"It is much easier to pull down a government, in such a conjuncture of affairs as we have seen, than to build up, at such a season as the present."
Read quote
3 likes
Government quotes
Government
11.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Government
Browse quotes that often appear alongside government — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Government quotes (page 140 of 568)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"The furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. And the new Governments we are assuming in every part will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, or there will be no blessings."
Read quote
3 likes
"Were I to define the British constitution, therefore, I should say, it is a limited monarchy, or a mixture of the three forms of government commonly known in the schools, reserving as much of the monarchical splendor, the aristocratical independency, and the democratical freedom, as are necessary that each of these powers may have a control, both in legislation and execution, over the other two, for the preservation of the subject's liberty."
Read quote
3 likes
"There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state."
Read quote
3 likes
"Human government is more or less perfect as it approaches nearer or diverges farther from the imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government."
Read quote
3 likes
"People are afraid of an unorganized, wasteful government."
Read quote
3 likes
"Our government has a responsibility to defend our borders, but we must do so in a way that makes us safer and upholds all that is decent and exceptional about our nation."
Read quote
3 likes
"We can talk about corporations all day long but my goal is to help the middle class, somebody who makes too much to be on government assistance but still lives paycheck to paycheck."
Read quote
3 likes
"Every state and the federal government have laws that protect people from acts of violence, and those laws should be enforced. What I want to see in America is that if you hurt a human being and you bring pain in their life, that's all we need to know. If you did it illegally, you should be prosecuted."
Read quote
3 likes
"If there's any literary ability in a feller, getting fired out of a good government job will bring it out."
Read quote
3 likes
"The government doesn't save enough, it borrows too much and it doesn't invest enough in the next generation. It's like what parents are trying to get their kids not to do, but if they look at the federal government, that's what they're doing."
Read quote
3 likes
"The vicious cycle that is bringing down European states is not going to hit us [the USA], at least not for a while, at the level of the federal government. The same cannot be said of state and local governments."
Read quote
3 likes
"We need to keep government small, but we also need to keep the influence of big business small, and we need to keep the power in the hands of the people, where it belongs. Big government and big business aren't the only two alternatives."
Read quote
3 likes
"Peoples nurtured on freedom and self-government judge any other form of polity to be deformed and unnatural. Those who are used to monarchy do the same ."
Read quote
3 likes
"And that's why the president has asked the entire government to step up, on his part. I mean, there's - there are things that the private sector needs to do; there are things that the government needs to do."
Read quote
3 likes
"'Let's Move!' is not about having government tell people what to do, because government doesn't have all the answers."
Read quote
3 likes
"You know, in a business, you have to operate on the basis of voluntary investment by individuals in a cause. With government, there is no voluntary effort to invest capital. It's just taken and invested. And the same accountability is not at play. The same natural forces in the economy are not at play."
Read quote
3 likes
"The good things of life do not fall from the skies. They can only come by hard work and over a long time. The government cannot produce results unless the people support and sustain the work of the government. There may be times when, in the interest of the whole community, we may have to take steps that are unpopular with a section of the community. On such occasions, remember that the principle which guides our actions is that the paramount interest of the whole community must prevail."
Read quote
3 likes
"I believe that "government", as we know it today, should pull out of most things except for law enforcement and justice, national defense and foreign policy, and let the private sector, a "Grameenized private sector", a social-consciousness-driven private sector, take over their other functions."
Read quote
3 likes
"[West Bengal state] Government has decided that non-criminal persons should not be kept in these kind of places and asked us to take care of them. They should live in an atmosphere of love. They need to be loved."
Read quote
3 likes