"Knowledge is dangerous, which is why governments often clamp down on people who can think thoughts above a certain caliber."
Government quotes
Government
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Government quotes (page 85 of 568)
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"And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up."
"In the history of mankind many republics have risen, have flourished for a less or greater time, and then have fallen because their citizens lost the power of governing themselves and thereby of governing their state; and in no way has this loss of power been so often and so clearly shown as in the tendency to turn the government into a government primarily for the benefit of one class instead of a government for the benefit of the people as a whole."
"For the protection of the community, of individual life and health, there are some necessities that should be provided for all at the expense of all, such as roads, pure water, and sanitary systems for concentrated population, and reasonably comprehensive mail service. The determination between services that should be operated by the government and those which should be left to private enterprise under proper control should be governed by the degree of necessity to the community as a whole."
"We are watching industries crumble, Wall Street firms disappear, unemployment spike, and unprecedented government intervention. And our designated opinion leaders want to know: Is Obama up this week? Is he down? And is his leadership style more like Bill Clinton's, or Abraham Lincoln's?"
"If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be borne, and you will have to choose between reform and revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one or the other is inevitable."
"An occasional insurrection will not weigh against the inconveniences of a government of force, such as are monarchies and aristocracies."
"The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only."
"I'd rather have newspapers and no government than government and no newspapers."
"What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government."
"Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness."
"Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not."
"We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modeled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government."
"It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also."
"My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I shall then believe that our government may be pure and perpetual."
"It behooves our citizens to be on their guard, to be firm in their principles, and full of confidence in themselves. We are able to preserve our self-government if we will but think so."
"It is time enough, for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order."
"[The overthrow of the Castro regime] is the top priority of the US government. - all else is secondary - no time, no effort, or manpower is to be spared."
"We've got to see a state where the Afghan government can handle its own day-to-day security."
"Canadians know that the promise of a recession didn't happen because of anything we did here. If you look at all the causes of the recession, problems in mortgage markets, the problems in the banking sector, the problems in government finance in countries like Greece, none of those problems were in present Canada."