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Quotes about government

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The state represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The Individual has a soul, but as the state is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.
Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948Modern Review (October, 1935) p. 412. Interview with Nirmal Kumar Bose (9/10 November 1934)
An unjust law is itself a species of violence.
Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948Non-Violence in Peace & War (1962) Vol. 2, edited by Mahadev Haribhai Desai, p. 144
- Justice
- Laws
Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption.
James A. Garfield1831–1881Speech on the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (4 July 1876)
All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.
James A. Garfield1831–1881Letter to B. A. Hinsdale, (21 April 1880), in The Nation’s Hero — In Memoriam : The Life of James Abram Garfield (1881) by J. M. Bundy, p. 216
Let us not commit ourselves to the absurd and senseless dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage, the talisman of liberty.
James A. Garfield1831–1881Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)
- Race
- Voting
The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.
James A. Garfield1831–1881Letter to H. N. Eldridge (12 December 1869) as quoted in Garfield (1978) by Allen Peskin, Ch. 13
How can you be expected to govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese?
Charles de Gaulle1890–1970
- Comedy
The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
Edward Gibbon1737–1794The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776–1788), Chapter 3.
Dissents speak to a future age.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg1933–2020Interview with Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio (2 May 2002)
- Laws
Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg1933–2020Dissenting, Shelby County v. Holder (2013)
- Laws
- Voting
Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.
William Ewart Gladstone1809–1898Speech in West Calder, Scotland (27 November 1879), quoted in W. E. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches 1879 (Leicester University Press, 1971), p. 115.
- Politics
England is a capitalist democracy. Germany is a socialist people’s state.
Joseph Goebbels1897–1945“Englands Schuld,” Illustrierter Beobachter, Sondernummer, p. 14. The article is not dated, but is from the early months of the war, likely late fall of 1939
- Democracy
- Politics
All rights and laws are still transmitted
Like an eternal sickness of the race,⁠—
From generation unto generation fitted,
And shifted round from place to place.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Scene IV, spoken by MephistophelesIn context
- Laws
Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.
Mikhail Gorbachev1931–2022Speech to the 27th Party Congress, Moscow (25 February 1986)
- Democracy
Of course the people dont want war…that is understood. But voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
Hermann Göring1893–1946In an interview with Gilbert in Göring’s jail cell during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (18 April 1946)
- War & Peace