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Quotes about government

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Justice is the end of Government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.
James Madison1751–1836Federalist No. 51 (6 February 1788)In context
- Justice
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
James Madison1751–1836Speech in the Virginia Constitutional Convention, 2 December 1829, The Writings of James Madison: 1819-1836 (1910), ed. Galliard Hunt, p. 361
- Power
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
James Madison1751–1836Federalist No. 51 (6 February 1788)In context
All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
Reinhold Niebuhr1892–1971Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), p.3
- Power
Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Reinhold Niebuhr1892–1971The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness (1944)
- Democracy
- Justice
Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat.
Friedrich Engels1820–1895Principles of Communism (1847)
- Democracy
Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.
Margaret Thatcher1925–2013TV interview for Thames TV This Week (5 February 1976)
- Money
There is no one who ever acts honestly in the administration of states, nor any helper who will save any one who maintains the cause of the just.
Plato429–349 BCThe Republic, 496d
We’ve become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. And I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.
Jimmy Carter1924–2024Statement in an interview on SuperSoul Sunday with Oprah Winfrey, as quoted in “Jimmy Carter Tells Oprah America Is No Longer a Democracy, Now an Oligarchy” by Jon Levine, in .Mic (September 24, 2015)
- America
- Democracy
Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.
Leon Trotsky1879–1940The Revolution Betrayed (1936), p. 41
A government of laws, and not of men.
John Adams1735–1826Novanglus Essays (1774–1775), No. 7
- Laws
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams1735–1826Notes for an oration at Braintree (Spring 1772)
- Liberty
While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
John Adams1735–1826Letter to Thomas Jefferson (9 July 1813)
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
Laurence J. Peter1919–1990Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977), p. 83
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book V, Chapter I, Part II, 775.In context
- Economics