Government Quotes
It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government.Thomas Paine
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.Abraham Lincoln
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
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation, Jan 16, 1984
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one.Thomas Paine
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 dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.J. Michael Straczynski
Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - And their kids pay for it.Richard Lamm
So they the Government go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all - Powerful to be impotent.Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, November 12, 1936
Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.Bertrand Russell
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
Universal suffrage is the government of a house by its nursery.Prince Otto
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men.Plato, The Republic
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
I want to make a policy statement. I am unabashedly in favor of women. On appointing 10 women to top government positions.Lyndon B. Johnson
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)
There 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, Journal, 1772
Government, is the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government.MacKenzie King
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
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 government is us we are the government, you and I.Theodore Roosevelt
A democratic government is only as strong as the alert conscience of its people.Charles W. Tobey
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.Ronald Reagan
The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government, presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.George Washington
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.Sir Winston Churchill
All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second.Jim Fiebig
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.Alexander Hamilton
The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.Justice Anthony Kennedy
Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.Benjamin Disraeli
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
On account of 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
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
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 real object of those who resorted to Secession, as well as those who sustained it, was not to overthrow the Government of the United States but to perpetuate the principles upon which it was founded. The object in quitting the Union was not to destroy, but to save the principles of the Constitution.Alexander Hamilton Stephens
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
An elephant is a mouse, built to government specifications.John Herro
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.Ansel Adams
