Best government & liberalism Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Never will we be able to understand our times if we naively 'think' of this system of self Government as the work of a few gangsters or the creation of a pack of criminals we call a political party. The appeal of Socialism, Fascism and communism was principally negative; they were protests against a live and let live anything goes liberalism, a spineless indifference to causes, a failure to recognize that nothing was evil enough to hate, and nothing was good enough to die for.”

“Liberalism is dead, so dead that Democrats have all become moderate Republicans, and the heavy hand of Big Government is now limp and damp and trembly.”

Hands Bigs Government Republican Democrat Heavy Liberalism Moderates Big Government Damp

Author:Garrison Keillor

“When I was Governor, Louis Kelso went out of his way to brief me. I was very impressed, but I was never able to get any of the economists in state government to give him the help his plan deserves.”

Way Giving States Helping Wisdom Government Able Politics Economy Plans Deserve Liberalism Governors Impressed Economist State Government

Author:Jerry Brown

“The whole Jeffersonian ideal was that people are temporarily in government. Government is not the basic reality. People are. The private sector. And government is just a limited power to make things go better.”

People Whole Wisdom Reality Government Politics Economy Ideals Liberalism Private Sector

Book:Thoughts

Source: Thoughts

“We know that the only alternative to private competition is government monopoly of enterprise. We know that when government monopolizes production, distribution, and employment, it is no longer the servant of men - it is their master. And, therefore, we know that economic liberty and political liberty are inseparable parts of the same ball of wax - that we must keep them both, or we shall lose them both.”

“We supported the cooperative movement among farmers. The movement was still young and stubbornly opposed to the commercial distributors. I believed it to be one of the most helpful undertakings, for according to my social theories any organization run by citizens for their own welfare is preferable to the same action by the government.”

“The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen states in the course of eleven years, is but one for each state in a century and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent insurrections.”

Source: Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States

“The tumults in America I expected would have produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our political state. But it has not. On the contrary, the small effect of these tumults seems to have given more confidence in the firmness of our governments. The interposition of the people themselves on the side of government has had a great effect on the opinion here in Europe.”

People States Wisdom Seems Government America Political Politics Given Sides Opinion Economy Effects Europe Expected Contrary Liberalism Firmness Tumult

Book:Jefferson: Political Writings

Source: Jefferson: Political Writings

“An occasional insurrection will not weigh against the inconveniences of a government of force, such as are monarchies and aristocracies.”

Wisdom Government Politics Force Economy Liberalism Occasional Monarchy Aristocracy Inconvenience Insurrection

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“The enactment of the Homestead Act would create the strongest tie between the citizen and the Government-he would with cheerfulness contribute his proportionable part of the taxes to defray the expenses of the political system under which he lived.”

Wisdom Government Political Politics Economy Citizens Taxes Ties Liberalism Expenses Strongest Cheerfulness Political Systems Homestead Act

Author:Andrew Johnson

“Work is a means; it is not an end. And for any tasks that can be performed or eliminated by a capital instrument, human labor is not the best means... Furthermore, we have science, engineering and management - the three disciplines - that really plan and control the production of goods and services, trying to eliminate labor. Who the hell is government to come along and try to create labor? The people who are producing wealth are trying to eliminate toil, while the politicians are trying to create it.”

“Bring on those tired, labor-plagued, competition-weary companies and ESOP will breathe new life into them. They will find ESOP better than Geritol. It will revitalize what is wrong with capitalism. It will increase productivity. It will improve labor relations. It will promote economic justice. It will save the economic system. It will make our form of government and our concept of freedom prevail over those who don't agree with us.”

“A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.”

Source: Principles of political economy with some of their applications to social philosophy

“In proportion as the people are accustomed to manage their affairs by their own active intervention, instead of leaving them to the government, their desires will turn to repelling tyranny, rather than to tyrannizing: while in proportion as all ready initiative and direction resides in the government, and individuals habitually feel and act as under its perpetual tutelage, popular institutions develop in them not the desire of freedom, but an unmeasured appetite for place and power.”

“A people among whom there is no habit of spontaneous action for a collective interest - who look habitually to their government to command or prompt them in all matters of joint concern - who expect to have everything done for them, except what can be made an affair of mere habit and routine - have their faculties only half developed; their education is defective in one of its most important branches.”

Source: Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy : in Two Volumes

“Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.”

Two Wisdom Government Spirit Politics Individual Economy Democracy Extremes Inequality Liberalism Excess Conquest Aristocracy Despotism Democracies Have

Author:Baron de Montesquieu

“The dissolution of society bids fair to become the termination of a career of which property is the end and aim, because such a career contains the elements of self-destruction. Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and universal education, foreshadow the next higher plane of society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily tending.”

Source: The Indian Journals, 1859-62

“Free enterprise is a natural result of the American form of government, which says in so many words that the more men do for themselves, the less government does for them, the better off we will all be.”

Men Doe Wisdom Government Form Politics Natural Results Economy Liberalism Enterprise Better Off Forms Of Government Free Enterprise

Author:Felix Morley

“Government has the responsibility to provide the climate in which Americans, all Americans, have an opportunity for good jobs; and not only for good jobs, but an opportunity if they have the ability and the desire, to be owners and managers, to have a piece of the action, because if they have a piece of the action, then they believe in the system rather than fighting against it.”

Ifs Believe Wisdom Government Action Jobs Desire Fighting Opportunity Politics Ability Responsibility Economy Pieces Climate Managers Liberalism Owners Good Job

Author:Richard M. Nixon

“There have been times when the Federal Reserve has restricted the money supply and raised interest rates to gain an end, which had much better been left to another Government agency or the Congress to attain. The country could have had lower interest rates without sacrificing anything else.”

Has Beens Ends Country Government Politics Left Interest Economy Sacrifice Gains Raised Rate Congress Agency Liberalism Reserves Federal Reserve Interest Rate Government Agencies

Author:Wright Patman

“In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one.”

“It's the nature of government, to build enduring institutions, structures that stay long after their purpose is over. If you pay people to help the poor, you have people who won't be paid if there aren't any poor, so they'll be sure to find some.”

People Ifs Long Helping Government Purpose Politics Poor Pay Economy Paid Institutions Structure Endure Liberalism Help The Poor

Author:Jerry Pournelle

“Our Founding Fathers well understood that concentrated power is the enemy of liberty and the rights of man. They knew that the American experiment in individual liberty, free enterprise and republican self-government could succeed only if power were widely distributed. And since in any society social and political power flow from economic power, they saw that wealth and property would have to be widely distributed among the people of the country. The truth of this insight is immediately apparent.”

“This is not to say that the government should confiscate from the "haves" and bestow upon the "have-nots", beyond the requirements of a compassionate welfare program to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. Far from it. But it is to say that our duty is to foster a strong, vibrant wealth-producing economy which operates in such a way that new additions to wealth accrue to those who presently have little or no ownership stake in their country.”

Way Should Littles Country Government Politics Strong Wealth Economy Duty Program Welfare Liberalism Compassionate Stakes Ownership Requirements Welfare Programs

Author:Ronald Reagan

“The last point for consideration is the supposed disposition of the people to interfere with the rights of property. So essential does it appear to me, to the cause of good government, that the rights of property should be held sacred, that I would agree to deprive those of the elective franchise against whom it could justly be alleged that they considered it their interest to invade them.”

People Should Doe Wisdom Government Lasts Politics Causes Interest Economy Rights Essentials Agree Sacred Property Liberalism Consideration Interfere Disposition

Book:The Works of David Ricardo ...

Source: The Works of David Ricardo ...

“One of the greatest disasters that happened to modern civilization was for democracy to inscribe "liberty" on its banners instead of "justice." Because "liberty" was considered the ideal it was not long until some men interpreted it as meaning "freedom from justice"; then when religion and decent government attempted to bring them back to justice, organized into "freedom groups" they protested that their constitutional and natural rights were being violated.”

“There are three ways in which a man becomes a slave. He may be born into slavery, or forced into it, or he can deliberately accept his servitude. All three forms flourish in the modern world. Men are born and forced into slavery in Russia and her satellites states. Men in the free world invite slavery when they ask the government to provide complete security, when they surrender their freedom to the "Welfare State."”

“The U.S.A. economic policy and practice have been largely influenced by this thought that people shall own property in their own right and in order to be strong enough to control their own government.”

People Has Beens Enough Wisdom Government Order Politics Strong Practice Economy Economic Policy Property Liberalism Strong Enough Economic Policy

Author:Ndabaningi Sithole

“It appears it would be quite un-American not to be suspicious of the government or to distrust it. History has taught them a little too much about the tragic frailties of human governments, but it has also driven home to them that they must control firmly political and economic power, which, handed over to any government in their land, could be easily used to oppress them.”

Humans Littles Home Wisdom Government Would Be Political Used Politics Economy Too Much Economic Land Taught Driven Liberalism Tragic Distrust Suspicious Frailty Economic Power

Author:Ndabaningi Sithole

“The real struggle between an American government and the people was one of power, which was settled when they designed their Constitution, which conceded the sovereignty of the people when it came to politics, and the sovereignty of the consumer when it came to economics.”

People Real Wisdom Government Politics Struggle Economy Economics Constitution Consumers Liberalism Sovereignty American Government Conceded

Author:Ndabaningi Sithole

“Let us drive away those cruel, greedy oppressors, governments, and the new ones, having just laid aside grenades and rifles, will be just and understanding. Far from it.”

Government Politics Understanding Economy Liberalism Greedy Oppressors Rifles Grenade

Book:The Gulag Archipelago Volume 2: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

Source: The Gulag Archipelago Volume 2: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

“The man who has half a million of dollars in property... has a much higher interest in the government, than the man who has little or no property.”

Men Littles Wisdom Government Politics Interest Half Millions Economy He Man Higher Dollars Property Liberalism

Book:A Collection of Papers on Political, Literary, and Moral Subjects

Source: A Collection of Papers on Political, Literary, and Moral Subjects

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