Government Quotes: Perspectives on Governance and Public Service
Exploring the Dynamics of Government
Government plays a pivotal role in shaping societies, safeguarding rights, and creating a framework for collective progress. It is a complex institution that embodies the ideals of public service, leadership, and the pursuit of the common good. In this article, we delve into the realm of governance and present a collection of insightful quotes that shed light on the dynamics, challenges, and aspirations associated with government and public administration.
Government serves as the mechanism through which societies organize themselves, make decisions, and address societal issues. It carries the responsibility of ensuring justice, promoting social welfare, and upholding the values that underpin a functioning society.
Words of Reflection: Quotes that Illuminate Governance
Throughout history, statesmen, philosophers, and leaders have shared their perspectives on the role of government and the principles that should guide its actions. Their words provide valuable insights into the complexities of governance, the balance of power, and the importance of ethical leadership. Below, we present a collection of thought-provoking government quotes that invite contemplation, foster critical thinking, and inspire us to actively engage in the process of shaping our societies.
Strong government doesn’t mean simply military power or an efficient intelligence apparatus. Instead, it should mean effective, fair administration – in other words, ‘good governance.’
Government is force, pure and simple. There’s no way to sugar-coat that. And because government is force, it will attract the worst elements of society – people who want to use government to avoid having to earn their living and to avoid having to persuade others to accept their ideas voluntarily.
There is nothing wrong with describing Conservatism as protecting the Constitution, protecting all things that limit government. Government is the enemy of liberty. Government should be very restrained.
We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.
Parliament of the country is the repository of the sovereign will of the people, and its successful functioning is a joint responsibility of both the government and the Opposition.
There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets, and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.
The government should train and direct the people in their acquisition of political knowledge and ability, thereby enabling them to exercise the powers of election, recall, initiative, and referendum.
There is only one kind of freedom and that’s individual liberty. Our lives come from our creator and our liberty comes from our creator. It has nothing to do with government granting it.
Sure, I considered myself an anarchist; I considered myself – I still am, obviously – distrustful of the government. But I also understand the virtues of civility or democracy and kindness, of course. I wasn’t throwing garbage cans through shop windows.
Any time the United States government turns over an American citizen, including military personnel, to the government of another country, it is in our nature to want to make sure that they receive the best treatment, the fairest treatment, and the most humane treatment.
The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.
Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
Dealing with the government does not mean you have to give a bribe.
Financial institutions, the corporate world and civil society – all must uphold high standards of probity in their working. Only a genuine partnership between the Government and its people can bring about positive change to create a just society.
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples’ money.
Vietnam was a lie but at least there was a political agenda. It was the domino theory. Iraq is about nothing but George Bush’s ego laced with imperialist ambitions. And it was helped by your government.
Majority rule only works if you’re also considering individual rights. Because you can’t have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.
This United States Government should go down to Mississippi and protect my people. That is what should happen.
In a free society, government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top, they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it.
All government wars are unjust.
I like policy. It’s why I decided to enter government. The other thing I like about government – you have good days, you have bad days, but you never have a boring day, and that’s important to me.
The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
To establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches.
They’re always trying to claim that if I talk about world government and corruption, I’m anti-Semitic.
The happiness of society is the end of government.
Financial crises require governments.
The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.
I’m sure that the standard of public morality we’ve helped build will force government in Canada to approve complete health insurance.
It is a sound principle of finance, and a still sounder principle of government, that those who have the duty of expending the revenue of a country should also be saddled with the responsibility of levying and providing it.
Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.
Who controls the issuance of money controls the government!
The Iranian government is undoubtedly a severe danger to its own population, but not beyond that.
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
Short-term thinking is the greatest enemy of good government.
When the government violates the people’s rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties.
The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
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.
There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things.
I think the government has to reposition environment on top of their national and international priorities.
The government I led gave ordinary people peace, security, dignity, and opportunity to progress.
Talk is cheap – except when Congress does it.
In the business world, lower profits reflect less demand for your product. But in government the opposite is true – demand for our services increases in hard times.
Peace as a goal is an ideal which will not be contested by any government or nation, not even the most belligerent.
Everything government touches turns to crap.
You can study government and politics in school, but the best way to really understand the process is to volunteer your time.
The Sandinista government became consumed with fighting a war of survival. They were up against the biggest superpower in the world.
It is not good to have a rule of many.
I believe that a government has only one religion – India first. A government has only one holy book – our Constitution. A government has only one kind of devotion – towards nation.
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.
Government is an unnecessary evil. Human beings, when accustomed to taking responsibility for their own behavior, can cooperate on a basis of mutual trust and helpfulness.
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.
The problem with Russia is not corruption per se, or even Putin per se. Russian government is not corrupt because Vladimir Putin has absolute power. Russian government has been corrupt and will always be as long as anyone has absolute power.
Besides, we had a large debt, contracted at home and abroad in our War of Independence; therefore the great power of taxation was conferred upon this Government.
The important consequences to the American States from this Declaration of Independence, considered as the ground and foundation of a future government, naturally suggest the propriety of proclaiming it in such a manner as that the people may be universally informed of it.
For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for.
The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
The essence of good government is trust.
We were poor, but we didn’t know it. There were no government bureaus in those days presuming to determine where poorness begins and ends, but I don’t remember ever being hungry.
Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
Hyperinflation can take virtually your entire life’s savings, without the government having to bother raising the official tax rate at all.
If ‘pro’ is the opposite of ‘con’ what is the opposite of ‘progress’?
In a vast and diverse country like India, a political party with secular ideology can ensure stable and progressive government.
I have said it previously and saying it again… my government will work for betterment of all, irrespective of caste or religion.
It’s not tyranny we desire; it’s a just, limited, federal government.
Populism is not a style, it’s a people’s rebellion against the iron grip that big corporations have on our country – including our economy, government, media, and environment.
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.
Well, we lost a lot of our independence already. We are dependent on China for credit. We are dependent on Middle Eastern countries for energy supplies. And many Americans are dependent on the government for their income, health care, education of their children, food stamps.
I spent a lot of my early blogging career sort of highlighting all the ills of the government in Kenya and all the corruption and problems.
The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it’s so rare.
Modi government has not flouted any rule or regulation to help anyone.
Because what happens is, as the economy suffers, tax revenues go down. But unlike businesses, where at least your variable costs go down, in government your variable costs go up: unemployment insurance, workmen’s compensation, health care benefits, welfare, you name it.
One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.
I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving.
Good government is one of the most important factors in economic growth and social well-being.
Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.
I was ecstatic they re-named ‘French Fries’ as ‘Freedom Fries’. Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots.
Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.
In the United States, the government has no business entering the marketplace of ideas to establish an arbiter of what is false, misleading, or a political smear.
The argument of socialists, that people really want to share, beyond a reasonable level of charity, is rubbish, though it is espoused by a lot of rich, pious hypocrites who want to share only enough to avoid widespread starvation, mob violence, and government seizure of more of their incomes.
I think government has a major role to play in helping us with the pursuit of happiness.
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality.
And you can’t have a prosperous economy when the government is way overspending, raising tax rates, printing too much money, over regulating and restricting free trade. It just can’t be done.
It’s no coincidence that the cities with the highest rates of violence also have the highest rates of unemployment. There are not many opportunities. We have to address that, starting from the government down and the grassroots up.
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
I did not come to Augusta to provide lip service. I came to work for the Maine people. I also came to Augusta to root out crooked politicians and government corruption.
America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation.
Some doomsayers think the collapse will be triggered by runaway government spending, excessive taxation, oppressive regulation, food shortages, fuel shortages or natural disasters such as deadly pandemics or lethal changes in the world’s climate.
Those of us in public office and those of us who aspire to public office have a responsibility to be reasonable, fact-based, in our rhetoric and to not suggest things that are unreasonable, to whip up a lot of emotion in public, which can lead to government overreach, fear, suspicions, and prejudice.
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.
Mobilize your friends and neighbors to understand that your day-to-day involvement with local government matters far more than a referendum on the White House every four years.
In so far as the government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels so that every poor man may have a home.
The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.
Government is essentially immoral.
The problem is that the American public is suspicious of executive power shrouded in secrecy. In the absence of an official picture of what our government is doing, and by what authority, many in the public fill the void by envisioning the worst.
The measure of a man is not how great his faith is, but how great his love is. We must not let government programs disconnect our souls from each other.
We have some material on spying by a major government on the tech industry. Industrial espionage.
A government must not waiver once it has chosen its course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.
When times get tough, we get tougher. Failure and government assistance are not an option for us.
Most libertarians are worried about government but not worried about business. I think we need to be worrying about business in exactly the same way we are worrying about government.
No other people have a government more worthy of their respect and love or a land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to look upon, and so full of generous suggestion to enterprise and labor.
By mandating equal pay, the government erases the competitive advantage of those people who are willing to take less pay. In addition, employers are less willing to hire employees who they believe could subject them to increased liability.
Certainly in North Korea, man is always superior to woman. Even the government treats women horribly. What is the slogan? Woman is a flower.
The Padma Shri came as a very pleasant surprise. I am deeply honoured. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but I must have done something right to be honoured by our government.
Despite the enormous role that local government plays in our daily lives, the constitution makes not one mention of it.
It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.
Socialism means slavery.
The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law – that form of government is usually temporary.
Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.
A healthy society rests on three pillars: business, government and civil society, or non-profits. Each has a distinct and important role to play, and all three need to work together synergistically to create the most value for society.
Our government… teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.
I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving.
The so-called second New Deal of 1935 – including the Works Progress Administration, Social Security and the Wagner Act legalizing union labor – represented an effort to meet the rising voices demanding a more aggressive government approach to the collapse of national prosperity.
When you give the government an inch, they take a mile.
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.
No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.
Obesity is a societal issue. We have to come together with government, business, civil society, and NGOs to create solutions for this.
Al Gore had no problem taking hundreds of millions of dollars from the government of Qatar to sell his Current TV to Al Jazeera America.
Socialism requires that government becomes your god.
While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.
The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.
How do we turn our nation around? President Obama thinks the answer is more and more government. Government is not the answer. You are not doing anyone a favor by creating dependency, destroying individual responsibility.
I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
I don’t want to overthrow the government. I wanna fire ’em.
Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it.
I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King my republican feelings and principles forbid it the simplicity of our system of government forbids it.
A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.
All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.
Government is inherently incompetent, and no matter what task it is assigned, it will do it in the most expensive and inefficient way possible.
But no one has yet succeeded in reducing the size or scope of the federal government.
No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.
The multi-party agreement, known as the Global Political Agreement (GPA), created the Government of National Unity (GNU) that has acted as Zimbabwe’s governing institution since 2009.
By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.
I am absolutely opposed to a national ID card. This is a total contradiction of what a free society is all about. The purpose of government is to protect the secrecy and the privacy of all individuals, not the secrecy of government. We don’t need a national ID card.
Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.
I’m LeBron’s ‘No. 1 Critic’ and his ‘Biggest Hater.’ I feel a little like Shailene Woodley’s character in ‘Divergent.’ The government is going to eliminate me because I don’t fit in.
There is an old maxim which states that good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from poor judgment. I think something similar can be said of government policy, to wit: Good policy comes from experience, and experience comes from poor policy.
I know that government doesn’t have the all solutions that real solutions do not come from the top down. Instead, the ways to end poverty come from all of us. We are part of the solution.
Team Obama is exploiting the power of high government office to intimidate lawful, peaceful contributors who support limited-government causes.
We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.
I believe in family values, and I believe that we all ought to be able to have a family and marry if you want to. I don’t think the government should be in that business of denying people the fundamental right to marry.
Increasing the sale of liquor may benefit the government in terms of revenue. But liquor is a social evil, and its biggest victims are women and their children.
I believe one of the main roles of Government is to keep our economy free and fair.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?
You have the God-given right to kick the government around – don’t hesitate to do so.
It is not good to have a rule of many.
My brother Bob doesn’t want to be in government – he promised Dad he’d go straight.
For success of any mission, it is necessary to have creative leadership. Creative leadership is vital for government, non-governmental organisations as well as for industries.
Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish – too much handling will spoil it.
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 government to the utmost.
The military people don’t like it; the government probably doesn’t like it, but the people should know what they’re sending their young people into when they permit their governments to declare war and engage in war.
One of these days the people of Louisiana are going to get good government – and they aren’t going to like it.
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
The principal purpose of the Democratic Party is to use the force of government to take property away from the people who earn it and give it to people who do not.
It is not questioned that the Federal Government is one of limited powers. Its powers are such, and such only, as are expressly granted in the Constitution or are properly incident to the expressly granted powers and necessary to their execution.
Well, now, and there’s – for every dollar the federal government spends, there’s real people on the other side, and so when we talk about reductions that are going to affect providers, that’s going to affect hospitals and doctors and others.
Good government is good politics.
Having said that, I believe we must not compound the natural disaster of Katrina by creating a fiscal disaster in Congress – it is our duty to ensure that we reign in other government spending in any event, and especially in this time of national emergency.
Democracy is when the people keep a government in check.
To rule is easy, to govern difficult.
The government is so out of control. It is so bloated and infested with fraud and deceit and corruption and abuse of power.
I don’t think the government is out to get me or help someone else get me but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were out to sell me something or help someone else sell me something. I mean, why else would the Census Bureau want to know my telephone number?
The License Raj in India was a time when, to set up an industry, you needed a license. Which made the government an omnipresent and sort of all-pervasive authority.
For the bourgeoisie, the main danger against which it had to be protected, that which had to be avoided at all costs, was armed uprising, was the armed people, was the workers taking to the streets in an assault against the government.
My objection to the death penalty is based on the idea that this is a democracy, and in a democracy the government is me, and if the government kills somebody then I’m killing somebody.
The principle of academic freedom is designed to make sure that powers outside the university, including government and corporations, are not able to control the curriculum or intervene in extra-mural speech.
The whole frame of the Federal Constitution proves that the government which it creates was intended to be one of limited and specified powers.
Government leaders, researchers, physicians, the pharmaceutical industry, cancer advocates, and many other stakeholders all have a key role in promoting a safer, healthier environment, better nutrition, increased physical activity, and a new emphasis on prevention in cancer research.
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.
To take over a government through military force would create instability, and it would not last for long. I do not want to leave a legacy of having taken over the government through military means. It has never occurred to me to have a coup d’etat.
There’s a total separation between the federal government and the people. So running for president was an attempt on my part to get people to care enough to go vote. But people just don’t bother. And that’s why it’s not working.
The consequences of turning a blind eye to government corruption go far beyond simply letting some corrupt politicians and bureaucrats walk free.
The first duty of a government is to maintain law and order so that the life, property, and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State.
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.
As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.
The thing about local government is they want to hear what local people think, but for the most part, their systems are so long, dull and bureaucratic that people only get involved when there’s an issue they really care about.
I don’t blame or complain about things like the economy, the government, taxes, employees, gas prices, or any of the external things that I don’t have control over. The only thing I have control over is my response to these things.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
Millions of Americans were duped by the federal government and the Federal Reserve into buying homes they could not afford and failed to count the cost. When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, they could not keep up the monthly mortgage payments and defaulted.
The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation.
Success is created in studio apartments and garages, at kitchen tables, and in classrooms across the nation, not in government conference rooms in Washington.
Prodded by the needs of the Union cause, the Republican Party created a strong national government that educated young men and gave them land to farm. Ultimately, the GOP abolished slavery, then gave freedmen the vote so they could protect their own economic interests.
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
I’m the treasurer of the state of Ohio, where, when the United States credit rating was downgraded for the first time in American history, and 14 government funds around the country were downgraded, we earned the highest rating we could earn on our $4 billion investment fund.
Spiritual government means a pure government that doesn’t discriminate on the lines of caste, creed, or religion.
The government should set a goal for a clean environment but not mandate how that goal should be implemented.
I believe and I say it is true Democratic feeling, that all the measures of the Government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Good governance with good intentions is the hallmark of our government. Implementation with integrity is our core passion.
It makes sense to have cameras in places where terrorism and crime are of particular concern – such as in Times Square or near major bridges and tunnels. It would be more troubling to learn, however, that the government has focused cameras on the front doors of our homes just to keep track of our comings and goings.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Political tyranny is nothing compared to the social tyranny and a reformer who defies society is a more courageous man than a politician who defies Government.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.
The mistakes made by Congress wouldn’t be so bad if the next Congress didn’t keep trying to correct them.
Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money.
Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
The youth should work on popularising central and state government schemes among people. The young generation should make social media their weapon.
If human beings are fundamentally good, no government is necessary; if they are fundamentally bad, any government, being composed of human beings, would be bad also.
Democracy is an abuse of statistics.
I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it’s the government.
Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.
A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases.
No genuinely avant-garde artist should ever be on the government dole.
Good government only happens when the people working in it do their jobs, and do them well.
And I don’t think that government has a role in telling people how to live their lives. Maybe a minister does, maybe your belief in God does, maybe there’s another set of moral codes, but I don’t think government has a role.
Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
It began to really eat away with me that in the ’60s the federal government, desiring to help poor moms who were dealing with deadbeat dads, decided, ‘We’ll help: we’ll give a check for every child you can have out of wedlock.’
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
I try to put myself in others’ shoes: How does any country give up any sovereignty and expect to survive as a government? I don’t think that any Philippine president, or any leader for that matter, can afford to give up any portion of territorial sovereignty. That would be political suicide.
Democracy passes into despotism.
The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.
When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.
The fact that our government is using instruments of government like the IRS to punish its opponents, this is not the kind of thing that is a Democrat or a Republican issue. This is an American issue… A lot of people do not feel free to express themselves.
It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men’s property, which they had not before, as individuals.
SpaceX has the potential of saving the U.S. government $1 billion a year. We are opposed to creating an entrenched monopoly with no realistic means for anyone to compete.
I don’t consider Americans bullies, but I do consider the American government bullying.
What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.
Today 23 years ago dear Grandmama died. I wonder what she would have thought of a Labour Government.
Socialism’s not a word that I use. I say ‘social democracy’ because I don’t think the government needs to own all the means of production.
Reviewing a government budget is much like going through the attic in an old home.
Part of Obamacare eliminated the private sector financial market that engages in giving college student loans. I mean, now the federal government has taken over college student loans, so I sit back and strategically look at this and say this just cannot be happening.
The government should not be in control of the private sector. You create opportunity, you create business, you create development, you hand it to the investor and start creating something new.
How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?
Foreign powers do not seem to appreciate the true character of our government.
Government has a habit of blaming the private sector for its own failings while taking credit for advances we in fact owe to the private sector.
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
Americans accept that gangsters are running the government.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a form of money that’s a stable field that the government can’t destroy and can’t distort. Because its creation is governed by the laws of mathematics. It can’t happen any faster or slower than a certain rate, and it all sort of self-adjusts.
National sovereignty is an obligation as well as an entitlement. A government that will not perform the role of a government forfeits the rights of a government.
The government, of course, will print money to bail out the banks’ uncovered casino bets, but not to bail out the elderly from the theft of their funds.
I am upset and completely disappointed in the government, the millionaires and billionaires in the U.S. See what’s happening to the country? Look at all the health problems, the economy, the recession and crime.
The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
No power on earth is greater than a mind and soul reawakened. Our Constitution begins ‘we the people’, not ‘us the government’.
Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.
It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it’s an irresponsible government that fails to choose.
If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.
Election days come and go. But the struggle of the people to create a government which represents all of us and not just the one percent – a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice – that struggle continues.
Growth is what solves most of the big economic and social problems: poverty, government deficits, quality of life, rising healthcare and retirement costs.
In a parliamentary democracy, it is the job of parliament to decide the law, not the government.
It’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.
Part of the reason that the government’s fear mongering is succeeding is because so many people are so ignorant, that it is easier for government to frighten people in submission.
Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality.
In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
We see that pedantry has never been held in such esteem for the government of the world as in our times, and it offers as many paths of the true intelligible species and objects of infallible and sole truth as there are individual pedants.
When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.
In the real estate business you learn more about people, and you learn more about community issues, you learn more about life, you learn more about the impact of government, probably than any other profession that I know of.
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.
It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting.
State and local government, with financial support from the federal government, should offer a program to educate and train foster children for employment and provide them with financial assistance, as needed, until they reach age 21.
Public corruption is the FBI’s top criminal priority. The threat – which involves the corruption of local, state, and federally elected, appointed, or contracted officials – strikes at the heart of government, eroding public confidence and undermining the strength of our democracy.
Problems in our country haven’t been caused by Donald Trump, America and its ambitions or CIA spies. Our problems are rooted in a bad government system, the lack of free elections, independent courts and freedom of speech.
This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people.
The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.
I realize the voters elected President Obama in 2012, but they also, in 2014, elected enough Republican senators to gain a majority in the Senate, so we control the confirmation process. And these are two supposedly coequal branches of government involved in this filling of a Supreme Court vacancy.
If a strong government finds that it can, with impunity, destroy a weak people, then the hour has struck for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment.
The consensus of the founders was, we don’t want no government: we want limited but effective government.
Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable – even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.
We live under a government of men and morning newspapers.
In a government whose distinguishing characteristic should be a diffusion and equalization of its benefits and burdens the advantage of individuals will be augmented at the expense of the community at large.
We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.
A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.
Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.
I have spoken about inflation, unemployment, farmers’ problems, security, etc. I keep talking about these issues. I seek answers from the Indian government.
Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.
In theory, taxes should be like shopping. What I buy is government services. What I pay are my taxes.
Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
I believe that government is the servant of the people and not their master.
When I wrote ‘The West Wing,’ the juice behind it was that in popular culture, our leaders in government are generally portrayed as Machiavellian, or as idiots. I thought, well, how about writing about a group of hyper-competent people?
The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.
Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government, which sooner or later becomes autocratic government.
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.
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.
I don’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, there is something profoundly un-American about using the brute force of government to bully someone.
The government can’t create jobs; they’ll destroy jobs trying to do it. The government doesn’t have any money; all they have is a printing press. We need to free markets to create jobs; if the government wants to help, they should reduce their burden on the economy.
It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.
You don’t pay taxes – they take taxes.
Folks, the most insidious part of this whole health care scheme is that all of these vast medical expenditures will become nothing more than government budget items. We individuals will no longer exist. The relationship between a government and citizen will change forever.
We believed that growth through Local Government, and perhaps through some special machinery for bringing the wishes and influence of women of all classes to bear on Parliament, other than the Parliamentary vote, was the real line of progress.
It is unethical to promote old songs sung by new artistes, and the government should ban these things.
The reason the government sells the census as your ticket to getting goodies – rather than as your civic duty – is that distributing goodies is now all the government does.
I’ve spent a lot of time researching the subject and government deception. So to be involved in Star Trek is perfect for me. I enjoy meeting the fans and discussing my interests with them.
Unfortunately, corruption is widespread in government agencies and public enterprises. Our political system promotes nepotism and wasting money. This has undermined our legal system and confidence in the functioning of the state. One of the consequences is that many citizens don’t pay their taxes.
A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the objects of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be best attained.
The Legislature of Lower Canada, consisting chiefly of Roman Catholics, could hardly be expected to support a church which they were taught to consider heretical, and in Upper Canada the scanty means at the disposal of the Government, precluded all hope.
Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Communism is a hateful thing, and a menace to peace and organized government.
Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees. And both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.
Through all aspects of society be it art, design, the financial markets, government, technology or communications we are witnessing unprecedented global transformation – the result of which is impossible to predict.
I had been raised in the mountains of Idaho by a father who distrusted many of the institutions that people take for granted – public education, doctors and hospitals, and the government.
The United States influences government and life everywhere else.
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.
To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution.
At the end of the day, the government, local government all bow to public pressure.
Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.
The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.
The greater part of the governments on earth may be termed monarchical aristocracies, or hereditary dominions independent of the people.
In 1967 I entered Harvard as a freshman, confident – in the way that only 17-year-olds are – that I could change the world. My major was African Studies, and my plan was to travel to Tanzania, where President Julius Nyerere was creating a government based on democracy and socialism.
If you are working 50 hours a week in a factory, you don’t have time to read 10 newspapers a day and go back to declassified government archives. But such people may have far-reaching insights into the way the world works.
A free America… means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.
I can’t in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.
The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the Court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people.
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.
The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
To me, it was shocking that a government of men could look with such extreme contempt on a movement that was asking nothing except such a simple little thing as the right to vote.
If we say, ‘The government sucks,’ we’re kind of saying that we suck.
Every country has the government it deserves.
He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.
It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.
The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.
Democracy, pure democracy, has at least its foundation in a generous theory of human rights. It is founded on the natural equality of mankind. It is the cornerstone of the Christian religion. It is the first element of all lawful government upon earth.
I have always thought that the rapid economic development of South Africa would in the long run prove to be incompatible with the government’s racial policies, and recent events have tended to confirm my opinion.
The right of revolution, which tyrants, in mockery, accord to mankind, is no legal right under a government; it is only a natural right to overturn a government.
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.
A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.
If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.
So often, we leave the selfless side of ourselves for nights and weekends, for our charity work. It is our duty to inject that into our day-to-day business, into the work that we do, to improve corporations, to improve civil society, and to improve government.
It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.
It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.
What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that’s just not what the founders intended.
Enough of these little kitty cats we keep sending to Washington. David Dewhurst will compromise every day in the U.S. Senate… It’s what he’s done every day in state government.
The founders had a strong distrust for centralized power in a federal government. So they created a government with checks and balances. This was to prevent any branch of the government from becoming too powerful.
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
The debate on how to shrink the federal government is at the core of our problem of government not doing its job.
Our Government is committed to pursuing policies and programs which facilitate a further lowering of the interest rates in order to fuel investment and growth. We call on the commercial banks to partner with us in this effort.
You can auction coal blocks. All natural resources of government should be auctioned.
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples’ money.
Government isn’t that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you’ve got to have commercial companies do it.
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion.
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.
Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.
Censorship is advertising paid by the 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.
I am almost inclined to say that India will get Dominion Responsible Government the day the Hindus and Muslims are united.
Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.
We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect. Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they are sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.
An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.
As a governor, I am naturally inclined to focus on the domestic side of protecting the United States.
The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
And that’s really what’s happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We’re supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government.
Our government… teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.
The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.
The benefits of education and of useful knowledge, generally diffused through a community, are essential to the preservation of a free government.
As far as your personal goals are and what you actually want to do with your life, it should never have to do with the government. You should never depend on the government for your retirement, your financial security, for anything. If you do, you’re screwed.
Social Security got passed because John D. Rockefeller was sick of having to take money out of his profits to pay for his workers’ pension funds. Why do that, when you can just let the government take money from the workers?
If it is a crime to love the South, its cause and its President, then I am a criminal. I would rather lie down in this prison and die than leave it owing allegiance to a government such as yours.
That fatal drollery called a representative government.
Bureaucracy gives birth to itself and then expects maternity benefits.
A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves.
Any bailout of a private company is a bad decision by our federal government. Private companies have the right to succeed, but they also should have the right to fail.
I believe in lower taxes. I believe in more efficient government. I believe in reducing bureaucracy. I believe that we shouldn’t have lobbyists who can go in or former government workers who can come back and lobby.
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.
I tell the government, if people have no jobs, you are in trouble. Government will be in trouble. My job is to help more people have jobs.
There is often, in the affairs of government, more efficiency and wisdom in non-action than in action.
I bear solemn witness to the fact that NATO heads of state and of government meet only to go through the tedious motions of reading speeches, drafted by others, with the principal objective of not rocking the boat.
We are committed to a continuous engagement with our people to explain government policies, receive advice and criticism.
All government, of course, is against liberty.
The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.
In poor countries, we still need better ways to measure the effectiveness of the many government workers providing health services. They are the crucial link bringing tools such as vaccines and education to the people who need them most. How well trained are they? Are they showing up to work?
I have seen businesses and government come together to provide women entrepreneurs with the training they need to better access markets, take advantage of trade agreements, and in the process grow businesses, jobs, and GDP. These are partnerships that transform lives.
Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‘Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?’ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.
I think Britain would be alright, if only we had a different Government.
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
I believe that all the measures of the Government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
A Conservative government is necessary. There is no credible alternative.
It’s easier to sell cotton candy than it is to sell broccoli to somebody, but the broccoli is better for you, and the same thing with a limited government.
There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
The difference in golf and government is that in golf you can’t improve your lie.
By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty.
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
During an economic crisis, what matters is that the government keeps its foot on the accelerator.
The Kingdom is the love of God prevailing in politics, in business, in government, in media. It is all the impact of the laws of God creating a social environment where the strong help the weak, where those who have give to those who don’t. It’s a society where relationships are built on love.
Connectivity enables transparency for better government, education, and health.
South Sydney is a very complicated and wonderful place. You have some of the most expensive bits of real estate in the country and a large percentage of government housing.
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Besides a happy policy as to civil government, it is necessary to institute a system of law and jurisprudence founded in justice, equity, and public right.
We have a government that, generally speaking, does not respond to the people.
A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill – little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans.
We are all imperfect. We can not expect perfect government.
It is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government: the ballot.
Imagine a country that flies into space, launches Sputniks, creates such a defense system, and it can’t resolve the problem of women’s pantyhose. There’s no toothpaste, no soap powder, not the basic necessities of life. It was incredible and humiliating to work in such a government.
No government fights fascism to destroy it. When the bourgeoisie sees that power is slipping out of its hands, it brings up fascism to hold onto their privileges.
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
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.
The distinction between reality and fiction in America seems like it is becoming really blurry. With its religious fanaticism, reality TV programs and fake news broadcasts being aired by the government, the States feel like they are entering the Dark Ages.
Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.
The building up of a new, far-reaching system of inspection on the question of equal pay, with power to investigate every business in the United States, administered by a colossal new government agency with vast enforcement powers, would not be helpful to women, as far as I can see.
I hate the unfairness of injustice. Anybody who thinks they are better than others or ‘chosen’ or feel they have an entitlement… be it through monarchy, government or money. I think we are all born the same. We are entitled to an equal shot at life.
My impression, having been in the Norwegian government for several years, is that taking a child into care is an extremely serious decision which is really taken as a last resort, when the situation warrants it, for the well-being of the children.
Socialism means slavery.
Government unions should not be allowed to influence the public officials they are lobbying, and sitting across the bargaining table from, through campaign donations and expenditures.
Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.
Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
I do think voters are ready for a change in Olympia and after 28 years of one party rule, they are ready to put a new team on the field and bring a new approach to state government.
From the very depth of my being, I challenge the right of any man or any group of men, in business or in government, to tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable.
The batteries are gradually becoming charged, and if the prudence of the government does not provide an outlet for the currents that are accumulating, some day the spark will be generated.
As a businessperson, I don’t have the power to change the government. That is in the hands of the political leaders. However, as a taxpayer, we have the right to be critical of the government and demand change.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.
I love my country. It’s just the government I don’t trust.
The role of the church and the government are fundamentally different. The church must always show compassion – always.
Technology is just one of the factors affecting the world of work. Economics, demographics, sociological trends, and government policies are four other core influences reshaping labour markets and determining how we will work for years ahead.
Dictators can fix up their entire families in good jobs, in or around government, and often do. In democracies, such a practice is frowned upon. Privileged access to the corridors of power through family connections and a kind of old boys’ network, is also deemed an abuse of power, and so it is.
The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
A people cannot long retain their freedom, whose government is incapable of protecting them.
The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.
Politicians who lack the vision to lead the community on big issues like public transport often hide their inaction by blaming other levels of government when anyone complains.
How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?
The government of the United States doesn’t want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war. It wants peace, but what’s happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? Palestine? What’s happening? What’s happened over the last hundred years in Latin America and in the world?
I don’t think that it’s up to government to dictate what people should wear.
I think that most people who complain about our government have no idea what they’re talking about because they’ve never been to a country with a bad government.
It is the knowledge that all men have weaknesses and that many have vices that makes government necessary.
Building sustainable cities – and a sustainable future – will need open dialogue among all branches of national, regional and local government. And it will need the engagement of all stakeholders – including the private sector and civil society, and especially the poor and marginalized.
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
Government is taking 40 percent of the GDP. And that’s at the state, local and federal level. President Obama has taken government spending at the federal level from 20 percent to 25 percent. Look, at some point, you cease being a free economy, and you become a government economy. And we’ve got to stop that.
Well, I thought the deal was, when you went to work for the government you weren’t supposed to make money!
Military hardliners called me a ‘security threat’ for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan.
I think most people realize that our problems are our government, not me and you individually, except that we can – must have some sort of responsibility, because they’re in there and they were elected, so we have to defend ourselves on those lines.
I believe that the root cause of every financial crisis, the root cause, is flawed government policies.
If there’s anything a public servant hates to do it’s something for the public.
This is not about abortion or the antics. This is about pro choice versus anti-choice and government intervention in a woman’s personal decisions about her life.
I stand for all those who feel that the government no longer understands the individual and no longer respects individual rights.
Those who cry out that the government should ‘do something’ never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.
The Saylor Foundation is meant to be a gadfly to encourage Google, Apple, MIT, Harvard, the United States government, and the Chinese government to aggressively pursue digital education.
I stated that aboriginals deserve protection under Canada’s human rights laws and that the record dollars that the government is spending on aboriginals should reach the people in need.
A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.
In city hall and in local government, you have to get things done without drama.
Coolidge believed that government officials who tell themselves that spending benefits the economy delude themselves and the citizens. Government budgets promote human freedom.
Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.
Religion is of general and public concern, and on its support depend, in great measure, the peace and good order of government, the safety and happiness of the people.
Louisiana was as close to South Asia as the United States could get: it had spicy food, humidity, giant cockroaches, and a corrupt government.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.
Are we really going to accept the situation where the government of Lithuania has more power over our trading relationship with the Commonwealth than our government does? That is the reality of the customs union.
The principle that a central bank, charged with controlling inflation, should be independent from the government is unassailable. It may also be true that it’s easier for the central bank to guard its independence from political pressure when it mainly holds government securities.
Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.
Erosion of faith and trust in government – that is the real problem that confronts us.
Just when we need a strong government, what do we see? Division. Chaos. And failure. No credible plan for Brexit, no solution to prevent a hard border in Ireland and no majority in Parliament for the Chequers proposals.
If the government ever imposes a tax on books – and I wouldn’t put it past them – I’m in dead trouble.
The German government has taken energetic measures against the propagation of the defective, the mentally diseased, and the criminal.
It is important to realize that gold and silver are international commodities and that, therefore, when not prohibited by government decree, foreign coins are perfectly capable of serving as standard moneys.
Government by blackmail is incompatible with democracy.
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.
Poor people cannot rely on the government to come to help you in times of need. You have to get your education. Then nobody can control your destiny.
Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.
Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.
Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose.
Instead of helping a lucky few to escape disadvantage, a Labour government will aim to abolish poverty completely and create a more equal society, raising the living standards and well-being of all.
Look at our Lords disciples. One denied Him; one doubted Him; one betrayed Him. If our Lord couldn’t have perfection, how are you going to have it in city government?
No matter how much you like your local school teacher, he or she is a government agent.
I want people to feel like they have access to Congress, that they have access to government.
The fundamental purpose of government is to protect its citizens.
Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
It is what we prevent, rather than what we do that counts most in Government.
Even the government understands that the environmental challenge is so big that no single agency can handle it. It needs collaboration among all the stakeholders – companies, governments, NGOs and the public. Public accountability will be the ultimate driving force.
There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people.
In many… cases, of course, the Arab Spring has brought about instability rather than greater stability. And rather than bringing about government that is more representative and more responsive to the people, you’re seeing, frankly, the opposite, or you’re seeing all-out war.
I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
The very existence of government at all, infers inequality. The citizen who is preferred to office becomes the superior to those who are not, so long as he is the repository of power, and the child inherits the wealth of the parent as a controlling law of society.
The Chinese government learnt how to manage the Internet from Western developed countries; we have not learnt enough yet.
I was deposed by a coup d’etat, by friends that I trusted and aided by the American Government.
The Soviet government is the most realistic regime in the world – no ideals.
We believe, as our founders did, that ‘the pursuit of happiness’ depends upon individual liberty; and individual liberty requires limited government.
Racism is not first and foremost a skin problem. It is a sin problem. See, when you believe that racism is a skin problem, you can take three hundred years of slavery, court decisions, marches, and the federal government involvement and still not get it fixed right.
Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.
Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.
Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.
The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
To meet someone who wants to fight to just tell the truth about what’s happening in government… this is a real life superhero right here.
Majority rule only works if you’re also considering individual rights. Because you can’t have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.
The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
After 20 years in Congress, I still believe that smaller government and lower taxes are the most effective economic policies.
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.
Rebellion has its roots in government’s indifference and incompetence.
The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.
Socialism violates at least three of the Ten Commandments: It turns government into God, it legalizes thievery and it elevates covetousness. Discussions of income inequality, after all, aren’t about prosperity but about petty spite. Why should you care how much money I make, so long as you are happy?
While the government can tell you that I am an innocent man, the government’s letter cannot give me back my good name or my reputation.
Democracy is an abuse of statistics.
As I prepare to take over the reins of your government, I ask each of you to join me in the process of governing.
There are so many people and organisations that work quietly and diligently for the poor and the disadvantaged. We should also work with unity and purpose to ensure that the benefits of government policies reach all sections of society.
Our nation is built on the bedrock principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The banking collapse was caused, more than anything, by bad government policy and the total failure of bad regulation, rather than by greed.
For about 125 years, give or take, the Canadian government has acted extremely badly – even in a way which should be called evil – breaking treaties, breaking agreements.
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.
Government ‘help’ to business is just as disastrous as government persecution… the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.
It is important for people to be able to read all sides of every question; for a feeling of national unity does not come from one-sided or inadequate information, but from a sense of freedom impartially secured and of opportunity equalized by a just government.
A people can prosper under a very bad government and suffer under a very good one, if in the first case the local administration is effective and in the second it is inefficient.
Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may.
The decision to have an abortion is a deeply personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, her God; not her government, and not the public at large.
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
It must not be forgotten in fairness to the National Government that apartheid is not just a policy of oppression but an attempt – in my opinion an attempt doomed to failure – to find an alternative to a policy of racial integration which is fair to both white and black.
The federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can’t eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease, often referred to as ‘progress’, doesn’t spread.
Government has to be cut back like asparagus… every day… or it gets away and goes to seed. Ours did. When there’s too much of it, the flower becomes a weed.
People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can’t live within its income.
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.
I hope the Icelandic government grants me political asylum.
Sadly, the system in this country is rigged in favor of wealthy elites who have purchased tremendous influence in our government.
When man lives under government, he is fallen, his worth is gone, and his nature tarnished.
The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.
I’m not really conservative. I’m conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don’t any more.
Increased government spending can provide a temporary stimulus to demand and output but in the longer run higher levels of government spending crowd out private investment or require higher taxes that weaken growth by reducing incentives to save, invest, innovate, and work.
Liberty does not exist where rights are on one side and power on the other. To be liberty, rights must be armed with vital powers. A people cannot be free who do not participate in the control of the government which operates upon them.
Only a few years after building a federal system that cleared the way for equal opportunity, Republicans faced a racist and xenophobic backlash against an active government – and they folded. By the 1880s, the party’s leaders had abandoned their message of opportunity and tied themselves to big business.
A successful argument for a government manufacturing policy has to go beyond the feeling that it’s better to produce ‘real things’ than services. American consumers value health care and haircuts as much as washing machines and hair dryers.
The lies the government and media tell are amplifications of the lies we tell ourselves. To stop being conned, stop conning yourself.
We must remember that democracy works when given time to develop, mature and deliver. People must have access to information for informed debate. Government institutions must treat citizens fairly, and with dignity, while responding to their needs.
There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
I hope all of you are going to fill out your census form when it comes in the mail next month. If you don’t return the form the area you live in might get less government money and you wouldn’t want that to happen, would you.
World War II was the last government program that really worked.
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.
A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
Government should fear the people, not the other way around.
Government should make tough decisions in the larger national interests, even if it upsets the people.
The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.
When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.
Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.
A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naive, I feel!
For the first time in the history of Bihar, I provided a stable government. Despite being denied funds by the Centre, Bihar survived on its resources. I provided pucca dwellings to half a million Dalit families.
Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them.
The reason there’s so many gay people now is because it’s a chemical warfare operation, and I have the government documents where they said they’re going to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don’t have children.
Lifting the veil of secrecy that shrouds police misconduct allegations would seem like an obvious democratic value. After all, if police work for the people, should they not be answerable to the people, as well? This is a basic tenet of good government.
This is a country for, of, and by the people not for, of, and by the government. If we turn it over to them we cannot complain about what they’re doing because this is a natural course of men and we have to hold their feet to the fire.
Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult, which is that the size and scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.
We are no longer demonstrators. We are not actors, we are now people committed to the proposition that if the government won’t stop the war, we will stop the government.
I try to speak plainly so that my constituents who don’t follow the nuances of government like I do, because they’re too busy earning a real living, can understand the issues before me. None of this stuff is brain surgery.
Corruption is the enemy of development, and of good governance. It must be got rid of. Both the government and the people at large must come together to achieve this national objective.
I didn’t think that the government would go as far as to include American citizens to be interned without a hearing.
All government wars are unjust.
Voters quickly forget what a man says.
When government – in pursuit of good intentions – tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.
Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property.
If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted.
Where you have no religion, you are sure to have no government, for as religion disappears, anarchy takes place and fixes a compleat Hell on earth till religion returns.
First, we must stop issuing drivers’ licenses to people in our country illegally. Providing them with forms of government identification makes a mockery of our laws and undermines national security efforts.
So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.
You need to be intent on reducing size, scope, and influence of government.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Freedom is our most precious commodity and if we are not eternally vigilant, government will take it all away. Individual freedom demands individual responsibility.
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.
I considered myself engaged in a war from Day One. And my objective was to force the federal government – the Kennedy administration at that time – into a position where they would have to use the United States military force to enforce my rights as a citizen.
If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.
Okay, fluoride in the water to help our teeth. Well, shouldn’t that be the job of your mom and dad? To teach you how to brush your teeth and use mouth wash? What do we need the government to do it for? Clearly, what a scam. Fluoride in the water.
The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of common man.
Strengthening the system and spirit of cooperative federalism, my government is taking the states along to achieve national goals.
One of the things the government can’t do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt.
The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.
The responsibility of philanthropy rests with us. The wealthier we are, the more powerful we get. We cannot put the entire onus on the government.
Government spending is taxation. When you look at this, I’ve never heard of a poor person spending himself into prosperity; let alone I’ve never heard of a poor person taxing himself into prosperity.
All socialism involves slavery.
Many senior government officials, CIA, FBI, counter terrorism officials – when they look back at the decade, they effectively conclude that the United States overreacted after 9/11.
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
We must force the government to stop the bird migration. We must shoot all birds, field all our men and troops… and force migratory birds to stay where they are.
If we had known that one of those terrorist attacks was coming, could our government have electronically eavesdropped on the attackers without a warrant?
If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.
Sports in Indonesia aren’t being supported by the government. The rewards you get as a young player don’t match the effort you put in. I want to be different from other athletes, if not better, and I want to make something good out of my profile and help the younger players have opportunities.
The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection.
If there’s anything a public servant hates to do it’s something for the public.
Government alone cannot solve the problems we deal with in our correctional facilities, treatment centers, homeless shelters and crisis centers – we need our faith-based and community partners.
As a Cherokee, I can attest to the fact that Native Americans have been on the losing side of history. Our rights have been infringed upon, our treaties have been broken, our culture has been stolen, and our tribes have been decimated at the hands of our own United States government.
The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don’t always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!
Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
I believe the government should ensure all children are provided with a good education.
Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.
In conclusion, government quotes remind us of the significance of governance, leadership, and public service in the functioning of society. As citizens, it is our responsibility to actively participate, hold our leaders accountable, and contribute to the betterment of our communities. Let these quotes inspire us to critically examine the role of government, advocate for transparency and justice, and strive for a society where the principles of democracy, equality, and social welfare are upheld. Remember, the strength of a nation lies in the hands of its citizens, united in their commitment to a just and inclusive society.
