Quote: In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark, holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, useless, feeble man. Author: Count Leo Tolstoy 1828-1910, Russian Novelist, Philosopher
Quote: The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound. Author: Lord Justice Topes
Quote: Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. Author: Harry S. Truman 1884-1972, Thirty-third President of the USA
Quote: No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision. Author: Barbara Tuchman 1912-1989, American Historian
Quote: It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. Author: Mark Twain 1835-1910, American Humorist, Writer
Quote: We have the best government that money can buy. Author: Mark Twain 1835-1910, American Humorist, Writer
Quote: Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading. Author: John Updike 1932-, American Novelist, Critic
Quote: I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone. Author: John Updike 1932-, American Novelist, Critic
Quote: Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers. Author: Voltaire 1694-1778, French Historian, Writer
Quote: It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. Author: Voltaire 1694-1778, French Historian, Writer
Quote: The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination. Author: Voltaire 1694-1778, French Historian, Writer
Quote: It is doubtful that the government knows much more than the public does about how government [Economic] policies will work. Author: W. Allen Wallis
Quote: Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. Author: George Washington 1732-1799, First President of the USA
Quote: Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government. Author: George Washington 1732-1799, First President of the USA
Quote: The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place. Author: Robert Welch
Quote: The monarchy is a labor intensive industry. Author: Harold Wilson 1916-1995, British Statesman, Prime Minister
Quote: An ambassador is an honest person sent to lie abroad for their country. Author: Sir Henry Wotton 1568-1639, British Diplomat, Traveler, Scholar, and Poet
Quote: Fear is the foundation of most government. Author: John Adams 1735-1826, Second President of the USA
Quote: A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay. Author: Amos Bronson Alcott 1799-1888, American Educator, Social Reformer
Quote: Our Congress is the finest body of men money can buy. Author: Maury Amsterdam
Quote: It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations. Author: Walter Bagehot 1826-1877, British Economist, Critic
Quote: Being nice to governments doesn't work, they are such lying bastards. Author: Joy Baluch
Quote: Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies. Author: Honore De Balzac 1799-1850, French Novelist
Quote: Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. Author: Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850, French Legislator
Quote: Governing today means giving acceptable signs of credibility. It is like advertising and it is the same effect that is achieved -- commitment to a scenario. Author: Jean Baudrillard French Postmodern Philosopher, Writer
Quote: Beaverbrook is so pleased to be in the government that he is like the town tart who finally married the Mayor. Author: Beverley Baxter
Quote: The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government. Author: Henry Ward Beecher 1813-1887, American Preacher, Orator, Writer
Quote: The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man. Author: Baron William Henry Beveridge 1879-1963, Indian Economist
Quote: A government must not waiver once it has chosen it's course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward. Author: Otto Von Bismarck 1815-1898, Prussian Statesman, Prime Minister
Quote: Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies. Author: Napoleon Bonaparte 1769-1821, French General, Emperor
Quote: Public instruction should be the first object of government. Author: Napoleon Bonaparte 1769-1821, French General, Emperor
Quote: The art of government is not to let me grow stale. Author: Napoleon Bonaparte 1769-1821, French General, Emperor
Quote: The government must always be a step ahead of the popular movement. Author: Count Boytzwnburg
Quote: But their determination to banish fools foundered ultimately in the installation of absolute idiots. Author: Basil Bunting 1900-1985, British Poet
Quote: Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government. Author: Edmund Burke 1729-1797, British Political Writer, Statesman
Quote: Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair. Author: George Burns 1896-1996, American Comedy Actor
Quote: The point to remember is what government gives it must first take away Author: John S. Caldwell
Quote: By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. Author: Albert Camus 1913-1960, French Existential Writer
Quote: 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. Author: Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881, Scottish Philosopher, Author
Quote: Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a ''taxing-machine;'' to the contented, a ''machine for securing property.'' Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable. Author: Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881, Scottish Philosopher, Author
Quote: Thou camest out of thy mother's belly without government, thou hast liv'd hitherto without government, and thou mayst be carried to thy long home without government, when it shall please the Lord. How many people in this world live without government, yet do well enough, and are well look'd upon? Author: Miguel De Cervantes 1547-1616, Spanish Novelist, Dramatist, Poet
Quote: Good government is the outcome of private virtue. Author: John Jay Chapman 1862-1933, American Author
Quote: Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time. Author: Winston Churchill 1874-1965, British Statesman, Prime Minister
Quote: Though the people support the government; the government should not support the people. Author: Grover Cleveland 1837-1908, Twenty-second & 24th President of the USA
Quote: The three great ends which a statesman ought to propose to himself in the government of a nation, are -- 1. Security to possessors; 2. Facility to acquirers; and, 3. Hope to all. Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834, British Poet, Critic, Philosopher
Quote: Nations it may be have fashioned their Governments, but the Governments have paid them back in the same coin. Author: Joseph Conrad 1857-1924, Polish-born British Novelist
Quote: You can only govern men by serving them. The rule is without exception. Author: Victor Cousin 1792-1867, French Philosopher
Quote: Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have. Author: Davy Crockett 1786-1836, American Backwoodsman
Quote: I say to myself that I mustn't let myself be cut off in there, and yet the moment I enter my bag is taken out of my hand, I'm pushed in, shepherded, nursed and above all cut off, alone. Whitehall envelops me. Author: Richard Crossman 1907-1974, British Writer, Editor, Socialist
Quote: The constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people. Author: William O. Douglas 1898-1980, American Supreme Court Justice
Quote: Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence. Author: John Foster Dulles 1888-1959, American Republican Secretary of State
Quote: Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principles. Author: William J. Durant 1885-1981, American Historian, Essayist
Quote: In a healthy nation there is a kind of dramatic balance between the will of the people and the government, which prevents its degeneration into tyranny. Author: Albert Einstein 1879-1955, German-born American Physicist
Quote: Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. Author: Albert Einstein 1879-1955, German-born American Physicist
Quote: The less government we have the better. Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist
Quote: Truth is the glue that holds government together. Author: Gerald R. Ford 1913-, Thirty-eighth President of the USA
Quote: Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion. Author: Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat
Quote: An educated people can be easily governed. Author: (Frederick II) Frederick The Great 1712-1786, Born in Berlin, King of Prussia (1740-1786),
Quote: Governments never learn. Only people learn. Author: Milton Friedman 1912-, American Economist
Quote: Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government. Author: Milton Friedman 1912-, American Economist
Quote: The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem. Author: Milton Friedman 1912-, American Economist
Quote: It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state. Author: John Kenneth Galbraith 1908-, American Economist
Quote: The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations. But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness. Author: John Kenneth Galbraith 1908-, American Economist
Quote: It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government. Author: John W. Gardner 1912-, American Educator, Social Activist
Quote: To rule is not so much a question of the heavy hand as the firm seat. Author: Jose Ortega Y Gasset 1883-1955, Spanish Essayist, Philosopher
Quote: It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right. Author: William E. Gladstone 1809-1888, British Liberal Prime Minister, Statesman
Quote: The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves. Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 1749-1832, German Poet, Dramatist, Novelist
Quote: A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. Author: Barry Goldwater 1909-, American Politician and Writer
Quote: Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government. Author: Alexander Hamilton 1757-1804, American Statesman
Quote: All good government must begin at home. Author: H. R. Haweis
Quote: When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive. Author: Robert Heinlein 1907-1988, American Science Fiction Writer
Quote: Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain. Author: A. P. Herbert 1890-1971, British Author, Politician
Quote: Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. [The Motto Of The U.S. Postal Service] Author: Herodotus BC 484-425, Greek Historian
Quote: The greater the hold of government upon the life of the individual citizen, the greater the risk of war. Author: John Hospers
Quote: The government is best which makes itself unnecessary. Author: Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt 1767-1835, German Statesman, Philologist
Quote: Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few. Author: David Hume 1711-1776, Scottish Philosopher, Historian
Quote: Government can be bigger than any of the players on the field as a referee, but it has no right to become one of the players. Author: Austin Igleheart
Quote: As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending. Author: Andrew Jackson 1767-1845, Seventh President of the USA
Quote: There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. Author: Andrew Jackson 1767-1845, Seventh President of the USA
Quote: I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office Author: Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826, Third President of the USA
Quote: My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. Author: Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826, Third President of the USA
Quote: That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part. Author: Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826, Third President of the USA
Quote: The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government. Author: Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826, Third President of the USA
Quote: Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights. Author: Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826, Third President of the USA
Quote: A man without a vote is man without protection. Author: Lyndon B. Johnson 1908-1973, Thirty-sixth President of the USA
Quote: I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual. Author: Samuel Johnson 1709-1784, British Author
Quote: Safety of the state is the highest law. Author: Justinian c.482-565, Roman Emperor
Quote: It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience. Author: Murray Kempton 1917-1997, American Author and Columnist
Quote: The basis of effective government if public confidence. Author: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963, Thirty-fifth President of the USA
Quote: Of the best rulers, The people only know that they exist; the next best they love and praise the next they fear; and the next they revile. When they do not command the people's faith, some will lose faith in them, and then they resort to oaths! But of the best when their task is accomplished, their work done, the people all remark, ''We have done it ourselves.'' Author: Lao-Tzu BC 600-?, Chinese Philosopher, Founder of Taoism, Author of the ''Tao Te Ching''
Quote: The supply of government exceeds demand. Author: Lewis H. Lapham 1935-, American Essayist, Editor
Quote: To govern is to choose. To appear to be unable to choose is to appear to be unable to govern. Author: Nigel Lawson
Quote: Any cook should be able to run the country. Author: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin 1870-1924, Russian Revolutionary Leader
Quote: Generosity is a part of my character, and I therefore hasten to assure this Government that I will never make an allegation of dishonesty against it wherever a simple explanation of stupidity will suffice. Author: Leslie Baron Lever
Quote: You could afford your house without the government if it weren't for the government. Author: Rush Limbaugh 1951-, American TV Personality
Quote: A Government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Author: Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865, Sixteenth President of the USA
Quote: It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most. Author: Walter Lippmann 1889-1974, American Journalist
Quote: Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man. Author: John Locke 1632-1704, British Philosopher
Quote: Government has no other end, but the preservation of property. Author: John Locke 1632-1704, British Philosopher
Quote: Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or in other words a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read and say and eat and drink and wear. Author: Thomas B. Macaulay 1800-1859, American Essayist and Historian
Quote: We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents. Author: Thomas B. Macaulay 1800-1859, American Essayist and Historian
Quote: What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. Author: James Madison 1751-1836, American Statesman, President
Quote: Every country has the government it deserves. Author: Joseph De Maistre 1753-1821, French Diplomat, Philosopher
Quote: Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens, then everybody disagrees. Author: Boris Marshalov
Quote: The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts. Author: Lord Melbourne 1779-1848, British Statesman, Prime Minister
Quote: Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent. Author: H. L. Mencken 1880-1956, American Editor, Author, Critic, Humorist
Quote: Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests. Author: C. Wright Mills 1916-1962, American Sociologist
Quote: To administer is to govern: to govern is to reign. That is the essence of the problem. Author: Comte De Mirabeau 1749-1791, French Revolutionary Politician and Orator
Quote: It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it. Author: Michel Eyquem De Montaigne 1533-1592, French Philosopher, Essayist
Quote: Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought. Author: Dwight Whitney Morrow 1873-1931, American Lawyer, Banker, diplomat
Quote: The government can destroy wealth but it cannot create wealth, which is the product of labor and management working with creation. Author: Bill Murray 1950-, American Comedian, Actor, Writer
Quote: No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill. Author: Cornelius Nepos 1st Century BC
Quote: For its part, Government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways -- to the voices of quiet anguish, to voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart, to the injured voices, and the anxious voices, and the voices that have despaired of being heard. Author: Richard M. Nixon 1913-1994, Thirty-seventh President of the USA
Quote: If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to -- and you will -- leave, and be something else. Author: Peggy Noonan 1950-, American Author, Presidential Speechwriter
Quote: Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. Author: P. J. O'Rourke 1947-, American Journalist
Quote: The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life -- this much we can stand. But the real problem is that government is boring. We could cure or mitigate the other ills Washington visits on us if we could only bring ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself. But we cannot. Author: P. J. O'Rourke 1947-, American Journalist
Quote: Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. Author: Thomas Paine 1737-1809, Anglo-American Political Theorist, Writer
Quote: That state is best ordered when the wicked have no command, and the good have. Author: Pittacus 650-570 ªBC, Statesman from Ancient Greece
Quote: The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men. Author: Plato BC 427?-347?, Greek Philosopher
Quote: It is easy to rule over the good. Author: Titus Maccius Plautus BC 254-184, Roman Comic Poet
Quote: For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best. Author: Alexander Pope 1688-1744, British Poet, Critic, Translator
Quote: In the councils of a state, the question is not so much, what ought to be done? As, what can be done? Author: French Proverb Sayings of French Origin
Quote: Office without pay makes thieves. Author: German Proverb Sayings of German Origin
Quote: Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be. Author: Sir Walter Raleigh 1552-1618, British Courtier, Navigator, Writer
Quote: Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. Author: Ronald Reagan 1911-, Fortieth President of the USA, Actor
Quote: Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. Author: Ronald Reagan 1911-, Fortieth President of the USA, Actor
Quote: Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them. Author: Ronald Reagan 1911-, Fortieth President of the USA, Actor
Quote: Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse. Author: Ronald Reagan 1911-, Fortieth President of the USA, Actor
Quote: A government is the only vessel that leaks from the top. Author: James Reston 1909-1995, Dutch Born American Journalist
Quote: The ship of state is the only known vessel that leaks from the top. Author: James Reston 1909-1995, Dutch Born American Journalist
Quote: Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. Author: Will Rogers 1879-1935, American Humorist, Actor
Quote: I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. Author: Will Rogers 1879-1935, American Humorist, Actor
Quote: It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose. Author: Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882-1945, Thirty-second President of the USA
Quote: The government is us; we are the government, you and I. Author: Theodore Roosevelt 1858-1919, Twenty-sixth President of the USA
Quote: There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the ''money touch,'' but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers. Author: Theodore Roosevelt 1858-1919, Twenty-sixth President of the USA
Quote: I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of the partisan. Author: Jean Rostand 1894-1977, French Biologist, Writer
Quote: The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction. Author: Jean Jacques Rousseau 1712-1778, Swiss Political Philosopher, Educationist, Essayist
Quote: There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate government action. Author: Bertrand Russell 1872-1970, British Philosopher, Mathematician, Essayist
Quote: The mechanism that directs government cannot be virtuous, because it is impossible to thwart every crime, to protect oneself from every criminal without being criminal too; that which directs corrupt mankind must be corrupt itself; and it will never be by means of virtue, virtue being inert and passive, that you will maintain control over vice, which is ever active: the governor must be more energetic than the governed. Author: Marquis De Sade 1740-1814, French Author
Quote: In our consumer confidence surveys, we ask people whether they think government economic policy is good, fair, or poor. Increasingly, the answer we get is just plain laughter. Author: Jay Schmiedeskamp
Quote: Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both. Author: George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Irish-born British Dramatist
Quote: The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols. Author: George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Irish-born British Dramatist
Quote: Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay. Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822, British Poet
Quote: No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government. Author: Socrates BC 469-399, Greek Philosopher of Athens
Quote: Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law. Author: Solon 636?-558? B.C., Greek Statesman
Quote: The Athenians govern the Greeks; I govern the Athenians; you, my wife, govern me; your son governs you. Author: Themistocles 528-462 B.C. Greek Statesman, Soldier
Quote: Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. Author: Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862, American Essayist, Poet, Naturalist
Quote: That government is best which governs least. Author: Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862, American Essayist, Poet, Naturalist
Quote: The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine. Author: Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862, American Essayist, Poet, Naturalist
Quote: The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion. Author: Lewis Mumford
Quote: It might be more worthwhile if we stopped wringing our hands and started ringing our congressmen. Author: Anonymous
Quote: The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Author: Sir Winston Churchill
Quote: If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops. Author: Kelvin Throop
Quote: Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. Author: James Russell Lowell
Quote: Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. Author: George Bernard Shaw
Quote: The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy. Author: Woodrow Wilson
Quote: Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. Author: Denis Diderot
Quote: In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? Author: St. Augustine
Quote: Democracy: The state of affairs in which you consent to having your pocket picked, and elect the best man to do it. Author: Benjamin Lichtenberg
Quote: Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. Author: P.J. O'Rourke
Quote: If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion. Author: George Bernard Shaw
Quote: No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. Author: Abraham Lincoln
Quote: Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true. Author: Polish Proverb
Quote: The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. Author: Karl Marx
Quote: Governments should not possess instruments of coercion and violence denied to their citizens. Author: Edgar A. Suter
Quote: Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. Author: Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis
Quote: A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. Author: Barry Goldwater
Quote: Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don't think. Author: Anonymous
Quote: The cure for capitalism's failing would require that a government would have to rise above the interests of one class alone. Author: Robert L. Heilbroner
Quote: Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper. Author: Larry Flynt
Quote: Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it. Author: Richard Lamm
Quote: Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate? Author: Will Rogers
Quote: Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven't had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln. Author: Will Rogers
Quote: If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. (It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft.) Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word National. Author: George Will
Quote: his country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. Author: Will Rogers
Quote: Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens - and then everybody disagrees. Author: Boris Marshalov
Quote: Our political institutions work remarkably well. They are designed to clang against each other. The noise is democracy at work. Author: Michael Novak
Quote: I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it. Author: Alexander Woollcott
Quote: People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing. Author: Walter H. Judd
Quote: People come to Washington believing it's the center of power. I know I did. It was only much later that I learned that Washington is a steering wheel that's not connected to the engine. Author: Richard Goodwin
Quote: Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be. Author: Sydney J. Harris
Quote: The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. Author: Henry David Thoreau
Quote: The most important political office is that of the private citizen. Author: Louis Brandeis
Quote: It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting. Author: Tom Stoppard
Quote: Talk is cheap - except when Congress does it. Author: Cullen Hightower
Quote: It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government. Author: John Gardner
Quote: Washington is a place where politicians don't know which way is up and taxes don't know which way is down. Author: Robert Orben
Quote: Everybody wants to eat at the government's table, but nobody wants to do the dishes. Author: Werner Finck
Quote: When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves. Author: George Pataki
Quote: If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress? Author: Anonymous
Quote: Democracy is an abuse of statistics. Author: Jorge Luis Borges
Quote: The mistakes made by Congress wouldn't be so bad if the next Congress didn't keep trying to correct them. Author: Cullen Hightower
Quote: It's every American's duty to support his government, but not necessarily in the style to which it has become accustomed. Author: Thomas Clifford
Quote: It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Author: Thomas Jefferson
Quote: The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security. Author: Thomas Paine
Quote: Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed. Author: William Penn
Quote: To hear some men talk of the government, you would suppose that Congress was the law of gravitation, and kept the planets in their places. Author: Wendell Phillips
Quote: For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery. Author: Jonathan Swift
Quote: Many people say that government is necessary because some men cannot be trusted to look after themselves, but anarchists say that government is harmful because no men can be trusted to look after anyone else. Author: Nicolas Walter
Quote: Government is an unnecessary evil. Human beings, when accustomed to taking responsibility for their own behavior, can cooperate on a basis of mutual trust and helpfulness. Author: Fred Woodworth
Quote: If human beings are fundamentally good, no government is necessary; if they are fundamentally bad, any government, being composed of human beings, would be bad also. Author: Fred Woodworth
Quote: The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. Author: Lord Acton
Quote: Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. Author: John Kenneth Galbraith
Quote: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. Author: James Madison
Quote: To rule is easy, to govern difficult. Author: Johann W. von Goethe
Quote: Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear. Author: Alan Coren
Quote: Applause, mingled with boos and hisses, is about all that the average voter is able or willing to contribute to public life. Author: Elmer Davis
Quote: Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. Author: William Ewart Gladstone
Quote: Because of our Congressional committee system, our government is closer to a gerontocracy than a democracy. Author: Charles Frankel
Quote: The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary. Author: Wilhelm Reich
Quote: I never would believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden. Author: Richard Rumbold
Quote: emocracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. Author: H.L. Mencken
Quote: If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep. Author: Will Rogers
Quote: Taxation with representation ain't so hot either. Author: Gerald Barzan
Quote: America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation. Author: Laurence J. Peter
Quote: I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money. Author: Arthur Godfrey
Quote: Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. Author: Calvin Coolidge
Quote: I can give you 1040 good reasons why I hate the government. Author: Anonymous
Quote: A man’s home may be his castle, but that does not keep the government from taking it. Author: United States v. Hendler
Quote: Government is always eligion applied to economics. Author: R. E. McMaster
Quote: Were we to be directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread. Author: Thomas Jefferson
Quote: Might is a fine thing, and useful for many purposes; for “one goes further with a handfull of might than with a bagfull of right Author: Max Stirner
Quote: Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Author: Lord Acton
Quote: The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power. Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Quote: government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. Author: Gerald R. Ford
Quote: Let them hate us so long as they fear us. - Roman Emperor Author: Caligula
Quote: In every State, the government is nothing but a permanent conspiracy on the part of the minority against the majority, which it enslaves and fleeces. Author: Michael Bakunin
Quote: It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. Author: Voltaire
Quote: If the taxpayers of this country ever discover that the Internal Revenue Service operates on 90% BLUFF, the entire system {of fraud and coercion) will collapse. - IRS Official in 1969 Author: Anonymous
Quote: We are going to tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect. Author: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Quote: Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Author: Thomas Jefferson
Quote: I used to ask my students whether it is better to be held up by a street thug or by your own government. But that’s irrelevant now. You get both. Author: Dr. Mark Skousen
Quote: A {tax loophole is} something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform. Author: Russell B. Long
Quote: The average family pays more in taxes than it spends on food, clothing, and shelter combined. Author: Congressman Dick Armey
Quote: …the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other. Author: Voltaire
Quote: Government, which does not and did not grant us our rights, must not now seek to deny them by using fear as its justification. Author: Malcolm Wallop
Quote: It's a good thing that we don't get all the government we pay for. Author: Anonymous
Quote: Everything government touches turns to crap. Author: Ringo Starr
Quote: Big government is cancerous. Like a cancer, it hurts the body and tends to spread, doing more and more harm as it grows. It is time for some radical surgery. Author: George C. Leef
Quote: The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone expects to live at the expense of everyone else. Author: Frederic Bastiat
Quote: Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Quote: A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion. Author: Hugo Black
Quote: The proper and limited use of government is to invoke a common justice and keep the peace - and that is all. Author: Leonard Read
Quote: We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years, and justify our experience...on pain of liquidation. Author: George Bernard Shaw
Quote: We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every 10 minutes. Author: J. William Fulbright
Quote: Today we can declare: Government is not the problem, and government is not the solution. We, the American people, we are the solution. Author: Bill Clinton
Quote: You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants. Author: Harry Browne
Quote: Once upon a time, government budgets were balanced, our money was sound, the streets were safe, and taxes imposed by all levels of government took less than 10% of our income. Author: Harry Browne
Quote: The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. Author: Edmund Burke
Quote: Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship. Author: Harry S. Truman
Quote: "I do not think it for the interest of the general government itself, and still less of the union at large, that the state governments should be so little respected as they have been. Author: alexander hamilton