Government Quotes
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.Alexander Hamilton
Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.I. F. Stone
The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.Franklin Delano Roosevelt
It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny their figure deformity.Alexander Hamilton
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.Harry S Truman, Lecture at Columbia University, 28 Apr. 1959
I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.Dame Edith Sitwell
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.H. L. Mencken
On account of us 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
All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.James Abram Garfield
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
What government is the best That which teaches us to govern ourselves.Johann von Goethe
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
Every culture has its distinctive and normal system of government. Yours is democracy, moderated by corruption. Ours is totalitarianism, moderated by assassination.Unknown Russian
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.Henry David Thoreau
If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism if our government is to function it must have dissent.Henry Commage
The point to remember is what the government gives it must first take away.John S. Coleman
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.Thomas Jefferson
Our government sprang from and was made for the people - - Not the people for the government. To them it owes an allegiance from them it must derive its courage, strength, and wisdom.Andrew Johnson
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.Ronald Reagan
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.Bertrand Russell
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
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Government cannot make us equal it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.Clarence Thomas
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
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
The less government we have the better.Ralph Waldo Emerson
All in all, I am not surprised that the people who want to unravel the social contract start with young adults. Those who are urged to feel afraid, very afraid, have both the greatest sense of independence and the most finely honed skepticism about government.Ellen Goodman
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
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
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 believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our government but civilization itself.Gerald R. Ford, Inaugural Address, 9 August 1974
The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered... deeply, ... finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.George Washington, First Inaugural Address, Apr. 30, 1789
The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of the citizens to give to the other.Voltaire
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)
The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered... deeply... finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.George Washington
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
