Government quotes
11.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside government — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Government is merely an attempt to express the conscience of everybody, the average conscience of the nation, in the rules that everybody is commanded to obey. That is all it is."
"People, your Government has returned to you!"
"Democratic governments are not suited to the publication of the thunderous revelations I am in the habit of making. The unpublished parts will appear later... when Europe will have restored its traditional monarchies."
"Even if they were willing to let you remove your Pride from the council's collective influence—and they won't be—there's a reason the council exists. We band together because there's strength in numbers. Because in its unperverted state, the council ensures representative government and a pooling of resources and ideas that benefits everyone." "Yes, but the operative word there is unperverted, and right now, you guys are operating under the thumb of the biggest power-pervert ever to swish his tail in the U.S. He's like Hitler with fur."
"This is bizarre," I say. "I think it's beautiful," he says. I give him a look. "What?" He laughs a little. "They each have an equal role in government; they each feel equally responsible. And it makes them care; it makes them kind. I think that's beautiful."
"At the moment we have a critical situation in Greece. Even as we speak, where there is an open attempt by the EU to destroy Syriza by splitting it. There is a German obstinacy and utter refusal to seriously consider an alternative. The reason isn't even a lack of money, because money swims around the EU coffers endlessly, and they could write off the debt tomorrow if they wanted. But they don't want to do so, because of the election of a left-wing government. They want to punish Syriza in public, to humiliate it so that this model doesn't go any further than Greece."
"It has become necessary to call the attention of European governments to a fact which is apparently so insignificant that the governments seem not to notice it. The fact is this: an entire people is being annihilated. Where? In Europe. Are there witnesses? One witness, the entire world. Do the governments see it? No."
"But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and notlead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it."
"Personal rights, universally the same, demand a government framed on the ratio of the census: property demands a government framedon the ratio of owners and of owning."
"The teaching of politics is that the Government, which was set for protection and comfort of all good citizens, becomes the principal obstruction and nuisance with which we have to contend... The cheat and bully and malefactor we meet everywhere is the Government."
"The evils of popular government appear greater than they are; there is compensation for them in spirit and energy it awakens."
"Government has been a fossil: it should be a plant."
"The President proclaims war, and those Senators who dissent are not those who know better, but those who can afford to...Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors."
"For splendor, there must somewhere be rigid economy. That the head of the house may go brave, the members must be plainly clad, and the town must save that the State may spend."
"The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government, and leave the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own constitution, which work with more energy than we believe, whilst we depend on artificial restraints."
"Governments have their origin in the moral identity of men."
"When the Master of the universe has points to carry in his government he impresses his will in the structure of minds."
"Morality is the object of government."
"National governments are under paid, under staffed, and under talented."
"Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty."
