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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"Last year I had difficulty with my income tax. I tried to take my analyst off as a business deduction. The Government said it was entertainment. We compromised finally and made it a religious contribution."
"The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation."
"Ultimately, power only really listens to power, and if government is to be improved, we must be able to threaten its existence, not merely its reputation."
"And just when we were at the end of our design process there was the news that the Italian government and the U.S. government had signed an agreement to fly the first Italian astronaut on that flight."
"[A] free government . . . cannot be supported without Virtue."
"I have a message from the Tea Party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words. We've come to take our government back."
"In the end the problem isn't that you have the wrong sort of government for the People, but that you have the wrong sort of People."
"In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government."
"And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government or information to the people. This last is the most legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
"But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years."
"Power is not alluring to pure minds."
"I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural."
"We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle."
"History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is."
"It is not the policy of the government in America to give aid to works of any kind. They let things take their natural course without help or impediment, which is generally the best policy."
"So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done."
"Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail."
"If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require."
"Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the General Government."
"the qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. they are the result of habit and long training."
