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.
The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.
What is government but an arrangement by which the many accept the authority of the few?
If men are good, you don’t need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don’t dare have one.
Capital in the hands of a national government forms a part of the gross national capital.
There is no moral authority for government other than to enforce the Universal Ethic.
Father says don’t kill your principles just because the government is paying for the funeral.
Autocratic governments are masters of self-contradiction. They say one thing, do another.
There will be paperwork, no government action can occur without it, but that can come later.