Top 100 Government Quotes of All Time

A short, finished list rather than an endless feed: 100 of the best government quotes ever written, picked out of the full government archive on QuoteForever. You will find Alexander Hamilton, Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln and Aristotle among them.

Read the list top to bottom, or use it as a starting point - every author name links to everything else they said, and every quote has its own page you can share or turn into an image.

1

Why does one never hear of government funding for the preservation and encouragement of comic strips, girlie magazines and TV soap operas? Because these genres still hold the audience they were created to amuse and instruct.

2

I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

3

Jesus of Nazareth was the most famous human being who ever lived on this planet, and he had no infrastructure, and it's never been done. He had no government, no PR guy, no money, no structure. He had nothing, yet he became the most famous human being ever.

4

But Mitt Romney understands, like I understand, that people - not governments - create jobs.

5

The realistic way to reduce the amount of money in politics is to reduce the amount of politics in money -- the importance of government in allocating wealth and opportunity.

6

On human rights, civil rights and environmental quality, I consider myself to be very liberal. On the management of government, on openness of government, on strengthening individual liberties and local levels of government, I consider myself a conservative. And I don't see that the two attitudes are incompatible.

7

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.

8

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

9

The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas brought in - a trial and error system.

10

Corporations are a good thing. But corporations should not be running our government... They have driven the American economy since its founding, and the prosperity of our country is largely dependent on the free operation of corporations. But some corporations don't want free markets, and they don't want democracy. They want profits.

11

There are two types of encryption: one that will prevent your sister from reading your diary and one that will prevent your government.

12

National security laws must protect national security. But they must also protect the public trust and preserve the ability of an informed electorate to hold its government to account.

13

A wise man neither suffers himself to be governed, nor attempts to govern others.

14

In a word, if this country can steer clear of European politics, stand firm on its bottom, and be wise and temperate in its government, it bids fair to be one of the greatest and happiest nations in the world.

15

Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two [good and evil].

16

It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children's children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all our lives.

17

Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.

18

Government, possessing the power to create and issue currency and credit as money and enjoying the right to withdraw both currency and credit from circulation by taxation and otherwise, need not and should not borrow capital at interest as a means of financing government work and public enterprises.

19

All's the government should do is keep the taxes and regulations at a manageable rate, keep a decent standing army and get out of the way.

20

With regard to the youth vote we should encourage them to partake in the process, making more use of our education system to show the role Government plays in their lives, but also utilise the youth media they relate to to better connect them to our message.

21

The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life

22

Everyone thinks the Chinese government selected me. Never ever. I was selected by Herzog and de Meuron.

23

Local and state governments have outrun the federal government. The EPA has served notice that it will enact a rule requiring CO2 reductions by major emitters in the absence of major legislation. But it's a blunt instrument that is a little more difficult to use than a legislative remedy.

24

We must take away the government's credit card. With limits on both tax revenue and borrowing, the Federal government would finally be forced to get serious about spending cuts

25

People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.

26

The growth of constitutional government, as we now understand it, was promoted by the establishment of two different sets of machinery for making laws and carrying on government.

27

In some of the middle colonies the towns and counties were both active and had a relation with each other which was the forerunner of the present system of local government in the Western States.

28

The participation of the people in their own government was the more significant, because the colonies actually had what England only seemed to have, - three departments of government.

29

The only way out [of international dictatorship] is to place international law above governments, which means [...] that there must be a parliament for making it, and that parliament must be constituted by means of worldwide elections in which all nations will take part.

30

Then I received support from the Government to compete for my country, and to represent Cuba in competition.

31

Our government declared that it is conducting some kind of great reforms. In reality, no real reforms were begun and no one at any point has declared a coherent programme.

32

In almost all city governments in America, the small group of people who don't want change are able to block change.

33

I think any good government will target on the finishing date, that is, the polling day and make sure that their strategy is strong and in place to get them successfully re-elected.

34

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

35

The true principle of government is this - make the system compleat in its structure; give a perfect proportion and balance to its parts; and the powers you give it will never affect your security.

36

If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert.

37

The great leading objects of the federal government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense.

38

That instability is inherent in the nature of popular governments, I think very disputable … A representative democracy, where the right of election is well secured and regulated & the exercise of the legislature, executive, and judiciary authorities, is vested in select persons, chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in my opinion be most likely to be happy, regular and durable.

39

The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government.

40

It is one thing to be subordinate to the laws, and another [for the Executive] to be dependent on the legislative body. The first comports with, the last violates, the fundamental principles of good government; and, whatever may be the forms of the Constitution, unites all power in the same hands.

41

It is by far the safer course to lay [considerations of the future] altogether aside; and to confine our attention wholly to the nature and extent of the powers as they are delineated in the constitution. Everything beyond this, must be left to the prudence and firmness of the people; who, as they will hold the scales in their own hands, it is to be hoped, will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the General and State governments.

42

Liberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it.

43

For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administer'd is best. For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity.

44

Cynics about government find much to be cynical about.

45

Governments harangue about deficits to get more revenue so they can spend more.

46

I think serving your government is the greatest thing in the world.

47

But I do know this: that the two and a half years that I've been at HUD, I am absolutely convinced that some of the best workers in the world are in Federal Government.

48

The governments and the hard-headed military establishment and the general conservative part of America have never taken much interest in democracy, anyway.

49

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

50

Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.

51

During the election in 1989, there was the first Soviet election with alternative candidates to local government. I myself arranged special training for them.

52

New York State is upside down and backwards; high taxes and low performance. The New York State government was at one time a national model. Now, unfortunately, it's a national disgrace. Sometimes, the corruption in Albany could even make Boss Tweed blush.

53

The unfortunate and inescapable historical truth is that those in government - from both parties and with a few courageous exceptions - do not feel constrained by the Constitution. They think they can do whatever they want.

54

Next time someone says, 'Where has big government ever gotten us?' the correct answer is 'Mars.'

55

To promote the sales of GM vehicles, Obama says the government will stand by your GM car warranty. And all the taxpayers will get a lube job.

56

Life isn't fair, but government must be.

57

I'm not afraid to shake up the system, and government needs more shaking up than any other system I know.

58

This government does not believe that public safety is enhanced by carrying weapons. In fact, it has been a long-standing Canadian government practice to discourage the use of personal defence weapons. Once public possession of one type of weapon is condoned for personal defence, the situation of weapon possession for protection starts to spiral upwards towards more powerful and dangerous weapons.

59

Some things the legislator must find ready to his hand in a state, others he must provide. And therefore we can only say: May our state be constituted in such a manner as to be blessed with the goods of which fortune disposes (for we acknowledge her power): whereas virtue and goodness in the state are not a matter of chance but the result of knowledge and purpose. A city can be virtuous only when the citizens who have a share in the government are virtuous, and in our state all the citizens share in the government.

60

But is it just then that the few and the wealthy should be the rulers? And what if they, in like manner, rob and plunder the people, - is this just?

61

Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers, and oligarchy in which the rich; it is only an accident that the free are the many and the rich are the few.

62

Just as a royal rule, if not a mere name, must exist by virtue of some great personal superiority in the king, so tyranny, which is the worst of governments, is necessarily the farthest removed from a well-constituted form; oligarchy is little better, for it is a long way from aristocracy, and democracy is the most tolerable of the three.

63

Combating climate change requires collaboration with many levels of government.

64

The omission of an expected conjunction is called an asyndeton. Caesar is supposed to have said about Gaul: I came, I saw, I conquered. Lincoln concluded the Gettysburg Address, That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.Caesar seems to have omitted his conjunction to speed things up; he is emphasizing how quickly the conquest of a place follows from its being sighted by a great and ambitious general. Lincoln's omission is more subtle

65

Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.

66

Today, the Indian government is trying to present privatization as the alternative to the state, to public enterprise. But privatization is only a further evolution of the centralized state, where the state says that they have the right to give the entire power production in Maharashtra to Enron.

67

Imagine what would happen if the government were to take the wealth of 200,000 of India's richest people and redistribute it amongst 2 million of India's poorest? We would hear a lot about socialist appropriation and the death of democracy. Why should taking from the rich be called appropriation and taking from the poor be called development?

68

Public support in the U.S. for the war against Iraq was founded on a multitiered edifice of falsehood and deceit, coordinated by the U.S. government and faithfully amplified by the corporate media.

69

Peace is a national issue, not only government's responsibility.

70

I trust my government. I actually have a trust for my government with my data, and I trust them to protect me. They've protected me - they've made the best efforts to protect me my whole life.

71

Democracy is when the people keep a government in check.

72

People should be concerned about installing a more sensible, responsible government. What we [the burmese] need is a government that is accountable and transparent, so that the people know what it is doing and can judge for themselves whether or not they like what is being done.

73

Inflationary trends are under way. Wage increases, through strikes or threatened strikes, are rampant. Government expenditures are ballooning ominously. Hoarding has contributed unconscionably to price-boosting. The Government should institute measures calculated to arrest inflation. America's commitments are already so mountainous, international and domestic, that the pruning knife should be applied. You and I, all American taxpayers, don't possess limitless resources-our pockets are not bottomless. Curb inflation at every turn!

74

I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody's religious beliefs -including my own- on nonbelievers.

75

Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time.

76

Together, we could open up government and invite citizens in, while connecting all of America to 21st century broadband. We could use technology to help achieve universal health care, to reach for a clean energy future, and to ensure that young Americans can compete - and win - in the global economy.

77

I am going to be able to present to the incoming administration a country that is stronger. A federal government that is working better and more efficiently. A national security apparatus that is both more effective and truer to our values. Energy policies that are resulting in not just less pollution, but also more jobs.

78

What I consistently say to young people - I say it in the United States, but I'll say it here in Germany and across Europe: Do not take for granted our systems of government and our way of life. I think there is a tendency, because we have lived in an era that has been largely stable and peaceful, at least in advanced countries, where living standards have generally gone up, there is a tendency I think to assume that that's always the case.

79

We have to find ways in which, collectively, we agree there's some things that government needs to do to help protect us, that in this age of non-state actors who can amass great power, I want my government - and I think the German people should want their government - to be able to find out if a terrorist organization has access to a weapon of mass destruction that might go off in the middle of Berlin.

80

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.

81

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.

82

In a republic there is no coercive force as in other governments, the laws must therefore endeavor to supply this defect.

83

Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes- and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible?

84

I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don't know about--and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them.

85

None of us here in Washington knows all or even half of the answers ... If you love your country, don't depend on handouts from Washington for your information. If you cherish your freedom, don't leave it all up to big government.

86

People went out there and they wrote articles and went on television shows saying that I am an operative that the CIA who used Jon Stewart to recruit me. So Jon Stewart, who actually - a guy from America was used by the CIA in order to recruit me for the CIA and be - make me a CIA agent to use sarcasm to bring down the government and bring down the country because this was all, of course, part of a worldwide conspiracy against the country.

87

National security is a really big problem for journalists, because no journalist worth his salt wants to endanger the national security, but the law talks about anyone who endangers the security of the United States is going to go to jail. So, here you are, especially in the Pentagon. Some guy tells you something. He says that's a national security matter. Well, you're supposed to tremble and get scared and it never, almost never means the security of the national government. More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.

88

[N]o clear steps have actually been taken to apprehend and prosecute those known to have been in command of the camp or the forces operating there....The new government of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has pledged to act. It must now generate the political will to act. The protection of those responsible for this crime can no longer be tolerated.

89

Democracy needs support, and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies.

90

I think Americans is a very special nation that was created so that people could be free. And they could be free to believe what they wanted. They could be free to work as hard as they wanted, knowing that their labor would accrue to them and to their family, that there wouldn't be a lot of people impinging upon their freedom and telling them what they had to do, and that it would be a nation that was representative of the people, and that it would have a government that was representative of the people rather than one that tried to rule the people.

91

This [the U.S. Constitution] is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.

92

Whether we like it or not, government intervention in the face of surplus is here to stay.

93

You can talk about capitalism and communism and all that sort of thing, but the important thing is the struggle everybody is engaged in to get better living conditions, and they are not interested too much in government.

94

Government is the art of the momentary feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.

95

Sure the people are stupid: the human race is stupid. Sure Congress is an inefficient instrument of government. But the people are not stupid enough to abandon representative government for any other kind, including government by the guy who knows.

96

The thing that distinguishes America is that it is a republican form of government - anything that is not outlawed or specifically barred or regulated by the [Constitution] is LEGAL.

97

I wish I could take back some of the things I said and some of the things I did. But in the bigger picture, I don't feel that it was violent and terrible. I feel like it was primarily--obviously not completely--moral, based on a vision that the government should be better, and that people could be better, and that democracy should be real.

98

The government of our great country belongs to all of the people and not just a handful of the wealthy.

99

The reality is we that have a corrupt campaign finance system which separates the American people's needs and desires from what Congress is doing. So to my mind, what we have got to do is wage a political revolution where millions of people have given up on the political process, stand up and fight back, demand the government that represents us and not just a handful of campaign contribution - contributors.

100

A woman has the right to make decisions regarding her own body, not the United States government.

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