Quotessence
Home / Topics / Government Quotes

Government Quotes

Browse 15620 quotes about Government.

Related topics

PeopleIfsStatesShouldThinkingMenCountryLibertyPoliticalWantWayWorldNeedsKnowsLawBelieveFederal GovernmentCitizensHas BeensPoliticsDemocracyNationsIndividualFormAmericaWarDoeConstitutionTaxesFirstsWellsMeanGivingRightsUnitedMayYearsEconomyProblemUnited StatesPolicyHumansJobsLongBigsPrinciplesSupportInterestPresidentForceMadeRunningPartyHelpingLibertarianEconomicCareEndsForms Of GovernmentUseSecurityTwoTryingProtectIdeasSelfHandsReasonImportantSocialResponsibilityRepublicanKindInstitutionsWould BeFactsOrderSaidSpendingPayAuthorityRolesDoneWholeTodayI BelieveLooksActionMatterProgramPersonsChildrenRealCommunityIssuesPropertyStillsPoliticianDecisionLittlesmore

Government Quotes

“Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infallible or certain. Nor must we forget that there has often been much more cultural and spiritual freedom under an autocratic rule than under some democracies and it is at least conceivable that under the government of a very homogeneous and doctrinaire majority democratic government might be as oppressive as the worst dictatorship.”

MeanGovernmentMightSpiritualCertainIndividualForgetDemocracyWorstMajorityDemocraticInternalsDevicesDictatorshipInfallibleIndividual FreedomUtilitarianSpiritual FreedomDemocratic GovernmentHomogeneousSafeguardingInternal Peace
Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
Create image

“It is often asserted that as woman has always been man's slave--subject--inferior--dependent, under all forms of government and religion, slavery must be her normal condition. This might have some weight had not the vast majority of men also been enslaved for centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the progress of civilization, have reached complete equality.”

MenGovernmentMightFormOrderWomenProgressConditionsSubjectsCenturyKingsCivilizationNormalWeightSlaveryMajoritySlaveDependentInferiorsPopeNobilityForms Of Government
Author:Susan B. Anthony
Create image

“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?”

PeopleIfsMayMadeCountryGovernmentMightPastLibertyRightsInformationProduceCommunicationOughtExerciseProveUniversalConstitutionIntelligentPerpetualExecutionIndispensableAlarmsRepressedRigorSystems Of GovernmentTimes PastInformation And Communication
Book: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
Create image

“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 his personal services to the defence of it, and consequently that the Citizens of America (with a few legal and official exceptions) from 18 to 50 Years of Age should be borne on the Militia Rolls, provided with uniform Arms, and so far accustomed to the use of them, that the Total strength of the Country might be called forth at a Short Notice on any very interesting Emergency.”

ShouldYearsMayCountryUseGovernmentMightAgeAmericaEnjoyInterestingMilitaryPositionArmsCitizensBasesPropertyProtectionPrimariesOfficialsProportionExceptionUniformsAccustomedEmergenciesVery InterestingDefenceMilitiaFree GovernmentFounding Fathers GunShort Notice
Author:George Washington
Create image

“If we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent to the observation of justice, and other laws of Nature, without a common Power to keep them all in awe; we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same; and then there neither would be nor need to be any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be Peace without subjection.”

IfsMenNeedsWellsGovernmentMightWould BeLawJusticeCommonMankindObservationAweMultitudesConsentLaws Of NatureCommonwealthSubjection
Book:Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil
Create image

“A really intelligent nation might be held together by far stronger forces than are derived from the purely gregarious instincts. A nation need not be a mob of slaves, clinging to one another through fear, and for the most part incapable of self-government, and begging to be led; but it might consist of vigorous self-reliant men, knit to one another by innumerable ties, into a strong, tense, and elastic organisation.”

MenNeedsSelfGovernmentMightTogetherStrongForceNationsStrongerIntelligentSlaveInstinctTiesIncapableTenseBeggingVigorousOrganisationClingingSelf-governmentGregariousSelf Reliant
Author:Francis Galton
Create image

“It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history -- free culture. If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.”

IfsShouldBelieveHas BeensGovernmentMightCultureSpeakInterestPowerfulCrazyPolicyTraditionArguingPreservesOfficialsMost PowerfulSpeak The TruthBeing CrazyGovernment OfficialsGovernment Policy
Book:Free Culture
Create image

“It seemed to me singularly ill-contrived for the British government to be going to war with Hitler when Hitler might have been about to attack the Russians, and even more ill-contrived that, when Hitler did attack the Russians, he had already defeated the French army. What I'm saying is that the war shouldn't have been started in September 1939...from the point of view of Britain, the war was really not a good thing and I would regard it as, in effect, a defeat.”

Has BeensWarGovernmentMightViewsEffectsArmyRegardGood ThingsDefeatIllBritishPoint Of ViewBritainDefeatedSeptemberMight Have BeenGoing To WarBritish GovernmentFrench Army
Author:Maurice Cowling
Create image

“The presently existing global financial and monetary system will disintegrate during the near term. The collapse might occur this spring, or summer, or next autumn; it could come next year; it will almost certainly occur during President William Clinton's first term in office; it will occur soon. That collapse into disintegration is inevitable, because it could not be stopped now by anything but the politically improbable decision by leading governments to put the relevant financial and monetary institutions into bankruptcy reorganization.”

YearsFirstsGovernmentMightNextPresidentTermDecisionOfficeSummerSpringInstitutionsClintonFinancialInevitableAutumnRelevantCollapseNext YearMonetaryBankruptcyImprobableDisintegrationMonetary SystemReorganization
Author:Lyndon LaRouche
Create image

“It might be a good idea to have government totally by the people - that each person takes four or five hours of the week doing some kind of government job - in other words, along with what you do you also help maintain the government so no one person has total control - I might go down to an office for four hours and do whatever I'm capable of doing - writing out receipts for food distribution in a certain area - but it's all actually a monstrous secretarial job and that's all I think it should be.”

PeopleThinkingShouldWritingKindPersonsIdeasHelpingGovernmentMightJobsCertainHoursFiveFourWeekOfficeCapableAreasGood IdeasDistributionMonstrousReceiptsGovernment Jobs
Author:Grace Slick
Create image

“The average ordinary person, in the worst slums of America, someone who might even hate the law and disagree with the government, they would do something about that [abandoned child]. But in Afghanistan, people hardly have the means to take care of themselves, let alone a random child on the street.”

PeopleMeanChildrenPersonsGovernmentMightCareAmericaLawHateStreetsWorstOrdinaryAverageTake CareDisagreeAfghanistanAbandonedSlumsOrdinary Person
Author:Immortal Technique
Create image

“Private property is held sacred in all good governments, and particularly in our own. Yet shall the fear of invading it prevent a general from marching his army over a cornfield or burning a house which protects the enemy? A thousand other instances might be cited to show that laws must sometimes be silent when necessity speaks.”

SometimesShowsGovernmentMightLawHouseSpeakEnemyThousandProtectArmySacredPropertySilentInstanceBurningPrivate PropertyInvading
Author:Andrew Jackson
Create image

“The United Nations emerged as a temple of official good intentions, a place where governments might - without abating their transgressions - go to church; a place made remote - by agreed untruth and procedural complexity, and by tedium itself - from the risk of intense public involvement.”

MadeGovernmentMightNationsChurchUnitedRiskIntentionIntenseComplexityOfficialsTemplesUnited NationsInvolvementGood IntentionsUntruthTransgressionTedium
Author:Shirley Hazzard
Create image