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Government Quotes

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Government Quotes

“Government prohibitions do always more mischief than had been calculated; and it is not without much hesitation that a statesman should hazard to regulate the concerns of individuals, as if he could do it better than themselves.”

Ifs Should Government Individual Liberty Concern Mischief Statesmen Prohibition Hesitation Hazards

Author:Albert Gallatin

“If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.”

Ifs Government School Certain Struggle Atheism Conditions Duty Debate Operations

Book:Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi

Source: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi

“Education is 'the guardian genius of our democracy.' Nothing really means more to our future, not our military defenses, not our missiles or our bombers, not our production economy, not even our democratic system of government. For all of these are worthless if we lack the brain power to support and sustain them.”

“This thing about getting rid of a man in the Cabinet is all right, but there is one bad feature to it that few people realize. That is, that unfortunately every one of them is replaced by someone else. If it wasn't for that, this resignation business would be great.”

People Ifs Men Government Would Be Realizing Features Replaced Cabinets Resignation

Author:Will Rogers

“If I could get one message to you it would be this: the future of this country and the welfare of the free world depends upon our success in space. There is no room in this country for any but a fully cooperative, urgently motivated all-out effort toward space leadership. No one person, no one company, no one government agency, has a monopoly on the competence, the missions, or the requirements for the space program.”

“The weakling and the coward are out of place in a strong and free community. In a republic like ours the governing class is composed of the strong men who take the trouble to do the work of government; and if you are too timid or too fastidious or too careless to do your part in this work, then you forfeit your right to be considered one of the governing and you become one of the governed insteadone of the driven cattle of the political arena.”

Ifs Men Government Political Strong Community Class Trouble Driven Coward Republic Arena Governing Careless Cattle Strong Man Forfeit Fastidious

Book:Works

Source: Works

“Not only do we have a right to know, we have a duty to know what our Government is doing in our name. If there's a criticism to be made today, it's that the press isn't doing enough to put the pressure on the government to provide information.”

Ifs Knows Made Enough Government Today Names Media Information Duty Criticism Pressure Presses

Author:Walter Cronkite

“President Coolidge said, 'I don't want the Government to go into business.' Well, if I was Mr. Coolidge I wouldn't worry over that. The Government never has been accused of being a business man.”

Ifs Men Want Wells Has Beens Said Government President Business Worry Accused Business Man

Author:Will Rogers

“If you have a radio, the next three months is a good time to have it quit working. All you will hear from now until the 4th of November will be: 'We must get our government out of the hands of predatory wealth.' 'The good people of this great country are burdened to death with taxes. Now what I intend to do is ...' What he intends to do is try and get elected. That's all any of them intend to do. Another one that will hum over the old static every night will be: 'This country has reached a crisis in its national existence.'”

“The men of wealth who today are trying to prevent the regulation and control of their business in the interest of the public by the proper government authorities will not succeed, in my judgment, in checking the progress of the movement. But if they did succeed they would find that they had sown the wind and would surely reap the whirlwind, for they would ultimately provoke the violent excesses which accompany a reform coming by convulsion instead of by steady and natural growth.”

“Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means - to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal - would bring terrible retributions.”

“The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away. -Ronald Reagan In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?”

Ifs Mind Government Justice Absence Stealing Organized Sovereignty Robbery

Author:Saint Augustine

“We must dispel the negative and harmful atmosphere that has been created by avaricious and unprincipled realtors who engage in "blockbusting." If we had in America really serious efforts to break down discrimination in housing, and at the same time a concerted program of government aid to improve housing for Negroes, I think that many white people would be surprised at how many Negroes would choose to live among themselves, exactly as Poles and Jews and other ethnic groups do.”

“People invest in companies in order to get a share of the profit that company will make. If the Government increases its share of the profits, potential profits, at the expense of the owners of the company, the shareholders, then that makes investment in that company less attractive.”

People Ifs Government Order Company Share Increase Investment Profit Attractive Owners Expenses Shareholders

Author:Malcolm Turnbull

“Here’s a secret intel bulletin for all y’all who’ve never left Yoknapatawpha County and imagine the United States is constantly on the precipice of enemy invasion—the only way this country is ever going to surrender its liberty to a foreign power is if it keeps electing corrupt officials who auction it away to multinational corporations and overseas government interests in exactly the fashion that southern star chambers have been doing to their own people throughout their entire dyspeptic history.”

Source: Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession

“Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change...[T]he progress of humanity, far from being the result of government, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face if its constant and bitter opposition.”

Ifs Has Beens Made Government Faces Humanity Results Progress Essence Increase Constant Aids Tendencies Bitter Opposition Permanence

Author:H. L. Mencken

“Where and when have riots and anarchy been provoked by wise measures? If the government had acted wisely, and if their measures had met the needs of the poor peasants, would there have been unrest among the peasant masses?”

Ifs Needs Has Beens Government Poor Wise Mets Mass Anarchy Peasants Riot Unrest Provoked

Author:Vladimir Lenin

“Democracy, I do not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government either for church or commonwealth. If the people be governors, who shall be governed?”

People Ifs Government Church Democracy Fit Governors Commonwealth

Author:John Cotton

“I'm wondering if they haven't reported all the people with MS, because if all of the cases were reported, the government would have to step in and give more financial aid to us.”

People Ifs Giving Government Wonder Steps Cases Havens Financial Aids Financial Aid

Author:Teri Garr

“I think country needs to have a sporting culture. I think if sports were taken as curriculum in school and are encouraged in right way like government of Maharashtra and Haryana have done given Marks for Sports and encouraging them with good jobs.”

Ifs Thinking Way Needs Country Done Government School Jobs Culture Given Sports Taken Mark Right Way Good Job Curriculum Maharashtra

Author:Gagan Narang

“For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men by force or threat of force could long defy the commands of our court and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors.”

Ifs Men Should Long Country Government Would Be Law Force Powerful Doubt Groups Judging Citizens Safe Constitution Court Threat Neighbor Command Entitled Prominent Unruly Boisterous

Author:John F. Kennedy

“It is not part of the functions of the national government to find employment for people - and if we were to appropriate a hundred millions for this purpose, we should be taxing forty millions of people to keep a few thousand employed.”

People Ifs Should Government Purpose Millions Thousand Hundred Function Employment Appropriate Forty Employed

Author:James A. Garfield

“If the governments devalue the currency in order to betray all creditors, you politely call this procedure 'inflation'.”

Ifs Government Order Investing Betray Currency Inflation Procedures Creditors Devalue

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“Can an author with reason complain that he is cramped and shackled if he is not at liberty to publish blasphemy, bawdry, or sedition?; all of which are equally prohibited in the freest governments, if they are wise and well-regulated ones.”

Ifs Wells Reason Government Liberty Wise Complaining Publish Blasphemy

Author:Bill Vaughan

“May it not be asked of every intelligent friend to the liberties of his country, whether the power exercised in such an act as this ought not to produce great and universal alarm? Whether a rigid execution of such an act, in time past, would not have repressed that information and communication among the people which is indispensable to the just exercise of their electoral rights? And whether such an act, if made perpetual, and enforced with rigor, would not, in time to come, either destroy our free system of government, or prepare a convulsion that might prove equally fatal to it?”

Source: The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yates's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution

“If one starts with the assumption that, in the absence of specific Congressional authority, a fixed rule of law precludes contracting officers from providing in a Government contract terms reasonably calculated to assure its performance even though there be no money loss through a particular default, there is no problem. But answers are not obtained by putting the wrong question, and thereby begging the real one.”

“I grew up in Pittsburgh, where you couldn't even see the noon sun in the sky, and that whole city was cleaned up without the federal government needing to be involved. I think we would have been much better served from the start if people would have better understood the principles of private property.”

People Ifs Thinking Has Beens Whole Government Cities Principles Sun Sky Grew Involved Grew Up Understood Property Federal Government Noon Private Property Pittsburgh

Author:Ron Paul

“The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practiced in mixed governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they are of course advantageous, but if they require an apology, the apology itself implies an impeachment. Why, then, is man imposed upon, or why does he impose upon himself?”

Ifs Men May Doe Government Spirit Courses Taxes Burden Republic Apology Inconsistent Impeachment

Book:The Works of Thomas Paine: A Hero in the American Revolution. With an Account of His Life ...

Source: The Works of Thomas Paine: A Hero in the American Revolution. With an Account of His Life ...

“If responsibility is not in the hands of the Iraqi government, then I consider the responsibility for this event lies with the occupation forces which should either leave immediately or according to a timetable.”

Ifs Should Hands Government Lying Force Responsibility Events Occupation Timetables

Author:Muqtada al Sadr

“The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. . . . The politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 10,000 little children, so statistics tell us, starve to death every year in the United States. . . . We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us.”

People Ifs Years Children Littles Said Country States Home Government Force United Common Pay Company United States Masters Politician Slave Debt Statistics Loan Monopoly Sharks

Author:Mary Elizabeth Lease

“We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out.... We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us.”

Ifs Want Home Government Force Pay Company Debt Loan Sharks Foreclosure

Author:Mary Elizabeth Lease

“Is the scrupulous attention I am paying to the government of my tongue at all proportioned to that tremendous truth revealed through St. James, that if I do not bridle my tongue, all my religion is vain?”

Ifs Government Evil Attention Tongue Vain Truth Revealed

Book:Growth in holiness, or the progress of the spiritual life

Source: Growth in holiness, or the progress of the spiritual life

“Republicans ... are conservatives who think it would be best if we faced the fact that people are no damned good. They think that if we admit that we have selfish, acquisitive natures and then set out to get all we can for ourselves by working hard for it, that things will be better for everyone. They are not insensitive to the poor, but tend to think the poor are impoverished because they won't work. They think there would be fewer of them to feel sorry for if the government did not encourage the proliferation of the least fit among us with welfare programs.”

People Ifs Thinking Feels Hard Facts Government Would Be Poor Fit Republican Program Sorry Selfish Welfare Fewer Proliferation Insensitive Welfare Programs

Author:Andy Rooney

“If an economy in the doldrums could drift indefinitely, the price of government inaction might be graver by far than the consequences of bold unorthodoxy.”

Ifs Government Might Economy Consequence Inaction Doldrums

Book:The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers

Source: The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers

“I am a patient man--always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance, and also to give ample time for repentance. Still, I must save this government, if possible. What I cannot do, of course I will not do, but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.”

Ifs Men Giving Wells May Stills Government Christian Courses Games Term Willing Understood Forgiving Patient Leaving Available Surrender Cards Repentance

Book:The collected works of Abraham Lincoln

Source: The collected works of Abraham Lincoln

“If the next time our governments propose to make war on a helpless civilian population we were to uncover our grief and guilt instead of our anger, how much difference might we make?”

Ifs War Government Might Next Differences Grief Guilt Population Helpless Next Time Civilians Propose

Book:The Whole Woman

Source: The Whole Woman

“I agree that marijuana laws are overdue for an overhaul. I also favor the medical use of marijuana -- if it's prescribed by a physician. I cannot understand why the federal government should interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, nor why it would ignore the will of a majority of voters who have legally approved such legislation.”

Ifs Should Use Government Law Doctors Agree Majority Patient Medical Favors Voters Marijuana Physicians Interfere Legislation Federal Government Prohibition Approved Overdue

Author:Abigail Van Buren

“Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of the representative government, cannot exist.”

People Ifs Different Feelings Government Speak Language United Opinion Fellows Representatives Public Opinion Different Languages Representative Government Fellow Feeling

Book:Considerations on Representative Government

Source: Considerations on Representative Government

“If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government.”

Ifs Government Left Revolution Succeed Patterns Repeats Systematic Zen Motorcycle Maintenance

Author:Robert M. Pirsig

“If, however, a government refrains from regulations and allows matters to take their course, essential commodities soon attain a level of price out of the reach of all but the rich, the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent, and the fraud upon the public can be concealed no longer.”

Source: The Economic Consequences of the Peace: The classic text on the Treaty of Versailles and post war Europe

“The spirit of rebellion is present in every great city, and the great task of wise government is to keep it dormant, for if it wakes it is a torrent which no dam can hold back.”

Ifs Government Spirit Cities Wise Tasks Rebellion Great Cities Dormant Dams

Book:History of My Life

Source: History of My Life

“Every person, whether in wartime or not, should keep a pistol and rifle in his house at all times. If a person is not going to protect himself, and wishes the government to do it for him, how can he complain when the government decides to protect itself against him, and executes him?”

Ifs Should Persons Government House Wish Protect Complaining All Time Rifles Pistols Wartime

Author:William Powell

“I think we should just tip the government if it does a good job. Fifteen percent is the standard tip, isn't it?”

Ifs Thinking Should Doe Government Jobs Standards Percent Fifteen Good Job

Author:Pat Paulsen

“If the government of this country tramples the faith and values of its citizens, history will hold those in power responsible for the violent convulsions that follow.”

Ifs Country Government Values Citizens Responsible Violent

Author:Randall Terry

“The monarchy that I hand over to my son is not going to be the same one that I have inherited. ... There is a tendency by a lot of officials to hide behind the king. And it's about time that officials take their responsibility and are responsible in front of the people. Because today, if you're appointed by the king, they don't feel that they're responsible for the people. If you have a government that is elected, they need to do the hard work — because if they don't, they won't be around the next time the ballot box is open.”

People Ifs Needs Feels Hard Hands Government Today Next Behinds Responsibility Fronts Son Hard Work Kings Responsible Boxes Tendencies Officials My Son Next Time Monarchy Ballots

Author:Abdallah II

“A man who doesn't detest a bad government is a fool. And if there were such a thing as a good government on earth, it would be a great joy to serve it.”

Ifs Men Government Would Be Earth Joy Fool Great Joy Detest Bad Government

Book:The Left Hand of Darkness

Source: The Left Hand of Darkness

“The issue here really is not whether international trade shall be free but whether or not it makes any sense for a country - or, for that matter, a region - to destroy its own capacity to produce its own food. How can a government, entrusted with the safety and health of its people, conscientiously barter away in the name of an economic idea that people's ability to feed itself? And if people lose their ability to feed themselves, how can they be said to be free?”

People Ifs Said Ideas Country Matter Government Names Loses Ability Issues Economic Produce Capacity Safety Trade International Regions International Trade

Author:Wendell Berry

“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. Scientists made a great invention by calling their activities hypotheses and experiments. They made it permissible to fail repeatedly until in the end they got the results they wanted. In politics or government, if you made a hypothesis and it didn't work out, you had your head cut off.”

“I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40 percent of our national income.”

Ifs I Can Government Percent Concerned Income

Author:Milton Friedman

“The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and moneyed incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling...I hope we shall...crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country. I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”