Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

government

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven't had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

To hear some men talk of the government, you would suppose that Congress was the law of gravitation, and kept the planets in their places.

We have the best government that money can buy.

We live under a government of men and morning newspapers.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.

A tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government.

An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.

It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

Today it is not big business that we have to fear. It is big government.

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.

Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.

If Liberia has failed, then, it is no evidence of the failure of the Negro in government. It is merely evidence of the failure of slavery.

If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.

It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.

The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed too severe, seldom executed.

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.

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

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.

It's not tyranny we desire it's a just, limited, federal government.

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.

No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

Say what you like about my bloody murderous government,' I says, 'but don't insult me poor bleedin' country.

The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government.

The people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.

Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may.

Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

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

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

A government is invigorated when each of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation.

Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government.

I was determined that no British government should be brought down by the action of two tarts.

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.

It is the duty of Her Majesty's government neither to flap nor to falter.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.

Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one.

The administration of justice is the firmest pillar of government.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

When man lives under government, he is fallen, his worth is gone, and his nature tarnished.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

The people are the government, administering it by their agents they are the government, the sovereign power.

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgement and individual conscience of mankind.

Communism is a hateful thing, and a menace to peace and organized government.

Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party - though they are quite numerous - is no freedom at all.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

I only ask of the government to be treated as all other men are treated.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

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

The lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government, Government should not support the people.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

Though the people support the government the government should not support the people.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

No government ought to be without censors and where the press is free no one ever will.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

A government must not waiver once it has chosen it's course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.

Aggression is simply another name for government.

Government is essentially immoral.

I never knew a government yet that wanted to do anything.

I would have been glad to have lived under my wood side, and to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than to have undertaken this government.

If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.

The government is tottering. We must deal it the death blow an any cost. To delay action is the same as death.

The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy the first is but a splendid misery.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

For Forms of Government let fools contest whatever is best administered is best.

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.

The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.

The Negro revolution is controlled by foxy white liberals, by the Government itself. But the Black Revolution is controlled only by God.

The Soviet government is the most realistic regime in the world - no ideals.

The weather is like the government, always in the wrong.

When decisions on nuclear power stations and runways are delayed and the government dilly-dallies, people think they aren't important.

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country.

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.

There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

That government is best which governs least.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

Acquire a government over your ideas, that they may come down when they are called, and depart when they are bidden.

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.

The universe never did make sense I suspect it was built on government contract.

This used to be a government of checks and balances. Now it's all checks and no balances.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Democracy is an abuse of statistics.

Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.

It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business.

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

I don't look for much to come out of government ownership as long as we have Democrats and Republicans.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.

Where might is mixed with wit, there is too good an accord in a government.

But let us remember, at the same time, government is sacred, and not to be trifled with.

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

A government of laws, and not of men.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.

The government is us we are the government, you and I.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.