Skip to content

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 activities of the RSS constituted a clear threat to the existence of Government and the state.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

To me it is frankly inconceivable that India will ever be fit for Dominion self-government.

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead

Only under a system as warped as apartheid, does a government need to label and treat non-violence as terrorism.

Bradley Burston It's Time to Admit It. Israeli Policy Is What It Is: Apartheid (2015)

London owes everything to its press: it owes as much to its press as it does to its being the seat of government and the law.

Benjamin Disraeli Speech at the Printing Trade Festival (1845)

Government is the thing. Law is the thing.

E. B. White

If a governor comes out of his government rich, they say he has been a thief; and if he comes out poor, that he has been a noodle and a blockhead.

Miguel de Cervantes El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

Though the profusion of Government must undoubtedly have retarded the natural progress of England to wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it.

Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations (1776)

I see an America where poverty is defeated by opportunity, not enabled by a government check.

Mitt Romney

Nothing is more dangerous to good government than great power in improper hands.

Calvin Coolidge The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge (1929)

As part of the National Strategy, the Government should commit itself to the virtual elimination of functional illiteracy and innumeracy.

Claus Moser, Baron Moser

The continuing role of the government is to remove barriers and provide wider access to healthcare assistance which is a universal basic service.

Francis Escudero

The media, I tell pedants in the Government, is like an oil painting. Close up, it looks like nothing on earth. Stand back and you get the drift.

Bernard Ingham

Child support should do just that – support children, not the federal government.

Paul Ryan

Now, where did we ever get the idea that there is such a thing as 'good government?' That is a contradiction in terms as ridiculous as 'constructive rape.'

Robert LeFevre Good Government: Hope or Illusion? (1978)

What you want is protection. You want to be safe. What the government does is to try to retaliate after the fact.

Robert LeFevre Does Government Protection Protect (1979)

Does government protection protect? It doesn't do anything of the sort. It takes vengeance in your name after you've been hurt and calls it protection.

Robert LeFevre Does Government Protection Protect (1979)

Tyrants forbid citizens to do their duty as free men. Free government permits them to do it. Liberal education enables them to do it.

Stringfellow Barr

I don't think the federal government has a role in your children's education.

Rick Perry

Where he's wrong is that we went into Iraq at the invitation of the government, not as an invasion.

Dick Morris

You should not be subjected to the pressures, the intimidation, whether by Government or by the private sector, which would force you into self-censorship.

Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

Related topics