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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"The principle of the Constitution is that of a separation of legislative, Executive and Judiciary functions, except in cases specified. If this principle be not expressed in direct terms, it is clearly the spirit of the Constitution, and it ought to be so commented and acted on by every friend of free government."
"I do not intend to dispute in any way the need for defence cuts and the need for government spending cuts in general. I do not share a not in my backyard approach to government spending reductions."
". . . Government should do only those things the people cannot do for themselves."
"Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put in this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer."
"Politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive."
"To bring about government by oligarchy, masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our Federal government. . . The individual sovereignty of our states must first be destroyed."
"It is inconceivable that a secret arm of the government has to comply with all the overt orders of the government."
"If income tax is the price you have to pay to keep the government on its feet, alimony is the price we have to pay for sweeping a woman off hers."
"In the Soviet Union, government controls industry. In the United States, industry controls government. That is the principal structural difference between the two great oligarchies of our time."
"All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter."
"Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted."
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
"The sheep are happier of themselves, than under the care of wolves."
"Whether Canada ends up as one national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion..."
"The taxpayer - that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination."
"Those who excel in war first cultivate their own humanity and and maintain their laws and institutions. By these means they make their governments invincible."
"Good government is no substitute for self-government."
"A government must not waiver once it has chosen its course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward."
"For government consists in nothing else but so controlling subjects that they shall neither be able to, nor have cause to do [it] harm."
"Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppresive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people."
