Government Quotes
The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.William Ellery Channing
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
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
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
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
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.Alexander Tyle
I believe and I say it is true Democratic feeling, that all the measures of the government are directed tot he purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.William Henry Harrison, Speech, October 1, 1840
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
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
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
I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.Dame Edith Sitwell
Government never furthered any enterprise but the alacrity with which it got out of the way.Henry David Thoreau
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.Harry S Truman, Lecture at Columbia University, 28 Apr. 1959
The most valuable function performed by the federal government is entertainment.Dave Barry
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
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
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
If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.Henry Commage
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
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.Bob Wells
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.Francis Bacon
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
We hold these truths to be self - Evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments a.Thomas Jefferson
The incestuous relationship between government and big business thrives in the dark.Jack Anderson
Every culture has its distinctive and normal system of government. Yours is democracy, moderated by corruption. Ours is totalitarianism, moderated by assassination.Unknown Russian
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
We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.Thomas Jefferson
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, Speech on 21 June 1788 urging ratification of the Constitution in New York.
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.John Adams
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
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
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
When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.Sir Winston Churchill
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
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.Barry Goldwate
Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.Ralph Waldo Emerson
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.Thomas Jefferson
