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Government Quotes

Jefferson leads this page, followed by Milton Friedman, Robert LeFevre and Lincoln. Most of it is political philosophy, with a few jokes mixed in: P. J. O’Rourke in Parliament of Whores (1991) says giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys, and Will Rogers, in 1935, said a comedian needs no credit when the whole government is working for him.

Two well-known lines are flagged. “Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants” is credited to William Penn, but the oldest wording the notes cite is from a 1949 speech by Norman Vincent Peale. The one about a government big enough to give you everything being big enough to take it away is credited to Barry Goldwater, and the notes point to older versions of it.

Random quote on Government

Most quoted on government:

Women’s issues can no longer be dismissed by the governments of the world, and it would not have happened without the Decade.”

Chafika Meslem

It is hardly lack of due process for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizes.

Robert H. Jackson

Pakistan is the only government consisting simultaneously of arsonists and firefighters.

John R. Bolton

It is the vaccine or vaccines that will win the war against COVID-19, not the government or mythological beliefs.

P. Chidambaram

Good government grows out of the people; it cannot be handed to them.

Robert A. Heinlein Off the Main Sequence (2005)

A wise man distrusts his neighbor. A wiser man distrusts both his neighbor and himself. The wisest man of all distrusts his government.

Taylor Caldwell The Devil's Advocate (1952)

I too complain ceaselessly in my heart and in my words too. My very life is a protest. Against government, for instance.

Dorothy Day The Duty of Delight (2011)

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

John Jay Chapman Practical Agitation (1900)

The great object of government is to restrict, control and punish man ‘in the pursuit of happiness.’

George Fitzhugh Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854)

It is only men of genuine philosophical sense who can understand that the form of government is the most important thing in the world.

Hervey Allen Action at Aquila (1938)

This campaign is for every person who believes in the dignity of their neighbors and that the government's job is to actually make our lives better.

Zohran Mamdani

What is conscription? An act of property exercised over families by the government without warning, a robbery of men and money.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon What is Property? (1840)

Like the Soviet regime before it, the Putin government spreads fear by destroying the illusion that one can protect oneself...

Masha Gessen

We live in a country where the people own the Government and not in a country where the Government owns the people.

Winston Churchill

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.

H. L. Mencken

All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.

I. F. Stone

We need to intensify cooperation with civilized governments all over the world to combat the common threat of terrorism.

Al Gore

Sometimes you don't know what is better: to talk with the governments of some States or directly with their American patrons and sponsors.

Vladimir Putin

The Keynesian answer to a liquidity trap is for the government to do what the private sector will not: spend.

Paul Krugman Peddling Prosperity (1994)

There are a lot of good causes out there, but they can't possibly all be served by government.

Jesse Ventura I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

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