Browsing Topic Best Government Quotes

If you want to cut down a tree, it is no use to climb into its branches.

The central government possesses no plan of finding the way out of this blind alley.

The goodness or badness, justice or injustice, of laws varies of necessity with the constitution of states. This, however, is clear, that the laws must be adapted to the constitutions. But if so, true forms of government will of necessity have just laws, and perverted forms of government will have unjust laws.

Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefit from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship, and then a monarchy.

Equality is of two kinds, numerical and proportional; by the first I mean sameness of equality in number or size; by the second, equality of ratios.

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United is to say to these same billionaires and the corporations they control: ‘You own and control the economy, you own Wall Street, you own the coal companies, you own the oil companies. Now, for a very small percentage of your wealth, we’re going to give you the opportunity to own the United States Government.’ This is the essence of what Citizens United is all about – and that’s why it must be overturned.

Humankind’s desire for peace can be realized only by the creation of a world government.

I have come to believe that politicians are in the business of ‘marketing’ their product to the public, by exaggerating threats and over-selling government solutions.

Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks that business. If these are easy problems, business and government can come in and solve them.

Unemployment, foreclosures, bankruptcy – the cure is not more government spending, but helping businesses create jobs.

The path to glory is rough, and many gloomy hours obscure it. May the Great Spirit shed light on your path, so that you may never experience the humility that the power of the American government has reduced me to. This is the wish of a man who, in his native forests, was once as proud and bold as yourself.

The government recognized immediately that Rap music has enormous revolutionary potential and politicians immediately came together to end it.

The US has attacked countries like Grenada, Panama, Libya… the list of victims of US terrorism is almost infinite. And the US government’s participation in torture, whether in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile… is well-documented and widely known.

In Europe, Socialism is just another political party. It just means that government takes over certain things like hospitals, prisons, military and schools that should not be run for profit.

The government of man should be the monarchy of reason: it is too often the democracy of passions or the anarchy of humors.

Chaos and ineptitude are anti-human; but so too is a superlatively efficient government, equipped with all the products of a highly developed technology.

The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people’s private lives. Government governs best when it governs least – and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone’s version of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against gays.

Aggression is simply another name for government. Aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms. The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control. He who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader; and the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man, after the manner of the ordinary criminal, or by one man upon all other men, after the manner of an absolute monarch, or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy.

In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.

Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?

I, as a responsible adult human being, will never concede the power to anyone to regulate my choice of what I put into my body, or where I go with my mind. From the skin inwards is my jurisdiction, is it not? I choose what may or may not cross that border. Here I am the Customs Agent. I am the Coast guard. I am the sole legal and spiritual government of this territory, and only the laws I choose to enact within myself are applicable

A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.

In the eyes of government we are just one race here. It is American.

The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.

Neither should men study war with a view to the enslavement of those who do not deserve to be enslaved; but first of all they should provide against their own enslavement, and in the second place obtain empire for the good of the governed, and not for the sake of exercising a general despotism, and in the third place they should seek to be masters only over those who deserve to be slaves.

When the people become involved in their government, government becomes more accountable, and our society is stronger, more compassionate, and better prepared for the challenges of the future.

We need an amendment that gives us the right to vote protected by the federal government and the Constitution.

My sympathies are, of course, with the Government side, especially the Anarchists ; for Anarchism seems to me more likely to lead to desirable social change than highly centralized, dictatorial Communism .

For the past 25 years as an adoption attorney, I have witnessed the extraordinary courage and compassion of women – from age 14 to 40 – facing unplanned pregnancy. Not once did I believe that the government should interfere with their personal and private decision.

The only way out [of international dictatorship] is to place international law above governments, which means […] that there must be a parliament for making it, and that parliament must be constituted by means of worldwide elections in which all nations will take part.

The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control.

The constitution is an instrument, above all, for LIMITING the functions of government.

[G]overnment can, instead of extending freedom, restrict freedom. And note … that the ‘can’ quickly becomes ‘will’ the moment the holders of government power are left to their own devices. This is because of the corrupting influence of power, the natural tendency of men who possess some power to take unto themselves more power. The tendency leads eventually to the acquisition of all power – whether in the hands of one or many makes little difference to the freedom of those left on the outside.

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