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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.

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Most quoted on government:

I am for the state only doing what people are unable to do in the absence of government action.

Walter Reuther Television interview with Mike Wallace (1960)

I want to lead a government humble enough to know its place – where I will always strive to be – and that is on people's side.

Gordon Brown

For a man petticoat government is the limit of insolence.

Democritus Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907)

But I'm very libertarian in the sense that I believe in small government and, as a general rule, I don't believe in imposing values upon people.

Stephen Harper

Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.

Mike Huckabee

They didn't want votes, either. A vote wasn't going to raise wages or make bread cheaper. What did it matter to them what Government was in power.

Flora Thompson

Men are suspicious, prone to discontent:
Subjects still loathe the present government.

Robert Herrick Hesperides (1648)

Now, according to the new-fangled U.S. government, it is OK to have the gay.*

Rachel Maddow

People have been taught to expect far more from government than from freedom.

James Bovard

Conservative government would be dominated by an all-consuming and damaging obsession within his party about whether Britain should leave the EU

Ed Miliband

Every policy that the United States government has in place needs to be a policy that creates jobs for Americans.

Sharron Angle

It was in the name of freedom that surviving Nazis were employed by the U.S. government, and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were burned at the stake of the state.

Elaine Brown A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story (1992)

It matters to everyone [sic] of us that the press tell it as it is, not as the government wants us to hear.

Chris Patten

Public influence is the real government of the world.

Josiah Warren Manifesto (1841)

Playing the government off newspapers, and newspapers against each other, still does not compare with the power of the World Wide Web.

Noam Cohen

The government should be getting out of the business of being in business.

Ralph Klein

The best defence for Britain is a government actively engaged in seeking political solutions to the world's problems

Jeremy Corbyn

The government is trying to run down the clock in an attempt to blackmail this House and the country into supporting a botched deal

Jeremy Corbyn

I can't imagine counting the number of times I've heard someone say "we should…" when what they really mean is "the government should…".

Curtis Yarvin

The civil war in Syria is the worst humanitarian tragedy of our generation and one that our government, and the world, is failing to deal with adequately.

Jo Cox

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