort of all good citizens, becomes the principal obstruction and nuisance with which we have to contend? The cheat and bully and malefactor we meet everywhere is the Government.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal, 1860
The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.Thomas Paine, in his "The Rights of Man" (1791)
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
No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.Edward Abbey
The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of the citizens to give to the other.Voltaire
Those 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 S Truman
No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.Edward Abbey
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
Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.Aristotle
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one.Thomas Paine
All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately... The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named organisations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government.SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933.
A compassionate government keeps faith with the trust of the people and cherishes the future of their children.Lyndon B. Johnson
During these times, when crazy people are running the government, all you can do is laugh.Bill McKenney, Speech to the Harvard Antimony Society, August 15, 2005
It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.Hubert H. Humphrey
The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.Hubert H. Humphrey
I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.Dame Edith Sitwell
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! It is a dangerous servant and a terrible master.George Washington
A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government.Richard Milhous Nixon
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
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 spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.Thomas Jefferson
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
Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.I. F. Stone
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.Gerald R. Ford
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
Of all the inventions that have helped to unify China perhaps the airplane is the most outstanding. Its ability to annihilate distance has been in direct proportion to its achievements in assisting to annihilate suspicion and misunderstanding among provincial officials far removed from one another or from the officials at the seat of government.Madame Chiang
Besides anarchy, the worst thing in this world is government.Henry Ward Beeche
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
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.Thomas Jefferson
Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.Lenny Bruce
