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Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.

— Ronald Reagan

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Notes from Wikiquote

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. | As quoted in The Reagan Wit (1981) by Bill Adler, p. 30

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Government

More quotes by Ronald Reagan

Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with conflict by peaceful means.

The only way there could be war is if they start it; we're not going to start a war.

I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers: Go ahead, make my day.

I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and that there is purpose and worth to each and every life.

Dedication of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (1991)

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

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Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1589)

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

James Madison

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ronald Reagan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.