Government quotes

Government

11.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

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Government quotes (page 20 of 568)

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Thomas Jefferson Politician, Founding Father
Government

"A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference."

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Thomas Jefferson Politician, Founding Father
Government

"[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."

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Robert A. Heinlein Science Fiction Author
Government

"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."

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Gerry Adams Politician
Government

"No Irish nationalist could support any treaty which institutionalizes British government claims to a part of Irish national territory. Indeed, the term - 'constitutional nationalism'- used by Mr.Mallon (SDLP) and his colleagues to describe their political philosophy is a contradiction in terms. The only constitutional nationalist in Ireland today is Sean McBride. He puts his nationalism within a framework of Irish constitutionality. Mr. Mallon, however, puts his within the framework of British constitutionality. Irish nationalism within British constitutionality is a contradiction in terms."

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John Dickinson Politician, Founding Father
Government

"Government has hardened into a tyrannical monopoly, and the human race in general becomes as absolutely property as beasts in the plow."

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Paul Ryan Politician
Government

"None of us have to settle for the best this administration offers - a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us."

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Ayn Rand Philosopher, Novelist
Government

"If you surrender everything to the government and give it total power to plan the whole economy, this will not guarantee your economic security, but it will guarantee the descent of the entire nation to a level of miserable poverty--as the practical results of every totalitarian economy, communist or fascist, have demonstrated."

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Woodrow Wilson Politician
Government

"Government ought to be all outside and no inside. . . . Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety."

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Thomas Jefferson Politician, Founding Father
Government

"I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."

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George Carlin Comedian, Actor
Government

"... the important thing is to, first of all, question everything you read or hear or see or are told. Question it, and try to see the world for what it actually is, as opposed to what someone or some company or some organization or some government is trying to represent it as, or present it as, however they've mislabeled it or dressed it up or told you."

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George Lincoln Rockwell Political Activist
Government

"We must make it an imperative duty of our government to protect the gifts which Nature has bestowed on America and to insure the maintenance of a clean, healthy, wholesome environment for our people."

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Joseph Stalin Politician, Revolutionary
Government

"American Communists have the opportunity to preach freely their ideas. It would be absolutely wrong to hold the Soviet government responsible for activities of the American Communists."

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Hugo Black Justice
Government

"The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security."

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