Government Quotes

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money."

"It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped."

"An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger."

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."

"A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference."

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country."

"It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government."

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

"I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."

"Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish - too much handling will spoil it."

"Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."

"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament."

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."

"By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more."

"Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government."

"In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?"

"Corruption is the enemy of development, and of good governance. It must be got rid of. Both the government and the people at large must come together to achieve this national objective."

"Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor."

"In a free society, government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top, they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it."

"I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other."

"The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves."

"The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy."

"How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?"

"The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing."

"Democracy is an abuse of statistics."