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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:

The fight against corruption can’t be left to government institutions only.

Aloysie Cyanzayire

Government and the media should work together like Siamese twins when it comes to issues of national interest.

Theo-Ben Gurirab

We therefore urge the opposition to allow workers to exercise their rights as prescribed by law, and be left alone to bargain with Government.

Shaw Kgathi

For the ESP to work, these are some of the core issues that the government needs to handle.

Kagiso Molatlhegi

There is too much usage and waste of water in schools, hospitals and government buildings hence the debate to change building standards.

Kitso Mokaila

The basic way to correct politics is for the government itself to uphold the Constitution and conduct clean, honest governance.

Inejirō Asanuma

This Government, which is not by chance headed by a woman, will make a strong commitment to combating violence against women.

Eugenia Roccella

My advice to the youth is that they must not fail themselves because the government and their parents have failed in their roles.

Frank Ibezim

The closure of private schools may result to further congestion of public schools, the very problem government seeks to address.

Rex Andrew Clement Alarcon

Taxes — money that is taken by that big thief called the government.

Uchiyama Gudō Anarchist Communist Revolution: In Commemoration of Imprisonment (1908)

In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

Alexis de Tocqueville

No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition.

Benjamin Disraeli

There is an increasing awareness of the need for some form of global government.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Etatism is the occupational disease of rulers, warriors, and civil servants. Governments become liberal only when forced to by the citizens.

Ludwig von Mises

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers (1787)

The great service of Keynes to recent history is that we now know, in the way that governments did not know in the 1930s, how full employment can be maintained.

Anthony Crosland

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.

John Adams Discourses on Davila (1790)

If the Government was going to all this trouble to keep people calm, then there had to be something big to worry about. That much was axiomatic.

Robert Silverberg Those Who Watch (1967)

How frail, he thought, is the compact that holds our government together! Good will alone is all that sustains it.

Robert Silverberg Lord Valentine's Castle (1980)

The State idea means something quite different from the idea of government.

Peter Kropotkin The State — Its Historic Role (1897)

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