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Forms Of Government Quotes

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Forms Of Government Quotes

“A government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government.”

Government Form Class Democracy Middle Middle Class Imperfect Forms Of Government Oligarchy

Book:The Essential Aristotle

Source: The Essential Aristotle

“There are three qualifications required in those who have to fill the highest offices, - (1) first of all, loyalty to the established constitution; (2) the greatest administrative capacity; (3) virtue and justice of the kind proper to each form of government.”

Firsts Kind Government Form Three Justice Virtue Office Highest Capacity Constitution Loyalty Forms Of Government Qualifications Administrative

Book:The Essential Aristotle

Source: The Essential Aristotle

“Neither should we forget the mean, which at the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of democracies, . . Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state.”

Thinking Should Mean Matter States Government Form Found Lost Forget Party Principles Practice Virtue Democracy Sight Extremes Ruins Forms Of Government Present Day

Book:Politics

Source: Politics

“Now it is evident that the form of government is best in which every man, whoever he is, can act best and live happily.”

Men Government Form Every Man Evident Forms Of Government

Book:Politics

Source: Politics

“Whereas happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it, the various qualities of men are clearly the reason why there are various kinds of states and many forms of government; for different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.”

Source: The Essential Aristotle

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

Ifs States Government Form Law Justice Clear Goodness Constitution Injustice Unjust Vary Adapted Forms Of Government Badness Unjust Laws

Book:Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens

Source: Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens

“Now what is just and right is to be interpreted in the sense of 'what is equal'; and that which is right in the sense of being equal is to be considered with reference to the advantage of the state, and the common good of the citizens. And a citizen is one who shares in governing and being governed. He differs under different forms of government, but in the best state he is one who is able and willing to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue.”

Different States Government Able Form Law Justice Views Common Virtue Share Willing Citizens Equal Advantage Governing Forms Of Government Common Good Being Equal

Book:Politics

Source: Politics

“It [appears] that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

Government Form Certain Individual Natural Rights Exercise Protect Tyranny Operations Forms Of Government Guarded Natural Rights

Book:Thomas Jefferson: selections from his writings edited, with an introduction

Source: Thomas Jefferson: selections from his writings edited, with an introduction

“Aristocracy is that form of government in which education and discipline are qualifications for suffrage and office holding.”

Government Form Discipline Office Aristocracy Forms Of Government Qualifications Suffrage

Author:Aristotle

“When an upstart dictator in the United States succeeds in making this a one-party form of government, I shall have the courage to stand up and advocate the use of bullets.”

States Use Government Form United Party United States Succeed Dictator Bullets Forms Of Government Upstart

Author:Charles Coughlin

“The sophists were as a rule men who had traveled widely and seen different forms of government. Both conventions and local laws in the city-states could vary widely. This led the Sophists to raise the question of what was natural and what was socially induced. By doing this, they paved the way for social criticism in the city-state of Athens.”

Men Way Different States Government Form Law Social Natural Cities Criticism Raises Locals Conventions Traveled Vary Forms Of Government Athens

Author:Jostein Gaarder

“All deductions having been made, democracy has done less harm, and more good, than any other form of government. It gave to human existence a zest and camaraderie that outweighed its pitfalls and defects. It gave to thought and science and enterprise the freedom essential to their operation and growth. It broke down the walls of privilege and class, and in each generation it raised up ability from every rank and place.”

Source: The Lessons of History

“I do love this people [the French] with all my heart, and think that with a better religion and a better form of government and their present governors their condition and country would be most enviable.”

People Thinking Heart Country Government Would Be Form Conditions My Heart Governors Forms Of Government

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“In your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled under foot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights are all alike ignored. Robbed of the fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of a citizen to that of a subject; and not only myself individually, but all of my sex, are, by your honor's verdict, doomed to political subjection under this, so-called, form of government.”

“It is not a struggle merely of economic theories, or forms of government or of military power. At issue is the true nature of man. Either man is the creature whom the psalmist described as a little lower than the angels ... or man is a soulless, animated machine to be enslaved, used and consumed by the state for its own glorification. It is, therefore, a struggle which goes to the roots of the human spirit, and its shadow falls across the long sweep of man's destiny.”

“I firmly believe that the army of persons who urge greater and greater centralization of authority and greater and greater dependence upon the Federal Treasury are really more dangerous to our form of government than any external threat that can possibly be arrayed against us.”

Believe Persons Government Form Greater Dangerous Authority Army Threat Urges Dependence Forms Of Government Treasury Centralization

Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Hereditary monarchy offers numerous advantages for America. It is the only form of government able to unify a heterogeneous people. Thanks to centuries of dynastic marriage, the family tree of every royal house is an ethnic grab bag with something for everybody. We need this badly; America is the only country in the world where you can suffer culture shock without leaving home. We can't go on much longer depending upon disasters like Pearl Harbor and the Iranian hostage-taking to "bring us together.”

Source: Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye

“By our form of Government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed on the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty.”

Government Christian Form Religious Liberty Equal Protection Entitled Separation Of Church And State Forms Of Government Sects Religious Liberty Denominations Revolution Founding Fathers Christian Denominations

Author:Samuel Chase

“If the women of the United States, with their free schools and all their enlarged liberties, are not superior to women brought upunder monarchical forms of government, then there is no good in liberty.”

Ifs States Government School Form Freedom United Liberty United States Superiors Forms Of Government

Author:Anna Howard Shaw

“I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by mankind.”

Believe Government Form Politics Democracy Mankind Willing Amusing Forms Of Government

Book:Mencken Chrestomathy

Source: Mencken Chrestomathy

“We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.”

World Government America Form Fighting Forms Of Government

Book:The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Source: The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Every so often we hear people clamor for a change. Let's change the Constitution, change the form of Government, change everything for better or worse except to change the only thing that needs changing first: The human heart and our standard of success and human values.”

People Needs Firsts Humans Heart Government Form Values Change Standards Constitution Human Heart Forms Of Government Human Values Clamor

Author:William J. H. Boetcker

“The die is cast in Canada: there are two ethnic and linguistic groups; each is too strong and too deeply rooted in the past, too firmly bound to a mother culture, to be able to swamp the other. But if the two will collaborate inside of a truly pluralist state, Canada could become a privileged place where the federalist form of government, which is the government of tomorrow's world, will be perfected.”

Ifs World Two States Government Able Past Form Mother Dies Culture Strong Groups Tomorrow Bounds Casts Canada Rooted Privileged Forms Of Government Swamps Federalist

Author:Pierre Trudeau

“But our perfect democracy, which neither needs nor particularly wants voters, is a rarity. It is important to remember there still exist many other forms of government in the world today, and that dozens of foreign governments still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them.”

World Want Needs Long Stills Important Government Today Remember Form Perfect Democracy Voters Dozen World Today Forms Of Government Rarity

Author:Jon Stewart

“But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and notlead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.”

Source: The Annotated Emerson

“I wrote about why I didn't think libertarians are really doing this kind of thing so that they can have sex with dogs. I discussed some of the reasons that a person might want to live out of the control of our federal, state, local, and every other form of government. Actually, I don't think I even called myself a libertarian. I think Tom Shroder identified me as one.”

Thinking Want Kind Persons States Reason Government Might Form Sex Dog Libertarian Locals Toms Forms Of Government

Author:Dave Barry

“What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government ... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which means arbitrary power.”

Mean Government Form Political Politics Particular Republic Arbitrary Monarchy Forms Of Government

Book:THOMAS PAINE Ultimate Collection: Political Works, Philosophical Writings, Speeches, Letters & Biography (Including Common Sense, The Rights of Man & The Age of Reason): The American Crisis, The Constitution of 1795, Declaration of Rights, Agrarian Justice, The Republican Proclamation, Anti-Monarchal Essay, Letters to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington…

Source: THOMAS PAINE Ultimate Collection: Political Works, Philosophical Writings, Speeches, Letters & Biography (Including Common Sense, The Rights of Man & The Age of Reason): The American Crisis, The Constitution of 1795, Declaration of Rights, Agrarian Justice, The Republican Proclamation, Anti-Monarchal Essay, Letters to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington…

“The real fabric of American society is not all those flags you see on people's cars...it's in the Bill of Rights and in our constitutional form of government.”

People War Real Government Form Peace Rights Car Bills Flags Anti War Antiwar Fabric Forms Of Government Bill Of Rights American Society

Author:John Adams

“The form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best.”

Persons Government Form Numbers Society Security Comfort Degrees Communicate Ease One Word Forms Of Government

Book:The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections

Source: The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections

“The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now. They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.”

“Were I to define the British constitution, therefore, I should say, it is a limited monarchy, or a mixture of the three forms of government commonly known in the schools, reserving as much of the monarchical splendor, the aristocratical independency, and the democratical freedom, as are necessary that each of these powers may have a control, both in legislation and execution, over the other two, for the preservation of the subject's liberty.”

Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations

“Of all forms of government and society, those of free men and women are in many respects the most brittle. They give the fullest freedom for activities of private persons and groups who often identify their own interests, essentially selfish, with the general welfare.”

Men Giving Persons Government Form Interest Democracy Groups Activity Men And Women Selfish Welfare Free Man Forms Of Government General Welfare Government And Society

Author:Dorothy Thompson

“The form of government which you admire, when its principles are pure is admirable indeed. It is productive of every Thing which is great and excellent among men. But its principles are as easily destroyed as human nature is corrupted. Such a government is only to be supported by pure religion or Austere morals.”

Men Humans Government Form Religion Moral Principles Human Nature Morality Pure Admire Destroyed Excellent Productive Admirable Forms Of Government

Book:Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814

Source: Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814

“Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest numbers of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.”

Source: The Works of John Adams: Controversial papers of the Revolution (continued) Works on government

“If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?”

Ifs Men Government Form Principles Virtue Foundation Acknowledge Sober Forms Of Government

Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations

Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations

“What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?”

Love Wells Government Form Deserve And Love Esteem Forms Of Government

Book:Works: with a life of the author

Source: Works: with a life of the author

“There is no good government but what is republican. That the only valuable part of the British constitution is so; for the true idea of a republic is "an empire of laws, and not of men." That, as a republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangement of the powers of society, or in other words, that form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the law, is the best of republics.”

Men Ideas Government Form Law Particular Republican Constitution Valuable British Secure Empires Republic Execution Arrangements Forms Of Government Republican Government British Constitution

Author:John Adams

“Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. Aristotle speaks plainly to this purpose, saying, 'that the institution of youth should be accommodated to that form of government under which they live; forasmuch as it makes exceedingly for the preservation of the present government, whatsoever it be.”

Should Children Government Form Purpose Speak Principles Youth Institutions Educated Preservation Forms Of Government

Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations

Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations

“Tis a Mistake to think this Fault [tyranny] is proper only to Monarchies; other Forms of Government are liable to it, as well as that. For where-ever the Power that is put in any hands for the Government of the People, and the Preservation of their Properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the Arbitrary and Irregular Commands of those that have it: There it presently becomes Tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many.”

Source: Locke: Two Treatises of Government Student Edition

“No form of government matters nearly as much as the spirit and intelligence brought to the administration of any form of government.”

Matter Government Form Spirit Administration Forms Of Government

Book:Archy does his part

Source: Archy does his part

“Scientists under all forms of government must be able to participate fully in international efforts.”

Government Able Form Effort Scientist International Forms Of Government

Author:Kenneth G. Wilson

“A representative form of government rests nor more on political contributions than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission of property.”

Wisdom Government Form Law Political Politics Economy Property Contribution Liberalism Representatives Forms Of Government Descent Transmission

Author:Daniel Webster

“The form of government, when it has been prudently established, produces citizens distinguished for bravery, justice, and every other good quality; whereas, on the other hand, bad institutions render men cowardly, rapacious, and slaves of every foul desire.”

Men Has Beens Hands Government Form Desire Justice Quality Produce Citizens Bravery Institutions Slave Distinguished Foul Cowardly Forms Of Government Good Quality

Author:Dionysius of Halicarnassus

“If we quickly cast aside our constitutional form of government, then the enemy will not be the terrorists, it will be us.”

Ifs Government Form Enemy Casts Terrorist Forms Of Government

Author:John Conyers

“Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.”

Believe Government Form Generations Forms Of Government Amending The Constitution

Book:The Essential Jefferson

Source: The Essential Jefferson

“Any nations right to a form of government and economic system of its own choosing is inalienable. Any nations attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.”

Government Form Nations Economic Forms Of Government Economic Systems

Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

“WHEREAS it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint Committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."”

“The freest form of government is only the least objectionable form. The rule of the many by the few we call tyranny: the rule of the few by the many is tyranny also; only of a less intense kind.”

Kind Government Form Tyranny Intense Forms Of Government

Book:Social Statics: Great Essays

Source: Social Statics: Great Essays

“As a form of government, imperialism does not seek or require the consent of the governed. It is a pure form of tyranny. The American attempt to combine domestic democracy with such tyrannical control over foreigners is hopelessly contradictory and hypocritical. A country can be democratic or it can be imperialistic, but it cannot be both.”

Doe Country Government Form Democracy Pure Democratic Tyranny Consent Imperialism Contradictory Foreigners Forms Of Government Hypocritical Consent Of The Governed

Book:Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope

Source: Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope

“If democracy is control by the people, as it is supposed to be, it is the right form of government. I believe in a complete democracy - individual, political, social, economic. If we really had that, which we don't now, it would be in harmony with divine purpose.”

Source: Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words