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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:

And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.

Edmund Burke Thoughts and Details on Scarcity (1795)

Government was intended to suppress injustice, but it offers new occasions and temptations for the commission of it.

William Godwin Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

A wise government knows how to enforce with temper, or to conciliate with dignity, but a weak one is odious in the former, and contemptible in the latter.

George Grenville

Shall we judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The government will take the fairest of names, but the worst of realities—mob rule.

Polybius

Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people.

J. R. R. Tolkien

We ought to consider what is the end of government, before we determine which is the best form.

John Adams Thoughts on Government (1776)

Governments can be democratic or not, more or less corrupt, but they will still pursue the same basic goals, and they will still be controlled by an elite. Government by its very nature concentrates power and excludes people from making decisions over their own lives.

Peter Gelderloos The Failure of Nonviolence (2013)

Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state.

John Dryden Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

States are great engines moving slowly.

Francis Bacon

England is the mother of parliaments.

John Bright

I cannot be brought to believe that this country will suffer if the Court refuses further to aggrandize the presidential office, already so potent and so relatively immune from judicial review, at the expense of Congress.

Robert H. Jackson

What government is the best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I am struggling to maintain the government, not to overthrow it. I am struggling especially to prevent others from overthrowing it.

Abraham Lincoln

There was a State without kings or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had elected, and equal laws which it had framed.

Rufus Choate

The labor unions shall have a square deal, and the corporations shall have a square deal, and in addition, all private citizens shall have a square deal.

Theodore Roosevelt

There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don't even have to exaggerate.

Will Rogers Will Rogers, Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom (1935)

The people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.

Daniel Webster

What constitutes a state?
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain.
And sovereign law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.

William Jones

While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

Abraham Lincoln

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