Quotessence
Home / Topics / Government Quotes

Government Quotes

Browse 15620 quotes about Government.

Related topics

PeopleIfsStatesShouldThinkingMenCountryLibertyPoliticalWantWayWorldNeedsKnowsLawBelieveFederal GovernmentCitizensHas BeensPoliticsDemocracyNationsIndividualFormAmericaWarDoeConstitutionTaxesFirstsWellsMeanGivingRightsUnitedMayYearsEconomyProblemUnited StatesPolicyHumansJobsLongBigsPrinciplesSupportInterestPresidentForceMadeRunningPartyHelpingLibertarianEconomicCareEndsForms Of GovernmentUseSecurityTwoTryingProtectIdeasSelfHandsReasonImportantSocialResponsibilityRepublicanKindInstitutionsWould BeFactsOrderSaidSpendingPayAuthorityRolesDoneWholeTodayI BelieveLooksActionMatterProgramPersonsChildrenRealCommunityIssuesPropertyStillsPoliticianDecisionLittlesmore

Government Quotes

“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.”

PeopleLooksMadeImportantMatterDoneWisdomGovernmentActionPoliticsInterestHalfEconomyHabitConcernMereAffairCommandBranchesLiberalismCollectivesFacultyRoutineSpontaneousJointsPromptsDefective
Book:Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy : in Two Volumes
Create image

“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.”

PeopleIfsMenTwoBodyGovernmentActionMovingPoliticsPresidentPowerfulResponsibilityCasesEconomyDemocracyEconomicPolicyResponsibleElectionIndependenceCongressWelfareLiberalismMost PowerfulRepresentativesReservesFederal ReserveElection DayEconomic PolicyLeversGeneral Welfare
Author:Wright Patman
Create image

“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.”

PeopleIfsMenWellsSelfCountryWisdomGovernmentPoliticalFatherPoliticsIndividualSocialWealthLibertyEnemyEconomySawsRightsEconomicRepublicanSucceedUnderstoodFlowPropertyInsightExperimentsLiberalismEnterpriseFoundingOur Founding FathersPolitical PowerFree EnterpriseIndividual LibertySelf-governmentEconomic Power
Author:Ronald Reagan
Create image

“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.”

PeopleShouldDoeWisdomGovernmentLastsPoliticsCausesInterestEconomyRightsEssentialsAgreeSacredPropertyLiberalismConsiderationInterfereDisposition
Book:The Works of David Ricardo ...
Create image

“Way down deep the American people are afraid of an entangling relationship between formal religions - or whole bodies of religious belief - and government. Apart from constitutional law and religious doctrine, there is a sense that tells us it's wrong to presume to speak for God or to claim God's sanction of our particular legislation and his rejection of all other positions. Most of us are offended when we see religion being trivialized by its appearance in political throw-away pamphlets.”

PeopleWayWholeBodyGovernmentLawPoliticalBeliefSpeakReligiousAtheismPositionParticularClaimsAppearancePositive AtheismDoctrineRejectionFormalLegislationOffendedSanctionsReligious BeliefConstitutional Law
Author:Mario Cuomo
Create image

“It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon the book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.”

PeopleMenFirstsLooksMadeBookCountryGovernmentChristianHumanityNationsChristRightsAtheismTruth IsConstitutionFoundationFoolishOur CountryLook UpDestroyingDeitiesFramedSacredness
Author:Robert Green Ingersoll
Create image

“I believe that religious witness should not mobilize public authority to impose a view where a decision is inherently private in nature or where people are deeply divided about whether it is... Americans are plainly and persistently divided about abortion and the fiat of government cannot settle the issue as a matter of conscience or of conduct.”

PeopleShouldBelieveMatterGovernmentI BelieveReligiousDecisionViewsIssuesAtheismAuthorityConsciencePositive AtheismWitnessSettlingAbortionDivided
Author:Edward Kennedy
Create image

“Ideal government would be a very boring job - it would be a matter of organizing a lot of utilities and keeping the wires together and the power plant and all that kind of stuff. It's not a matter of telling people how to live, it's a matter of making it pleasant for them to live. Government should be in the position of distributing food, stuff like that.”

PeopleShouldKindMatterGovernmentWould BeTogetherJobsStuffPositionIdealsPlantBoringPleasantWireUtilityPower Plants
Author:Grace Slick
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

“The Government covers their own ass from things they fail to do to protect its own people from corporations that control the government, which is the reason we don't have checks and balances in this country. They checked how much balance they needed to influence congress and all the other branches of government in some way, shape, or form, and cash is king.”

PeopleWayCountryReasonGovernmentFormFailingInfluenceKingsNeededBalanceShapesProtectCongressChecksAssCorporationsBranchesCashBranches Of Government
Author:Immortal Technique
Create image

“One of the things I tell my students is that if you want to understand what's been going on and also what needs to be done, you've got to get out of the blame game. Some people on the left want to blame the rich and corporations. Some people on the right want to blame the poor and government. Either of those frames of reference gets you nowhere and they aren't even truthful. You've got to understand the dynamic itself.”

PeopleIfsWantNeedsDoneGovernmentGamesLeftPoorRichStudentsBlameCorporationsTruthfulFrame Of ReferenceBlame Game
Author:Robert Reich
Create image

“People hired by government know who is their benefactor. People who lose their jobs or fail to get them because of the government program do not know that that is the source of their problem. The good effects are visible. The bad effects are invisible. The good effects generate votes. The bad effects generate discontent, which is as likely to be directed at private business as at the government.”

PeopleKnowsProblemGovernmentJobsLosesFailingEffectsSourceProgramVoteInvisibleVisibleDiscontentGovernment ProgramsBenefactors
Author:Milton Friedman
Create image

“What, then, do they want a government for? Not to regulate commerce; not to educate the people; not to teach religion, not to administer charity; not to make roads and railways; but simply to defend the natural rights of man -- to protect person and property -- to prevent the aggressions of the powerful upon the weak -- in a word, to administer justice. This is the natural, the original, office of a government. It was not intended to do less: it ought not to be allowed to do more.”

PeopleMenWantPersonsGovernmentNaturalJusticePowerfulTeachRightsOughtProtectOfficeWeakOriginalsPropertyCharityEducateAggressionCommerceRailwayE CommerceNatural Rights
Book:The Man versus the State: Great Essays
Create image

“The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.”

PeopleIfsHumansGovernmentCoursesGivenChanceHuman BeingsTheoryNormalDemocraticAverageBitterDemocratic GovernmentGiven A ChanceBitter Experience
Book:Black Folk Then and Now (The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois): An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race
Create image

“[T]he crucial question is not, as so many believe, whether property rights should be private or governmental, but rather whether the necessarily 'private' owners are legitimate owners or criminals. For ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner. All property is therefore always 'private'; the only and critical question is whether it should reside in the hands of criminals or of the proper and legitimate owners.”

PeopleShouldBelieveHandsGovernmentActingRightsGroupsPropertyCriticalCriminalsOwnersCrucialEntityProperty Rights
Author:Murray Rothbard
Create image

“Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.”

PeopleThinkingWantLongImportantStatesEnoughBigsGovernmentRunningChoicesHouseCitiesCompanySituationAcceptingLandMediaInformationJudgingNewsCapableSmartMachinesPaidWorkersCongressPopulationCriticalDumbCorporationsPocketsOwnersHallsSenateCritical ThinkingObedientCity Hall
Author:George Carlin
Create image

“Our problems are both acute and chronic, yet all we hear from those in positions of leadership are the same tired proposals for more government tinkering, more meddling and more control---all of which led us to this state in the first place... We must have the clarity of vision to see the difference between what is essential and what is merely desirable, and then the courage to bring our government back under control and make it acceptable to the people.”

PeopleFirstsStatesProblemGovernmentDifferencesVisionPositionEssentialsTiredClarityAcceptableDesirableProposalMeddlingTinkeringClarity Of Vision
Author:Ronald Reagan
Create image

“The constitution of England is not a paper constitution. It is an aggregate of institutions, many of them founded merely upon prescription, some of them fortified by muniments, but all of them the fruit and experience of an ancient and illustrious people.”

PeopleGovernmentPaperConstitutionEnglandInstitutionsFruitAncientPrescriptions
Book:Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield: Collected from His Writings and Speeches
Create image

“In the last analysis, my fellow country men, as we in America would be the first to claim, a people are responsible for the acts of their government.”

PeopleMenFirstsCountryGovernmentWould BeLastsAmericaMankindClaimsResponsibleFellowsAnalysis
Book:The Hope of the World: Messages and Addresses Delivered by the President Between July 10, 1919, and December 9, 1919, Including Selections from His Country-wide Speeches in Behalf of the Treaty and Covenant
Create image

“Beneath a free government there is nothing but the intelligence of the people to keep the people's peace. Order must be preserved, not by a military police or regiments of horse-guards, but by the spontaneous concert of a well-informed population, resolved that the rights which have been rescued from despotism shall not be subverted by anarchy.”

PeopleWellsHas BeensGovernmentOrderRightsMilitaryHorsePolicePopulationConcertsAnarchySpontaneousDespotismFree GovernmentMilitary Police
Book:Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions
Create image