GOVERNMENT QUOTES IV

quotations about government

The test of any government is not how popular it is with the powerful, but how honestly and fairly it deals with those who must depend on it.

JIMMY CARTER

Why Not the Best?

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Government resembles the wall which surrounds our lands; a needful protection, but rearing no harvests, ripening no fruits. It is the individual who must choose whether the enclosure shall be a paradise or a waste.

WILLIAM E. CHANNING

Thoughts

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It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.

WALTER LIPPMANN

A Preface to Politics

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Society is older than government. But every persisting society implies the existence of government and laws; for a society without government and laws is at once overturned by its madmen and scoundrels and lapses into barbarism.

WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE

Socialistic

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The Federal Government is rendered weak to do wrong, and powerful to do right: for, as soon as it begins to go wrong, it naturally begins to be divided against itself, and the three great wheels of its machinery exhaust their momentum, or wear each other out, in their friction against each other; while, as soon as it begins to go right, all the parts work harmoniously, and exhaust their full strength on the object of their action.

WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE

Socialistic

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There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

AYN RAND

Atlas Shrugged

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A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

JAMES MADISON

letter to W. T. Barry, Aug. 4, 1822

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Government commences more casually and more imperfectly. It is probable, that the first ascendent of one man over multitudes began during a state of war; where the superiority of courage and of genius discovers itself most visibly, where unanimity and concert are most requisite, and where the pernicious effects of disorder are most sensibly felt. The long continuance of that state, an incident common among savage tribes, inured the people to submission; and if the chieftain possessed as much equity as prudence and valour, he became, even during peace, the arbiter of all differences, and could gradually, by a mixture of force and consent, establish his authority. The benefit sensibly felt from his influence, made it be cherished by the people, at least by the peaceable and well disposed among them.

DAVID HUME

"Of the Origin of Government", Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary

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The government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflux of the individuals composing it. The government that is ahead of the people will be inevitably dragged down to their level, as the government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up.

SAMUEL SMILES

Self-Help

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All the gang of those who rule us
Hope our quarrels never stop
Helping them to split and fool us
So they can remain on top.

BERTOLT BRECHT

"Solidarity Song"

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In theory, the government of a free people is not one which shall in all circumstances govern, but one that shall effectually govern while it is maintaining right against wrong, and shall begin to fall in pieces as soon as it begins to maintain wrong against right. No country is truly free whose constitution does not furnish the citizen with protection against the wrong-doing of other citizens, and also guarantee him against the wrong-doing of the government itself. No oppressor is so intolerable as an oppressive government; for the private oppressor acts with his own force only, while the governmental oppressor acts with the irresistible force of the whole people.

WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE

Socialistic

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A government is the complexion of the people--healthy as they are healthy, diseased as they are diseased.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

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So long as honest men neglect to vote;
So long as good men leave the cares of state
To weak, incompetent, or careless hands,
Or place them in the grip of scheming knaves,
Our safety is imperiled. Every man
On Freedom's ramparts must a warder be,
To warn of danger when the foe appears;
To meet the onset when the foe assaults.
Else--vain our hopes, and else the temple grand,
Of all our rights, and birth-right liberties,
Ere long will fall, and crumble in the dust,
A ruin, more abject and dire than Rome
Or Carthage was.

ANDREW DOWNING

"A Picture"

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We are not to expect perfection in this world; but mankind, in modern times, have apparently made some progress in the science of government.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, Feb. 7, 1788

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As individuals, as families, as neighbors, as members of one community, people of all races and political views are usually decent, kind, compassionate. But in large corporations or governments, when great power accumulates in their hands, some become monsters even with good intentions.

DEAN KOONTZ

Dark Rivers of the Heart

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Government has almost always been a barrier against which intellect has had to struggle; and society has made its chief progress by the minds of private individuals, who have outstripped their rulers, and gradually shamed them into truth and wisdom.

WILLIAM E. CHANNING

Thoughts

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The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.

SAMUEL SMILES

Self-Help

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

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe

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Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Notes on Virginia

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All governments require enemy governments.

EDWARD ABBEY

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

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