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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"Our whole system of government is based on "We the people," but if we the people don't pay attention to what's going on, we have no right to bellyache or squawk when things go wrong."
"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!"
"Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history."
"I want to preach a new doctrine. A complete separation of business and government."
"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us."
"Peace with all the world is my sincere wish. I am sure it is our true policy, and am persuaded it is the ardent desire of the government."
"I go to the chair of government with feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution."
"All government is an ugly necessity."
"If the Negro knows enough to pay taxes to support the government, he knows enough to vote; taxation and representation should go together. If he knows enough to shoulder a musket and fight for the flag, fight for the government, he knows enough to vote."
"Everyone who has ever built anywhere a "new heaven" first found the power thereto in his own hell."
"Each nation knowing it has the only true religion and the only sane system of government, each despising all the others, each an ass and not suspecting it."
"[N]o country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more."
"The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice."
"Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of the greatest Americans who ever lived."
"I believe that in time we will have reached the point where we will deserve to be free of government."
"The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to... bare the secrets of government and inform the people."
"Government without a tough and vibrant media is not an option for the United States of America."
"We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts.... Self-government means self-reliance."
"Democracy is a very admirable form of government - for dogs"
"Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery."
