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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:

Perhaps the place to start looking for a credibility gap is not in the offices of the Government in Washington but in the studios of the networks in New York!

Spiro Agnew

It's embarrassing when you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on the Best Seller's List.

Abbie Hoffman

The EPA, the Gestapo of government, pure and simply has been one of the major claw-hooks that the government maintains on the backs of our constituents.

Tom DeLay

The right to change the government by the ballot box and not the barrel of a gun; perhaps the best definition of a democracy.

Elizabeth II

Thank heaven that we don’t get all of the government that we are made to pay for.

Milton Friedman

Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.

Thomas Sowell Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays (1987)

The one thing this country would not stand from a Tory Government was Toryism.

David Lloyd George

When they criticise the government when it tries to prevent violence and punish perpetrators of that violence we take the position that they can go hang.

Robert Mugabe

I make no apologies that the PAP is the Government and the Government is the PAP.

Lee Kuan Yew

In the great fulfillment we must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it and more anxious about what it can do for the nation.

Warren G. Harding

Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice - stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband.

David Cameron

This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.

John Wycliffe

We are in a degenerate state of self-government. In fact, even to use the words self-government, is not only an exaggeration, it's a lie. It's a big lie!

Jerry Brown

The Israeli government knows very well that if it makes a mistake, the regime will treat the 10,000 Jews living in Iran differently.

Mohsen Rezaee

There is a secret government -- a covert government -- operation that has dealt with this for at least 50 years.

Steven M. Greer

Dealing with a government [Tsarist Russia] with whom mendacity is a science is an extremely difficult and delicate matter.

John Hay

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

Thomas Jefferson

The second office of the government is honorable and easy, the first is but a splendid misery.

Thomas Jefferson

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.

Thomas Jefferson

I'd wish the government took honest people into consideration, it shows enough consideration for scoundrels.

Franz Grillparzer

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