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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"In Madison's famous formulation in the Federalist, constitutional restrictions on government assume that we "first enable the government to control the governed." If the public authorities can be outgunned or bribed, the vibrancy of the private sector can be pathological."
"Professional politicians like to talk about the value of experience in government. Nuts! The only experience you gain in politics is how to be political."
"When the Commander-in-Chief of a nation finds it necessary to order employees of the government or agencies of the government to do things that would technically break the law, he has to be able to declare it legal for them to do that."
"It is the tendency of Government to grow, for practices and programs to become the nearest thing to eternal life we'll see on this earth."
"I know I'm not in government anymore. In fact I'm out of work."
"This administration is totally colorblind."
"The principal instances of mass violence in the world today are those committed by governments within their own legally recognized borders."
"You know, you don't retreat in the defense of freedom. You don't retreat in the defense of moral government and limited government. You don't retreat because people are going to defend bad things."
"Normal is fading away. Governments and industries and schools like normal, because it's easier, it scales and it's profitable. But people don't like it - we want to be who we are, not who some marketer tells us to be."
"The problem of South Africa is different than the world thinks. There is no native problem. The native worker gets more than white workers do in England! [...] The South African government is not a police state. It's easier on people than the United States government!"
"It is considered in England and the United States that the Government of South Africa is altogether too harsh with its native peoples. It is sadly humorous to notice that the native in South Africa, however, holds an exactly reverse opinion and the fault he finds with the South African Government is that it is far too lenient in its administration of laws throughout the native populace."
"When this government [Chiang Kaishek's] finally fell there was no one ready to teach the Chinese the human way of life."
"Where the Government is weak, military sway prevails."
"Buddha emphasized and re-declared the eternal and unalterable existence of the moral government of this universe. He unhesitatingly said that the law was God Himself."
"The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely.""
"The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, there are 1.322 words in the Declaration of Independence, but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26.911 words. The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read."
"The two-way street of Total Information Awareness is the road that leads to a more transparent and complete picture of ourselves, our governments, and our world."
"Gandhi was important for another reason as well: his country was suffering under the British Empire, and yet he was leading a very singular kind of resistance to it. At the time he was speaking about the violence in Europe, his followers were in jail as prisoners of the British government."
"What experience and history teach is this - that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on any lessons they might have drawn from it. Variant: What experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."
"When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality - other than equality before the law - that government poses a threat to liberty."
