quotations about government
History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to John Norvell, June 11, 1807
All kings is mostly rapscallions.
MARK TWAIN
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Let our recent mistakes bring a resurgent commitment to the basic principles of our Nation, for we know that if we despise our own government, we have no future. We recall in special times when we have stood briefly, but magnificently, united. In those times no prize was beyond our grasp.
JIMMY CARTER
Inaugural Address, January 20, 1977
Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, governments tend more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class--whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
A civil servant doesn't make jokes.
EUGENE IONESCO
The Killer
Free government is self-government. A government of the people by the people. The best government of this sort is that which the people think best.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The grossest, the cruelest, the most selfish, the most easily pervertible and perverted thing in this world, is government.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
In all governments, there must of necessity be both the law and the sword; laws without arms would give us not liberty, but licentiousness; and arms without laws, would produce not subjection, but slavery. The law, therefore, should be unto the sword what the handle is to the hatchet; it should direct the stroke and temper the force.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
RONALD REAGAN
attributed, The Age of Turbulence
Government has no rights; it is a delegation from several individuals for the purpose of securing their own. It is therefore just, only so far as it exists by their consent, useful only so far as it operates to their well-being.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"Declaration of Rights"
Government is like a sincere alcoholic, who does not want to cause irreparable damage to his liver and yet cannot give up excessive drinking.
N. S. SAKSENA
Terrorism History and Facets
Man, born in a family, is compelled to maintain society from necessity, from natural inclination, and from habit. The same creature, in his further progress, is engaged to establish political society, in order to administer justice, without which there can be no peace among them, nor safety, nor mutual intercourse. We are, therefore, to look upon all the vast apparatus of our government, as having ultimately no other object or purpose but the distribution of justice.
DAVID HUME
"Of the Origin of Government", Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary
The larger the slice taken by government, the smaller the cake available for everyone.
MARGARET THATCHER
Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World
But whether we've won or lost, we need to trust that the government is acting for the (politically) correct reasons: liberal, if liberals have won; conservative, if conservatives have won; libertarian, if libertarians have won. We need to believe that the government is tracking the sort of interests it was intended to track.... When the actions of government conflict with those expectations, we will look beyond trust, for other reasons, to see whether they might explain the puzzle. Other reasons, such as money in the wrong places. When we find it--when we see that money was in the wrong place--it will affect us. It will weaken our trust in government. It will undermine our motivation to engage.
LAWRENCE LESSIG
Republic
For as in the government of states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so it is in the government within.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people can't be governed at all.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
No Country for Old Men
It is the pathology of modern politics that we have become so disgusted with self-government that our automatic response to government is criticism. Freedom is always freedom from government; liberty is always liberty from what government would otherwise do.
LAWRENCE LESSIG
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace
Those who love their country never wish to rule it.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
In all governments, there must of necessity be both the law and the sword; laws without arms would give us not liberty, but licentiousness; and arms without laws would produce not subjection, but slavery. The law, therefore, should be unto the sword, what the handle is to the hatchet; it should direct the stroke and temper the force.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Frankly, I'm fed up with politicians in Washington lecturing the rest of us about family values. Our families have values. But our government doesn’t.
BILL CLINTON
speech at Democratic National Convention, July 16, 1992