quotations about government
Ceremonies are the first thing to be attended to in the practice of government.
CONFUCIUS
The Wisdom of Confucius
A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
JAMES MADISON
letter to W. T. Barry, Aug. 4, 1822
The family is the basic cell of government: it is where we are trained to believe that we are human beings or that we are chattel, it is where we are trained to see the sex and race divisions and become callous to injustice even if it is done to ourselves, to accept as biological a full system of authoritarian government.
GLORIA STEINEM
speech, July 1981
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
RONALD REAGAN
remarks to the White House Conference on Small Business, Aug. 15, 1986
All government is an ugly necessity.
G. K. CHESTERTON
A Short History of England
A scientific body to which had been confided the government of society would soon end by devoting itself no longer to science at all, but to quite another affair; and that affair, as in the case of all established powers, would be its own eternal perpetuation by rendering the society confided to its care ever more stupid and consequently more in need of its government and direction.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
SAMUEL SMILES
Self-Help
In theory, the government of a free people is not one which shall in all circumstances govern, but one that shall effectually govern while it is maintaining right against wrong, and shall begin to fall in pieces as soon as it begins to maintain wrong against right. No country is truly free whose constitution does not furnish the citizen with protection against the wrong-doing of other citizens, and also guarantee him against the wrong-doing of the government itself. No oppressor is so intolerable as an oppressive government; for the private oppressor acts with his own force only, while the governmental oppressor acts with the irresistible force of the whole people.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
Socialistic
Our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter -- that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.
BARACK OBAMA
speech to joint session of Congress, sep. 9, 2009
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Notes on Virginia
Let our recent mistakes bring a resurgent commitment to the basic principles of our Nation, for we know that if we despise our own government, we have no future. We recall in special times when we have stood briefly, but magnificently, united. In those times no prize was beyond our grasp.
JIMMY CARTER
Inaugural Address, January 20, 1977
I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare -- I have no use for him either.
SOPHOCLES
Antigone
In some respects government is like a game; before the players can even take the field to compete, they need to agree on a set of rules that decide how the game is to be played. Constitutions are the rules of the political game - who can vote, who can stand for office, what powers they are to have, the rights and duties of citizens and so on. Without these basic rules politics would degenerate into arbitrariness, brute force, or anarchy.
KENNETH NEWTON & JAN W. VAN DETH
Foundations of Comparative Politics
The federal government has never been known for its sense of humor.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Obsidian Butterfly
So when any of the four pillars of government, are mainly shaken, or weakened (which are religion, justice, counsel, and treasure), men had need to pray for fair weather. But let us pass from this part of predictions (concerning which, nevertheless, more light may be taken from that which followeth); and let us speak first, of the materials of seditions; then of the motives of them; and thirdly of the remedies.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Seditions And Troubles", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
The government's monopoly is what has allowed it to produce so bad a product for so long.
DAVID R. HENDERSON
The Joy of Freedom
Government has almost always been a barrier against which intellect has had to struggle; and society has made its chief progress by the minds of private individuals, who have outstripped their rulers, and gradually shamed them into truth and wisdom.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
A wise Government seeks to provide the opportunity through which the best of individual achievement can be obtained, while at the same time it seeks to remove such obstruction, such unfairness as springs from selfish human motives.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Address at San Diego Exposition, Oct. 2, 1935
Government is the most dangerous institution known to man. Throughout history it has violated the rights of men more than any individual or group of individuals could do: it has killed people, enslaved them, sent them to forced labor and concentration camps, and regularly robbed and pillaged them of the fruits of their expended labor.
JOHN HOSPERS
The Libertarian Alternative
Yet it is instructive to trace the various causes, which produced the strength of one nation, and the decline and weakness of another; to learn by what arts one man has been able to subjugate millions of his fellow creatures, the motives which have put him upon action, and the causes of his success--sometimes driven by ambition and a lust of power; at other times, swallowed up by religious enthusiasms, blind bigotry, and ignorant zeal; sometimes enervated with luxury and debauched by pleasure, until the most powerful nations have become a prey and been subdued by these Sirens, when neither the number of their enemies, nor the prowess of their arms, could conquer them.
ABIGAIL ADAMS
letter to John Quincy Adams, December 26, 1783